The Effects of Climate Smart Agriculture and Climate Change Adaptation on the Technical Efficiency of Rice Farming—An Empirical Study in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

This study employed the propensity score matching approach to empirically assess the effects of climate smart agriculture participation and climate change adaptation response on the technical efficiency of rice production. Observational data were collected from in-depth interviews with 352 rice farm households in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The findings indicate that 71% of local farmers adapted their rice farming to climate change related to salinity intrusion and drought, while 29% of farmers did not. Additionally, only twenty-two rice farmers were typically chosen as participants in the climate smart agriculture pilot program by local government and institutions. The choices for adaptation response and climate smart agriculture participation are significantly influenced by agricultural extension services, belief in climate change, the area of farming land, as well as geographical locations (e.g., province and access to water sources). The results also reveal that climate change adaptation response, including climate smart agriculture participation, played a crucial role in improving technical efficiency of rice production by 13%–14% compared to no adaptation response. Regarding the individual effect of climate smart agriculture participation, participants could achieve higher technical efficiency by 5%–8% compared to non-participants.

Keeping People in Place: Political Factors of (Im)mobility and Climate Change

“…Perhaps nowhere are the impacts of climate change in Vietnam more menacing than in the Mekong River Delta (MRD) region, which importantly produces the majority of the country's staple food and holds much of its arable land (Ho and Shimada 2019;Warner et al 2009). 19 The region holds urban and rural dwellers, home to one of the most populated regions of the country.…”

Factors Influencing Farmers’ Adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Rice Production in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta

“…In Vietnam, CSA in rice production aims to provide measures for yield management (e.g., the system of rice intensification, integrated pest management, improved variety for rice, change in land uses with rice-peanuts/crop rotation with rice-shrimp, changing sowing or harvesting date, reducing the number of crop plantings, changing fertilizer and chemical use, changing crop variety, and diversifying crops); soil and water management (e.g., One Must, Six Reductions; 1 Three Reductions, Three Gains; 2 Large Field Model; 3 and VietGAP 4 ); and weather risk management (e.g., high-pick pear insurance) (Chi et al 2013;Lampayan et al 2015;Dung et al 2018;Ho and Shimada 2019).…”

“…Within the agriculture sector, rice cultivation is responsible for significant GHG emissions, accounting for 46.3 percent (FAO 2010). Studies have revealed that climate change adaptation response, including climatesmart agriculture (CSA) participation, could play a crucial role in improving technical efficiency, economic benefits, and food security (Lipper et al 2014;Khatri-Chhetri et al 2016;Hasan et al 2018;Ho and Shimada 2019;Taneja et al 2019). In Vietnam's Mekong Delta, numerous CSA practices have been applied in rice production, which is based on soil management, water management, crop management, and risk management against natural disasters.…”

“…In Vietnam's Mekong Delta, numerous CSA practices have been applied in rice production, which is based on soil management, water management, crop management, and risk management against natural disasters. These contribute to CSA from several vital perspectives, including productivity, adaptation through short-term risk management, adaptation through longerterm risk management, and mitigation (Chi et al 2013;Lampayan et al 2015;Dung et al 2018;Ho and Shimada 2019). However, CSA has a low-toaverage adoption rate in Vietnam, that is, below 30 percent (Nguyen et al 2017).…”

Origins of Farmers’ Adoption of Multiple Climate-Smart Agriculture Management Practices in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

“…Within the agricultural sector, rice cultivation is responsible for significant GHG emissions, accounting for 46.3% of agriculture's total emissions (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO], 2010). Studies revealed that climate change adaptation response, including climate-smart agriculture participation, played a crucial role in improving technical efficiency, economic benefits, and food security (Hasan, Desiere, D'Haese, & Kumar, 2018;Ho & Shimada, 2019;Khatri-Chhetri, Aryal, Sapkota, & Khurana, 2016;Lipper et al, 2014;Taneja, Pal, Joshi, Aggarwal, & Tyagi, 2019). In the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, many climate-smart agricultural practices have been applied in rice production.…”