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Water Use Efficiency in Rice Production: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

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Abstract

Water scarcity and competition in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta becomes a great matter of concern under the contexts of climate change and tributary dam construction in upstream countries. Moreover, water productivity or water use efficiency in rice production was quite low in the region due to free-rider problem. Therefore, the study was aimed at measuring water use efficiency at farm level and investigating the factors affecting water use efficiency. The study applied stochastic frontier analysis to estimate water use efficiency for 159 rice farmers in the upstream of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The study shows that the average water use efficiency was 18.81%, indicating that rice farmers did consume water very inefficiently. On the average, the rice farmers could reduce their water consumption about 81.19%, keeping their output level and other inputs constant. To improve water use efficiency, the study found that land accumulation or large-scaled production is essential.

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Notes

  1. For more details on the relationship between inputs and output in agricultural production, please see the two famous books of Coelli et al. (2005) and Kumbhakar and Lovell (2003). The basic theory or properties of production function and its common forms are also explained in detail in these books. Especially, the application of stochastic frontier analysis is also provided.

  2. Ecological engineering is locally called as “paddy field surrounded with flowers”. It means that farmers will cultivate some flowering plants around the periphery of paddy fields to attract more natural enemies. These natural enemies will suppress pest populations under a damage threshold.

    VietGAP is the abbreviation of the Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices, which means that farmers have to apply and manage wisely fertilizer and pesticide use, irrigation water, waste management, traceability, etc. These indicators are regulated in Decision No. 99/2008/QD-BNN October 15, 2008 of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development

    GlobalGAP is the abbreviation of the Global Good Agricultural Practices, which was firstly introduced in 1997 under the term EUREPGAP by Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group. Since 2007, the term EUREPGAP was replaced by GlobalGAP. The standards or requirements of this practice is more stringent than that of VietGAP.

    Floating rice, which is a unique farming practice in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, is cultivated during flooding season, consumes no pesticide and very little amount of fertilizer. Thus, floating rice is good for not only consumers but also natural environment. Moreover, floating rice also play an important role in biodiversity conservation. In fact, floating rice fields are home to 43 fish species and 54 plant species (Quyen and Vu 2014; Vu and Quyen 2014

    Large-scaled rice is one of the solutions, which aims at reducing production cost (including agro-chemicals) through collective pumping, same seasonal calendar, etc. Moreover, the rice farmers have to join in a farmer group, and to follow a similar knowhow such as “one must do, five reductions” “3 reductions, 3 gains”, etc.

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Acknowledgments

This research (ID number R11616) was funded by RONPAKU, JSPS. We are thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their appreciated recommendations and comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rural Socio-Economics, College of Rural Development, Can Tho University, Can Tho, Vietnam

    Vo Hong Tu & Nguyen Duy Can

  2. Laboratory of Environmental Economics, Division of International Agricultural Resource Economics and Business Administration, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Yoshifumi Takahashi & Mitsuyasu Yabe

Authors
  1. Vo Hong Tu
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  2. Nguyen Duy Can
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  3. Yoshifumi Takahashi
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  4. Mitsuyasu Yabe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mitsuyasu Yabe.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 7 Parameters of translog production frontier
Full size table

Appendix 2: Questionnaire used for face-to-face interviews with farmers

(It should be noted that the survey was completed in Vietnamese; the attached questionnaire is an English translation to give an idea of the constructs we measured)

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Tu, V.H., Can, N.D., Takahashi, Y. et al. Water Use Efficiency in Rice Production: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. Process Integr Optim Sustain 2, 221–238 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41660-018-0038-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41660-018-0038-1

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