The Funan Techo canal, a 180km (112-mile) project to link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand, is a flagship project expected to reduce Cambodia’s transport dependence on Vietnam.

However, according to recent correspondence in the journal Nature, the canal’s passage through various habitats crucial to biodiversity will cause ecological harm and could impact agriculture.

The post Cambodia’s China-backed canal on Mekong may threaten ‘fragile ecosystems’ first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

‍Regrow Ag today shared details of its participation in the “Transforming Rice Value Chains for Climate Resilient and Sustainable Development in the Mekong Delta” project known as TRVC. Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the project manager, the Netherlands Development Organization SNV, is collaborating with stakeholders in Vietnam to design the five-year project with the goal of shifting to low-carbon, climate resilient food systems in three provinces in the Upper Mekong River Delta: An Giang, Dong Thap and Kien Giang. Regrow’s Agriculture Resilience Platform has been selected as the program’s measurement, reporting, verification (MRV) technology.

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He happily informed that his winter-spring, summer-fall, and fall-winter rice crops yield 8 tonnes, 7.5 tonnes, and 6 tonnes respectively, reaching a total of 21.5 tonnes per hectare in 2023. He earns a profit of VND100 million ($4,125) a hectare a year. Observing the province’s model of ‘No-Footprint Farming Techniques’, his field produces a much higher output than others following traditional growing methods.

On his field, nearly all planting steps from sowing seeds to spraying fertilizer, pumping water are the responsibilities of machines, including his five drones, each of which is worth VND200-500 million ($8,250-20,630).

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The Mekong Delta is seeing land subsidence faster than the sea level rise and is at risk of sinking, PM Pham Minh Chinh said as he visited the region on Saturday.

The post PM addresses Mekong Delta’s environment crisis first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

NAKHON PHANOM: The level of the Mekong river is falling and water can now be drained more quickly out of thousands of rai of flooded rice fields, authorities in this northeastern border province said on Monday.

The river was receding by 10-20 centimetres per day. It was measured at 10.70 metres deep on Monday morning, 1.30m below the spilling point of 12m, Irrigation officials said.

Although the Mekong is falling,  water in three major tributaries –  the Nam Oon, Nam Songkhram and Huay Bang Ko rivers – was  20-30% higher than their normal capacities.

The provincial irrigation office was trying to drain as much water as possible out of nearly 10,000 rai of rice fields which have been flooded. It was initially estimated about 5,000 rai of the flooded rice crop would be  damaged.

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JAKARTA: The Indonesian government will prepare 500,000 hectares of agricultural land for rice production in anticipation of the long drought brought on by the El Nino climate phenomenon. 

According to a Presidential Secretariat’s Press, Media and Information Bureau (BPMI) statement, Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo said on Wednesday (Aug 2) that a number of regions in the country have expressed their readiness to prepare agricultural land to ensure the availability of the national rice stock. 

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China has agreed to import half a million cows this year from Laos, but the landlocked Southeast Asian nation is having trouble filling the order due to a lack of capacity to produce them and high quality standards imposed by Beijing, Lao government officials and farmers told Radio Free Asia.

In June 2021, Laos launched a campaign to export 500,000 cows per year to China – to meet rising demand for beef – and its Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry heavily promoted cattle farming and provided training for farmers and entrepreneurs, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

But before the end of July that year, Lao cattle and cattle products were banned due to an outbreak of the bovine lumpy skin disease, the Laotian Times reported.

The deal was back on in 2022, but Laos sent only 8,100 cattle to China last year. 

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Thailand’s clean air campaigners are staging an exhibition in Bangkok to show how industrial-scale maize cultivation to produce animal feed is partly responsible for the toxic annual smog in the lower Mekong region. 

“Hazibition,” an exhibition on haze pollution by environment group Greenpeace, started Tuesday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center. It is an attempt to expose the root causes of smog that have become a persistent threat to the health of the population in the region, organizers said. 

“We want to show the link between transboundary air pollution in the lower Mekong region and industrial-scale cultivation of maize by big corporations for animal feed,” Rattanasiri Kittikongnapang, a Greenpeace food and ecology campaigner, told Radio Free Asia.

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Farmers are encroaching on national parks and protected forests in Laos, burning and clearing large areas to make room for cassava crops.

The demand for cassava has seen it become the most profitable agricultural product in Laos, as demonstrated by the country’s February trade figures: cassava was the leading export item, with figures totaling USD 85 million.

Laos exports most of its cassava to Thailand and Vietnam, where it is used in the production of Monosodium glutamate (MSG). China, meanwhile, imports cassava from Laos to be used in tapioca flour production, according to an official at the Lao Trade Portal.

Thailand has even designated the province of Nakhon Ratchasima, located in the country’s northeast, as its cassava processing hub. As a result, cassava from Laos has become more desirable than ever for export to Thailand.

This demand has led to encroachment on protected forests and national parks in Laos as farmers look for land to expand their cassava production, with reports of slash-and-burn agricultural practices becoming routine during the dry season.

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Thai communities living along the Mekong River have watched their land disappear before their eyes as riverbanks collapse. However, what has caused these riverbank collapses is unclear.

Local residents link the riverbank collapses to the irregular water flows that have been seen since the commercial launch of a huge dam on the Mekong in Laos.

The post Thai farmers near Mekong lose land as riverbanks collapse first appeared on Open Development Mekong.