A four-year FAO project to enhance integrated food and energy systems in Viet Nam is poised to wrap-up with stakeholders underlining its success.

To highlight the joint FAO and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) project’s achievements, a conclusion workshop was held in Ha Noi on 15 September to share project outputs and disseminate key messages to policy-makers.
The “Enhancing NAMA Readiness: Building Capacity in Integrated Food and Energy Systems in Viet Nam” project worked to improve national capacity for planning and implementing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in agriculture and support "climate-smart’ agriculture through Integrated Food-Energy Systems (IFES). Representatives from FAO, MARD, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Planning and Investment, non-governmental organizations and sector experts attended the event.

Overall, this project helped enhance national capacity to enable adoption of NAMAs from agricultural production practices based on IFES, with a focus on integrated crop-livestock systems and renewable energy options. In doing so, the project strived to reduce fossil fuel-based energy and fertilizer use and sustainably increase agricultural productivity and improve the resilience of smallholder farming systems to climate change.

Dr. Vu Thi Thanh Thuy, director of MARD’s Science and Technology Department, said the project’s approach and outcomes in promoting agriculture sector NAMAs had great merit. “The project has greatly contributed to MARD policy development by providing various innovative solutions into action plans to respond to climate change during 2016-2020 and implementation plan of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in the agriculture sector,” Thuy said.

Detailed key project outputs include increased capacity of national policy-makers to design and implement climate smart agriculture policies and national experts’ improved technical capacity in data collection on greenhouse gas emissions, modeling of emission factors and identification of mitigation options in the agricultural sector.

The project’s effectiveness was evidenced by a measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system experiment for rice cultivation in Phu Luong commune (Thai Binh province), where a system of rice intensification (SRI) demonstration was expanded to more than 120 hectares from just 10 ha last year. This was a result of farmers throughout the commune practicing techniques learnt from the project. “It also demonstrated the Viet Nam’s commitment and success stories on the ground which have laid a solid foundation for resource mobilization on NAMAs, together with other market mechanisms and REDD+ for the country to effectively undertake the climate change mitigation component of NDCs, while contributing to long-term sustainable development,” said Mr. Jong Ha Bae, FAO Viet Nam Representative.