Vietnamese farmers turn rice straw into profit
Vietnamese farmers in the Mekong Delta stopped burning fields to build a circular economy using leftover rice straw for mushrooms and compost.
New Green Farm Cooperative now feeds stalks into mushroom beds and compost piles instead of letting them burn in the open air after harvest seasons end quickly. This change helps member households cut chemical nitrogen fertilizer use by 40% while reducing smoke emissions significantly across their lands.
The cooperative works with about one hundred farming households covering one hundred forty eight hectares of land. Straw burning has dropped by ninety to 95% recently in this area. Farmers earn more money while their fields release far less harmful smoke into the sky above the local agricultural areas.
Director Dong Van Canh partnered with the International Rice Research Institute through the RiceEco project. This initiative started in two thousand twenty three with seven core members initially. Local machinery companies bale the straw with mechanized equipment so the cooperative can grow mushrooms on about nine thousand bales every single year now.
Using less fertilizer saves farmers fifty seven to sixty five dollars per hectare each season. Selling straw adds thirteen to fifteen dollars per hectare per crop now. Each mushroom bale brings roughly thirty eight US cents in profit, totaling about three thousand four hundred dollars annually for the group.
“The rice straw circular economy shows that the answer to field burning can also be a business plan.”