The widespread practice of in-field rice straw burning after harvest stems from significant challenges including labor shortages, straw's low economic value, and insufficient knowledge about sustainable management alternatives. This environmentally harmful practice causes biodiversity loss, depletes soil nutrients, and creates health hazards, making it a priority concern for both governments of Cambodia and Viet Nam. Despite this recognition, burning persists due to poor integration of straw in rice value chains, lack of appropriate technologies, and various issues in crop management, market systems, and stakeholder preferences.Our solution proposes developing a rice straw-based circular economy (RiceEco) that increases rice income while reducing carbon footprints through multiple integrated approaches. The project will implement sustainable rice contract farming alongside innovative straw utilization methods—creating bio-fertilizers, bio-plastics, and supporting urban agriculture—all enhanced by ICT-based logistics tools. These interventions, guided by proven business models and targeted behavior change strategies, will ultimately upgrade agrifood value chains, enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services, and improve farmer incomes. The framework developed through this cross-country knowledge exchange will provide a scalable model for Southeast and South Asian regions while contributing substantially to MKCF priority sectors, particularly Agriculture and Rural Development and Environment. Read more...
Priority Sector
Environment
Project Site
No. of Direct Beneficiaries
Duration
Feb-2023 to Jan-2026
To conduct experiments measuring biodiversity impact of reduced straw burning, perform life cycle assessments, and quantify carbon footprint data of straw circular economy initiatives.
Establish a crosscountry cooperation framework and form learning alliances to facilitate knowledge exchange and capacity building on rice-based circular economy (CE) practices.
To deliver farmer training and demonstrations enhancing sustainable straw management capabilities while conducting policy analysis to develop evidence-based recommendations for scaling up initiatives.
To analyze value chains for identifying appropriate technologies and business models while developing comprehensive databases and maps of straw resources and value chain factors and developing rice straw-based CE business models.
Two field experiments were conducted in Prey Veng, Cambodia in 2024 and Can Tho, Viet Nam in 2023. A protocol for carbon footprint from rice production was developed.
A value chain workshop was organized in June 2023. A survey assessed straw management status in Can Tho, Viet Nam (1000 households 10 Oct 2023 to June 2024). Three technologies (straw collection, mushroom cultivation, and composting) were adopted. Additionally, an ICT tool, EasyFarm (for farmers and service suppliers), has been developed. Five business models were piloted in Viet Nam and Cambodia.
A total of 21 events were conducted, including farmer training and field demonstrations (14 events), field demonstrations (4 events), and farmer field days (3 events). A total of 1814 farmers, members of farmer cooperatives, and related stakeholders are directly trained and witnessed sustainable rice straw management. Three policy briefs were developed and issued by the Department of Crop Production (DCP), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) of Viet Nam. Six stakeholder engagement events were organized.
Built on the existing learning alliances in Viet Nam and Cambodia, the RiceEco project organized 12 multistakeholder learning events in Viet Nam and Cambodia to explore plans and policies for rice straw management.
In addition, RiceEco activities reach to Thailand and international agencies and delegates such as APF delegates, World Bank, USAID, US Ambassador, New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade delegates.
(If you would like to know more about the project, or engage with us, contact us .)
Mr. Madhurjya Kumar Dutta
MKCF Director,
MKCF Secretariat, Mekong Institute
Khon Kaen, Thailand
+66 (0)43 202 411 ext 2101
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Last Updated: 17 May, 2025
