Agriculture

In the Mekong River basin, more than 20 percent of the population live under the poverty line, and roughly 60 percent of the population rely on the local agriculture for their livelihood.³⁵¹ The Mekong Countries are therefore going to a great deal of effort to develop the agricultural sector, and treat agriculture as a key point for reducing poverty.³⁵²

With a continuing expanding agricultural area and due to the regional climate, agriculture in the Mekong region relies heavily on irrigation.³⁵³ During the dry season, reasonable and sustainable irrigation is the most important basis for agricultural

351 Katsuhiko Yamauchi, ‘Climate change impacts on agriculture and irrigation in the Lower Mekong Basin’ (2014) 12 Paddy and Water Environment 227, 228.

352 Ibid.

353 Chu Thai Huanh and Thierry Facon, ‘Irrigation in the Lower Mekong Basin Countires: The Beginning of a New Era?’ Franois Molle, Tira Foran and Mira Kakonen (eds) Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region: "Hydropower, Livelihoods and Governance" (UK, 1st, Earthscan, 2009) 143.

productivity, especially rice productivity in the Mekong Delta.³⁵⁴ On the one hand, the agricultural productivity affects the food supply in the Mekong River basin.³⁵⁵ On the other hand, paddy fields can also serve other functions, such as flood mitigation, soil quality conservation, and fishery improvement.³⁵⁶ In addition, agriculture in the Mekong Region also plays an important role for local economic growth based on the commercialization of the agricultural products.³⁵⁷ Normally, national agencies should take the responsibility for agriculture management and support. However, the implementation of agricultural management plans or water use plans in the Mekong region have certain trans-boundary and basin-scale impacts that cannot be comprehensively considered by the respective national agencies.³⁵⁸ Therefore, the MRC plays a key role in filling this gap. It makes efforts to gain an overview of member countries’ agricultural development activities and to evaluate their combined effects or potential effects.³⁵⁹ This complementary role of the MRC is based on the integration of water-related sectors, such as agriculture, aquatic ecosystems, fisheries, hydropower development, navigation and so forth.³⁶⁰

There are already many national, international and bilateral agencies that are related to agricultural development and management of the Lower Mekong Basin. The MRC is now in the process of re-orienting its agricultural sector activities, and “focuses on providing advice, guidance and analysis for the sustainable development and

354 Toshihiro Sakamoto, Nhan Van Nguyen, Hiroyuki Ohno, Naoki Ishitsuka and Masayuki Yokozawa,

‘Spatio–temporal Distribution of Rice Phenology and Cropping Systems in the Mekong Delta with Special Reference to the Seasonal Water Flow of the Mekong and Bassac Rivers’ (2006) 100 Remote Sensing of Environment 1, 2.

355 Mohammed Mainuddin and Mac Kirby, ‘Agricultural productivity in the lower Mekong Basin:

trends and future prospects for food security’ (2009) 1 Food Security 71, 72.

356 Takao Masumoto, Pham Thanh Hai and Katsuyuki Shimizu, ‘Impact of paddy irrigation levels on floods and water use in the Mekong River basin’ (2008) 22 Hydrological Processes 1321, 1326.

357 MRC, ‘Agriculture & Irrigation’ (Official Website of the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/topics/agriculture-and-irrigation/> accessed 02 October 2016.

358 Ingjerd Haddeland, Dennis P. Lettenmaier and Thomas Skaugen “Effects of irrigation on the water and energy balances of the Colorado and Mekong river basins” (2006) 324 Journal of Hydrology 210, 211.

359 MRC, ‘Redefining MRC's Role in the Agriculture Sector’ (Official Website of the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/programmes/agriculture-and-irrigation-programme/redefining-mrc-s-role-in-the-agriculture-sector/> accessed 02 October 2016.

360 Ibid.

management of the Lower Mekong Basin”.³⁶¹ For the purpose of achieving this objective, it has established an Agriculture and Irrigation Programme. The following section will go into further detail about a series of activities carried out under this Programme that support the development of the agriculture of the Mekong River Basin.

3.1.3.1.1 MRC’s Agriculture and Irrigation Programme

As mentioned, agriculture is very important for people in the Mekong Region to raise their living standard, improve their livelihood and eliminate poverty; therefore, this Programme aims to manage the sustainable development of the water resources in the agricultural sector.³⁶² Most of its activities to this end concentrate on water management by monitoring agricultural use basin-wide. First of all, the main idea of these activities is to improve regional planning and combine national and regional perspectives about agricultural development.³⁶³ The second focus is improving and using regional outcomes to build individual countries’ analytical and planning capacity for integrated approaches to land and water management.³⁶⁴ And thirdly, this Programme is meant to build MRC Secretariat’s agricultural capacity.³⁶⁵

As the focus of this Programme’s activities is on water management, it monitors agricultural water use to understand the basin-wide flow regime. Although many irrigation projects already to be found at the national level are very small, these projects have considerable cumulative impacts on entire agricultural communities.³⁶⁶ By implementing the aim of this Programme, real time flood and drought monitoring

361 MRC, ‘Redefining MRC's Role in the Agriculture Sector’ (Official Website of the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/programmes/agriculture-and-irrigation-programme/redefining-mrc-s-role-in-the-agriculture-sector/> accessed 02 October 2016.

362 MRC, ‘Agriculture and Irrigation Programme’ (Official website fo the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/completion-of-strategic-cycle-2011-2015/agriculture-and-irrigation-programme/> accessed 02 October 2016.

363 Agricultural and Irrigation Programme [2011] Mekong River Commission, Executive Summary

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/assets/Publications/Programme-Documents/AIP-Pogramme-Doc-V4-Final-Nov11.pdf> accessed 02 October 2016.

364 Ibid.

365 Ibid.

366 MRC, ‘Agriculture and Irrigation Programme’ (Official website fo the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/completion-of-strategic-cycle-2011-2015/agriculture-and-irrigation-programme/> accessed 02 October 2016.

conditions can be relayed to national agencies for the sake of more quickly reacting to natural events, which will directly influence farmers’ livelihoods.³⁶⁷ In addition, this Programme also includes topics about forestry and watershed management, which are also covered under the BDP Programme.³⁶⁸

3.1.3.1.2. Demonstration of Multi-functionality of Paddy Fields Project

Besides the function of food production, paddy fields have various functions, including “flood mitigation, groundwater recharge, stabilizing river flow, re-use of irrigation water, soil erosion control, landslide prevention, water purification, microclimate mitigation, protection of biodiversity, nurturing of aquatic ecosystems and aquaculture, organic waste processing and multiple domestic uses”³⁶⁹. The Paddy Fields Project was implemented within the framework of the Agriculture and Irrigation Programme introduced above. The reason for establishing this initiative can be primarily attributed to the need to analyse different functions of paddy fields and their contributions to the basin as a whole.³⁷⁰

There are two stages in this project. The first stage focuses on data collection at the basin-wide level, and also at the level of an experimental field plot.³⁷¹ At this stage, several outputs have been created, such as land use maps, comparison maps of planted areas and precipitation, maps of monthly irrigation water use schemes, irrigation water use assessments as well as irrigation scheme databases, which are regularly reviewed and updated. The second stage of this project is to use a quantified assessment process to demonstrate specific functions, and a number of national teams are involved in this process.³⁷² For example, one Thai team is focusing on three functions: flood mitigation, aqua-ecosystem and agro-ecosystem biodiversity, and buffering environmental risks. Another team from Vietnam is focusing on four

367 Ibid.

368 Ibid.

369 MRC, ‘Demonstration of Multi-functionality of Paddy Fields’ (Official Website of the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/programmes/agriculture-and-irrigation-programme/demonstration-of-multi-functionality-of-paddy-fields/> accessed 02 October 2016.

370 Ibid.

371 Ibid.

372 Ibid.

functions: flood mitigation, nurturing aqua-ecosystems, soil conservation, and socioeconomic functions.³⁷³

3.1.3.1.3. Improvement of Irrigation Efficiency on the Paddy Field in the Lower Mekong Basin Project

The irrigation water used for rice production represents the greatest agricultural use of freshwater in the Mekong River Basin.³⁷⁴ Therefore, the efficiency of water use for paddy field irrigation is crucial to agricultural development and other related sectors.

This project aims to improve irrigation efficiency by providing guidance to water managers.³⁷⁵

In order to achieve this goal, there are three main objectives for this project: The first objective is to evaluate irrigation efficiencies and systems based on modern approaches in selected irrigation schemes. The second objective is to improve the capacity of each stakeholder to use modern concepts, modern tools and assessment procedures. The third objective is to produce guidelines for enhancing the efficiency of irrigation in paddy fields according to the actual conditions in Member Countries.³⁷⁶

Based on observations on selected schemes and assessment of the schemes’

performance, the project analyzes the irrigation efficiencies in technical, managerial and institutional aspects. This analysis can be regarded as a vital basis for producing guidelines for efficient use of irrigation water. A modern approach that takes the interaction of surface and ground water into consideration was also applied for the analysis.³⁷⁷ MRC has already completed this project and wants to start a new Sustainable and Efficient Water Use Project.³⁷⁸

373 Ibid.

374 Huanh and Facon (n 353) 143.

375 MRC, ‘Improvement of Irrigation Efficiency’ (Official Website of the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/programmes/agriculture-and-irrigation-programme/improvement-of-irrigation-efficiency/> accessed 02 October 2016.

376 Ibid.

377 Ibid.

378 MRC, ‘Agriculture and Irrigation Programme’ (Official website fo the MRC)

<http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-mrc/completion-of-strategic-cycle-2011-2015/agriculture-and-irrigation-programme/> accessed 02 October 2016.

3.1.3.2. Summary

Due to crucial role of agriculture for the Mekong Region, MRC formulated an Agricultural and Irrigation Programme to improve sustainable agricultural development in the Mekong River Basin. This Programme makes it possible for both regional and national measures for promoting agricultural development to be connected in a suitable way. There are also two related projects: One is for development of paddy fields’ various functions, and therefore relevant to biodiversity conservation, groundwater recharging, forestry, river flow stabilization and so forth.

The other is for improving irrigation efficiency by providing guidance to water managers. By evaluating the outcomes of these projects, it is obvious that they have significantly contributed to the sustainable development of the agriculture and irrigation in the Mekong region, and accordingly also to the economic growth in the Mekong River Basin.

3.1.4. Flood and Drought