Page 16 - Regional_rice_report_with_full_bookmarks

PROJECT “NETWORK FOR AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
THINK-TAKS FOR COUNTRIES IN MEKONG-SUB REGION” (NARDT)

Figure 4: Paddy rice land of Viet Nam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Thailand in
the 2015-2021 period (Thousand ha)

Source: ASEAN Food Security Information System (AFSIS).
There are different tendencies of rice land change in these countries. In
Vietnam, rice land has been slightly increased in mountainous regions due to local
food security, but significantly decreased in plain areas such as Red River Delta and
Mekong River Delta because of shifting trends from rice cultivation to aquaculture and
fruit trees as well as changes from agricultural land to non-agricultural land. Decrease
of rice land in Laos was due to change to other crops or non-agricultural purposes.
While rice land in Cambodia has been relatively increasing thanks to increasing
demands on rice export to European market, especially organic rice product. There
are advantages and disadvantages of these tendencies. Land use change to diversify
agricultural production or improve effectiveness could be a very good trend when
it led to improvement in famers’ income as well as risk reduction. However, land use
changes due to development of industrial and resident zones poses challenges to
agricultural infrastructure including irrigation system and land structure.

Although the total rice area has decreased, the annual rice output of the
three countries was still around 58 million tons, though the trend is different between
countries. In 2021, Cambodia rice output 2021 reached nearly 10.96 million tons,
an increase of 20.45% compared to 2015 (an average growth rate of 3.15%/year).
Meanwhile, the rice output of Viet Nam (43.09 million tons) and Lao PDR (3.82 million
tons) decreased by 4.44% (0.75%/year) and 6.95% (1.19%/year) respectively compared
to 2015. Particularly in Lao PDR, 3 conditional production areas have been formed,
including: i) Wet season lowland rice area was 726,235 hectares and 3.9 million tons;
ii) Dry season irrigated rice area was 123,105 hectares and 1.2 million tons; iii) Rain-fed
upland rice area was 112,365 hectares and 850,671 tons (Lao Statistic Bureau, 2021).
Although, rice area of Viet Nam is about 4-5 million ha less than Thailand’s rice land,
Viet Nam’s rice output is still about 15 million tons higher than this country thanks to
higher rice yield. The reason is that Thailand’s rice production system is still largely
dependent on natural irrigation water (rainfed farming), using less inputs that results
in lower yield. Meanwhile, Vietnam has been focusing on intensive farming with 2-3
crops per year that requiring higher input use and based on developed irrigation
system, so rice yield has remained high.

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