Assessing the Performance of Climate Smart Rice Production Systems in the Upper Part of the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta

Climate smart agriculture (CSA) has gained considerable attention in Vietnam due to its potential to increase food security and farming system resilience while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, several CSA practices have been introduced in rice production, the most important sub-sector of Vietnam’s agriculture. However, few studies have been done in Vietnam to produce comprehensive assessments of CSA performance in the rice sector. This research proposes a comprehensive approach to assess CSA practices through a new set of evaluation indicators. A case study in An Giang province of the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta was implemented to evaluate the performance of five CSA models versus that of the triple rice crop system (i.e., benchmarking model). Results show that rice-shrimp and rice-lotus rotations are most profitable, low-risk, and applicable at a larger scale. Given that the current study analyzed and calculated only a small number of indicators and types of CSA practices, further research is necessary to test all indicators and diversified types of CSA models.