Emission reduction in crop production: Farmers ask, MAE answers

At the 2025 Forum titled “The President of the Vietnam Farmers’ Union and the Minister of Agriculture and Environment Listen to Farmers,” Nguyen Van Long, an Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer from Ninh Binh, raised a question concerning the emission reduction program in the crop sector. He noted that the Ministry plans to implement 59 emission reduction models across 34 provinces and cities, while developing a “low-emission” label for agricultural products. From his practical experience, he called for clearer explanations on support measures for farmers and the conditions required for products to obtain the “low-emission” label.

Responding to the question, Tang The Cuong, Director General of the Department of Climate Change, affirmed that the Government has demonstrated strong commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. One notable initiative, he said, is the project to develop one million hectares of high-quality rice in the Mekong Delta, which is being finalized with clear emission standards for large-scale replication.

According to Mr. Cuong, the crop sector has developed an emission reduction plan through 2025 and 2035, aiming to simultaneously ensure growth, improve farmers’ incomes, and cut greenhouse gas emissions. “We have implemented 59 pilot models and initially recorded a 15% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from crop production. The Ministry will continue working with local authorities, the Viet Nam Farmers’ Union, and exemplary farmers to expand these models toward green growth and sustainable development,” he said.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has also issued guidelines for provinces and cities to adopt farming practices that both enhance economic efficiency and reduce emissions. These emphasize reducing the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers while promoting biological measures and organic cultivation.

Addressing questions about land accumulation and concentration for large-scale agricultural development, Mai Van Phan, Deputy Director General of the Department of Land, stated that the 2024 Land Law includes clear provisions to improve the efficiency of agricultural land use. Forms such as land transfer, conversion, consolidation, capital contribution, joint ventures, and cooperative establishment are all encouraged to facilitate large-scale commodity production.

Mr. Phan added that the current land law specifies clear subjects, conditions, and limits for land use: organizations must prepare approved land-use plans with defined areas and operating periods, while individuals may not exceed 15 times the lease limit stipulated in Articles 176 and 177.

“The new policy also expands multi-purpose land use, allowing land users to flexibly exploit additional functions as long as they have a specific and approved plan. This creates opportunities for farmers and businesses to maximize land efficiency and link production with the development of a green economy,” Mr. Phan emphasized.

Viet Nam’s “low-emission” label will have the most value if it doubles as a proof-of-impact instrument that buyers can use for carbon and ESG claims. The government is already steering crop production toward quantified mitigation, etc. the one-million-hectare high-quality, low-emission rice program in the Mekong Delta, backed by World Bank support and designed around methane cuts and resource-efficiency. That program is being built with explicit emissions baselines and monitoring methods, which can underpin product labeling and crediting.

To link a label to carbon finance, projects have to meet accepted methodologies and MRV (measurement, reporting, verification) rules. Viet Nam has begun registering rice-sector activities under international standards such as Verra’s VCS, with government communications noting projected reductions on the order of hundreds of thousands of tonnes CO₂e per year, credits that can be sold to help finance practice changes and farmer premiums. Similar paddy-methane crediting has scaled in Japan via the J-Credit system, showing that a national label plus robust MRV can unlock corporate demand.

On the ESG side, a credible label can map directly to corporate Scope 3 reporting needs and to sustainability standards already used by importers. In rice, the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) standard is one ready bridge: it specifies farm-level indicators for water, fertilizer, and greenhouse gases and is already connecting Vietnamese producers with branded buyers. If the Vietnamese “low-emission” label recognizes SRP compliance or mirrors its KPIs alongside national MRV - exporters gain a language global buyers already trust.

For market access, the label won’t replace legal due-diligence regimes, but it can reduce friction. In the EU, the Deforestation-free Products Regulation (EUDR) starts applying to large operators at the end of 2025 (SMEs mid-2026) for commodities like coffee, cocoa, and rubber. A government-backed label that bundles emissions data with farm/geolocation traceability and a chain-of-custody could help Vietnamese suppliers satisfy both sustainability requests from buyers and regulatory proofs in one dossier.

The Ministry has publicly targeted at least a 15% cut in agricultural GHGs by 2035 and is piloting low-emission crop models with explicit carbon-credit potential. If the “low-emission” label is anchored to those pilots, using the same baselines, calculation rules, and verification partners, it becomes more than a logo: it’s a quantified claim that can travel across carbon markets, supplier ESG scorecards, and import compliance portals.