Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and IRRI collaborate to foster digital innovation in rice monitoring and reporting

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for the institutionalization of the Rice production Monitoring and Reporting system (RiceMoRe) and a long-term collaboration in digital agriculture development.

Since 2018, IRRI has been cooperating with the Department of Crop Production (DCP) to develop a digitalized system for monitoring and reporting rice production progress of Vietnam. The prototype of this innovative system underwent rigorous testing over three cropping seasons in Can Tho throughout 2020, evolving and reaching completion in subsequent years.

Currently, the system has been introduced and applied in nine provinces across the Mekong River Delta and one province in Red River Delta. With the significant effectiveness of the system, there is a growing demand for adopting this technology in the other agro-ecological regions of Vietnam.

RiceMoRe standardizes data of rice production activities across various management levels, providing a comprehensive view of advanced rice farming techniques, including low-emission practices. The system not only contributes to the digitalization of rice production management and planning, but it is also valuable to greenhouse gas inventory and supports the establishment of Monitoring, Reporting and Verification framework for GHG emissions reduction in the rice sector.

Dr. Nguyen Nhu Cuong, Director of DCP, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Toan, Director of the Center for Agriculture Digital Transformation and Agricultural Statistics, and Dr. Robert Caudwell, IRRI’s Country Representative to Vietnam, signed the MOA to initiate the transfer of this system from IRRI to MARD during the inaugural CGIAR Science Day in Vietnam. Through this MOA, MARD officially supports the expansion of the RiceMoRe system across the country in coming years.

A New Zealand Government-funded partnership with IRRI in support of the objectives of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.

This activity is part of the CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas.