The Minister said the Thai Rice NAMA project will reach out to 100,000 rice farming households in Thailand in shifting from conventional to low-emission farming in the country.

The project will work with farmers and farmers’ associations as well as external service providers in adapting these advanced farming practices and develop respective incentive schemes including financial support.

The growth of ecological friendly livelihoods is a part of the national 20-year strategy for security, prosperity and sustainability.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has joined hands with the German International Cooperation to launch the Thai Rice NAMA campaign to improve farming efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions for sustainable development, piloting first in six provinces.

The Thai Rice NAMA will focus on six relevant provinces in the Central Plains of Thailand: Chainat, Ang Thong, Pathum Thani, Singburi, Ayutthaya, and Suphanburi, and facilitate its replication at the national and regional scale. Mr. Grisada added that in irrigated rice cultivation, applying an Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) on laser land-levelled fields can significantly reduce methane emissions.

The switch to low-emission cultivation of rice is estimated to have the potential for avoiding emissions of 1.664 million metric tons (Mt) of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) cumulative over the 5-year lifespan of the project with increasing annual mitigation potential, reducing baseline emissions from irrigated rice by more than 26 per cent.

The Thai Rice NAMA campaign also includes the establishment of a revolving fund, training on farming technologies which emit less greenhouse gas, the promotion of world-class rice production quality and green loans for sellers and service providers of farming technologies which help reduce greenhouse gas emission. It is expected some 450,000 farmers and technology providers will benefit from this campaign, helping yield 4 million tonnes of high quality produce each year.