German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Thailand's largest rice-farming province on January 26, highlighting his government’s support for multilateral efforts to shift towards climate-smart agriculture.
Rice is Thailand’s single most important crop. Rice cultivation covers almost half of the country’s agricultural land, supporting exports of more than 8 million tonnes each year.
However, this productivity comes at a cost. A single kilogram of rice needs an average 2,500 litres of water to produce, while methane emitted by flooded paddy fields is responsible for 10 per cent of total global methane emissions. Meanwhile, the impacts of climate change are expected to reduce rice yields rice as temperatures rise, hitting farmers particularly hard in regions like Southeast Asia.
Intensive rice production also has a negative impact on Thailand’s rich biodiversity, with land clearing, soil erosion and watershed degradation all putting forests and the ecosystem services they provide at risk.
The focus of President Steinmeier’s visit to Ubon Ratchathani, the Inclusive Sustainable Rice Landscapes in Thailand (ISRL) project, hopes to change this. Led by UN Environment Programme with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and delivered by Germany's main development agency GIZ in collaboration with the Thai Rice Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the project is working to transform rice production in Thailand.
“It was interesting to see how knowledge and management can generate 20 per cent more income for farmers using less water, as well as fewer pesticides and fertilisers,” President Steinmeier said, following his visit to the 5.6 hectare Suan Ta Rom Demonstration Farm in Ubon Ratchathani with Thai Minister of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives Capt. Thamanat Prompow and UNEP Regional Director (ai) for Asia and the Pacific Marlene Nilsson.
By engaging smallholder farmers to adopt more sustainable rice growing practices, the project partners aim to reduce both the on- and off-farm environmental impacts of rice production, while establishing landscape-scale alliances to foster policy for the integrated management of rice production landscapes at the national level – enhancing the management of forests, watersheds, and biodiversity to support both resilient environments and productive agriculture.
Dr Ernst Reichel, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Thailand said President Steinmeier’s visit was a great success and had improved the bilateral relations between Germany and Thailand.
“The visit to the Inclusive Sustainable Rice Landscape Project was one of the highlights of President Steinmeiers stay in Thailand,” Ambassador Reichel said.
The Inclusive Sustainable Rice Landscapes in Thailand (ISRL) project is part of the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration Impact Program (FOLUR), a $345 million, seven-year initiative funded by the Global Environment Facility and led by the World Bank.
For more information on the Inclusive Sustainable Rice Landscapes in Thailand project and UNEP’s work with the GEF in Biodiversity and Land Degradation, contact johan.robinson@un.org.
