Other Agriculture Study
313 items available
Permanent URI for this collection
Items in this collection
1 - 10 of 20
-
Publication
Spearheading Vietnam’s Green Agricultural Transformation: Moving to Low-Carbon Rice
(Washington, DC, 2022)This report focuses on promoting low-carbon rice production systems in Vietnam. There are many sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within the agricultural sector in Vietnam, including along value chains and within the whole agri-food context. However, because rice production is so important to the country and to emission reductions in agriculture, this report focuses on known actions that can be rapidly upscaled, along with other complementary actions to reduce GHG emissions from rice production systems. The report covers emission reduction pathways in rice. This report assesses agronomic and other options that offer technically and economically feasible pathways to promote low-carbon rice. Some options have been piloted in Vietnam and require significant upscaling at the farm-level. This report considers challenges and practical actions and policy reforms to address these challenges for Vietnam’s low-carbon transition (LCT) in rice. -
Publication
Improving Governance of Indonesia's Peatlands and Other Lowland Ecosystems
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-02-01)The report aims to advance a policy dialogue on how to address sustainability challenges from lowland developments. The specific approach discussed in this report is the "landscape approach" which, in turn, calls for improved "landscape governance." As a technical background study, the report serves four functions. First, it summarizes the principles of a landscape approach, elaborated in the context of Indonesia's lowlands through two previous technical studies. Second, it takes stock of current governance challenges in Indonesia's lowlands, focusing on those related to the government sector, and discusses how these challenges currently prevent a landscape approach from being implemented in Indonesia's lowlands. Third, it reviews Indonesia's recent efforts to address the governance challenges in the management of peatlands and other lowland ecosystems. Fourth, it offers recommendations on options to improve lowland governance in order to shift toward integrated management of Indonesia's lowlands based on a landscape approach.The report focuses on the lowland areas in eight fire-prone provinces, and on key landscape governance issues related to peatlands. Indonesia suffered many years of repeated fires and haze crises, with landmark events in 1982/83, 1997/98, 2002, 2006, 2009, and 2015. The 2015 El Niño-driven fires were particularly extensive and costly. Almost 80 percent of the 2015–16 fires occurred within the lowland areas in eight fire-prone provinces—Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Jambi, Papua, Riau, South Kalimantan, South Sumatra, and West Kalimantan—which together account for 87 percent of lowland areas nationally. The report highlights the importance of sustainable landscape management of lowland areas, particularly of the peatlands within lowland boundaries, for achieving the Government of Indonesia’s objective in preventing land and forest fires. -
Publication
Sustainable Lowland Agriculture Development in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-02-01)For Indonesia's agricultural sector to continue to make a significant sustainable social and economic contribution, it will need to undergo a transformation. While the contribution of Indonesia's agriculture sector to national gross domestic product (13 percent) has declined greatly over the past three decades, it is still significant, ranking in third place in 2019 after the oil and gas processing sector (20 percent) and the non-oil and gas processing sector (18 percent). To ensure continued contribution of this sector, the Indonesian government has implemented a number of strategies and measures, including REDD+,1 low carbon development, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) action plans, and green growth strategies. However, despite these efforts, performance in terms of environmental sustainability indicators and contributions to smallholders' livelihoods, particularly in lowland areas, is still suboptimal. Indonesia's lowland areas, in particular, have significant potential to contribute to increased agricultural production, especially in the case of rice, but also for a range of other food and non-food commodities. Indonesia's lowlands cover about 20 percent of Indonesia's total area of which about half are peatlands. Most of this area is found on Indonesia's three largest islands (Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Papua) amounting to 33.7 million hectares, or about 25 percent of the total land area of these islands (World Bank 2018). Indonesia has the largest area of tropical peatlands of any nation, of which more than 90 percent are distributed in the lowland areas of these three islands. However, lowlands are also of great importance for biodiversity, including mangroves, peat swamp forest and freshwater swamp forest with their specific flora and fauna. Despite the significance of lowland agriculture for the achievement of higher levels of national economic growth and environmental sustainability and for improving rural livelihoods in Indonesia, lowland agriculture must overcome several challenges if it is to realize its full potential. -
Publication
Agricultural Land Use and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Mekong Delta: Alternative Scenarios and Policy Implications
(Washington, DC, 2021)The Mekong Delta (MKD) is Vietnam’s most productive agricultural region, and its agroeconomy is well integrated into international markets. Nevertheless, there are increasing threats to the MKD’s agricultural achievements, and other serious questions are emerging about the sustainability of many of the prevailing production systems. Sea level rise, caused by climate change, is increasingly threatening the viability of once protected cropping systems in the coastal areas. This study seeks to contribute to the planning effort for the MKD by addressing some analytical gaps, especially around the technical feasibility and socioeconomic characteristics of alternative agricultural production systems in the context of the evolving natural conditions in the region, and more specifically in the MKD’s three subregions (that is, Upper, Middle, and Coastal). The primary purpose of the study is to fill in that gap by reviewing and assessing different livelihood models and land-use scenarios in the MKD using multi-criteria of technical feasibly, climate change, environmental adaptability, economic and financial, and social aspects to inform the ongoing agricultural transformation in the MKD. -
Publication
Vietnam: Food Smart Country Diagnostic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-28)The term food smart refers to a food system that is efficient, meets the food needs of a country, and is environmentally sustainable. Reducing food loss and waste (FLW) is one of the critical pillars to build a smart food system. This diagnostic focuses on the FLW pillar, from farm to fork to landfill, with the objective of alerting policymakers to the role that addressing food loss and waste can play in meeting their various global and national policycommitments. -
Publication
Striking a Balance: Managing El Niño and La Niña in Lao PDR’s Agriculture
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04)This report’s purpose is to help Lao policy makers and stakeholders prepare for future El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. It does this by providing information on ENSO’s poverty, economic, and agricultural impacts in Lao PDR and outlining ways forward. The report finds that ENSO’s impacts vary from region to region and harm Lao PDR’s people, economy, and agricultural sector. The country has sought to prepare for climate risks through climate change adaptation and disaster risk management but could do more to prepare specifically for ENSO events. Preparing for ENSO is important because of Lao PDR’s exposure to ENSO-related climate shocks, the importance of agriculture in the national economy, the rural population’s climate and economic vulnerability, and the lack of research on ENSO in Lao PDR.This report is timely given the lack of research on ENSO in Lao PDR and the high likelihood the country will face another El Niño in the near term. It is difficult to disentangle ENSO’s impacts from those of other climate shocks, natural disasters,and economic cycles. This makes it more difficult to design policies and response mechanisms that help mitigate ENSO-related welfare losses and economic damages.This report evaluates El Niño and La Niña’s impacts on Lao PDR’s agricultural sector particularly crops, livestock, and fisheries—and how these have implications for the economy and society. It then looks at the actions undertaken by the Lao government to mitigate the losses associated with climate risks. This includes actions to prepare and respond to climate change and natural disasters. Next, the report simulates how well certain policy options mitigate ENSO-related GDP and welfare losses. It concludes by recommending actions to enhance Lao PDR’s preparedness for future ENSO events. -
Publication
Striking a Balance: Managing El Niño and La Niña in Vietnam’s Agriculture
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04)This report’s purpose is to help Vietnam policy makers and stakeholders prepare for future El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. It does this by providing information on ENSO’s agricultural, economic, and poverty impacts in Vietnam and outlining ways forward. The report finds that ENSO’s impacts vary from region to region and harm Vietnam’s people, economy, and agricultural sector. The country prepared for, and responded to, the 2014–2016 El Niño, but there is still room to improve upon these actions. Being proactive to prepare for ENSO is important because of Vietnam’shigh exposure to climate shocks, the prominence of the agricultural sector in the national economy, the rural population’s climate vulnerability, and the lack of researchon ENSO in Vietnam. -
Publication
Developing Parametric Insurance for Weather Related Risks for Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-01)Indonesia is one of the main agriculture producers globally and largely relies on domestic staples for its growing population. Projections of climate change models for Indonesia point towards increasing temperatures and more extreme distributions of precipitation with more frequent dry and wet periods. The Government of Indonesia (GoI) has been focusing on modernizing rice production through improved irrigation infrastructure and early warning systems to better cope with developing droughts and support schemes for rice farmers. While governments use risk transfer solutions mostly for infrastructure, parametric insurance covers have become increasingly available for agriculture assets including crops, livestock, and forestry. This study investigates the development of a parametric insurance product as an ex ante risk management instrument that relies on regional drought indices and provides province-level payouts to the GoI in case of severe droughts. As a case study, the province of Central Java has been chosen given its importance in rice production and a recent request of the Central Java Government to transfer drought risk. This study uses over 50 years of historical gridded precipitation and temperature data to develop standard precipitation indices (SPI) and standard precipitation evapotranspiration indices (SPEI) to quantify drought extents at a resolution of 50 x 50 km. Preliminary results of this study have been shown and discussed with the Ministry of Agriculture of Central Java, the National Weather Service of Indonesia (BMKG), the Office of the Insurance Regulator, the Ministry of Finance, and leading Indonesian insurers in the form of workshops undertaken in Indonesia (Semarang and Jakarta) in July 2017. The availability of longer seasonal rice production data will improve the validation of the developed indices. -
Publication
Transforming Vietnamese Agriculture: Gaining More for Less
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04)Over the past quarter century, Vietnam’s agricultural sector has made enormous progress. Vietnam’s performance in terms of agricultural yields, output, and exports, however, has been more impressive than its gains in efficiency, farmer welfare, and product quality. Vietnamese agriculture now sits at a turning point. The agricultural sector now faces growing domestic competition - from cities, industry, and services - for labor, land, and water. Rising labor costs are beginning to inhibit the sector’s ability to compete globally as a low cost producer of bulk undifferentiated commodities. Going forward, Vietnam’s agricultural sector needs to generate more from less. That is, it must generate more economic value - and farmer and consumer welfare - using less natural and human capital and less harmful intermediate inputs. The strategic shift was highlighted in the government’s agricultural restructuring plan (ARP), approved by the Prime Minister in June 2014. The ARP defines sector goals in terms of the triple bottom line of economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable development. It lays out expected changes in the roles and spending patterns of the government in the sector and discusses the need to work with other stakeholders, including in the private sector. It calls for an ambitious and ongoing process of learning and experimentation, and several potential directions are offered in this report. -
Publication
Tuna Fisheries
(World Bank, Sydney, 2016)This is a background paper to the Pacific Possible report. The Pacific Island countries control one of the World's largest and healthiest tuna stock. They have been able to significantly increase revenue from fisheries licenses over the past few years through the introduction of the Vessel Day Scheme in the context of the Parties to the Nauru agreement. This report outlines how the Pacific Island countries can further increase benefits from oceanic fisheries without increasing total catch or threatening the sustainability of Pacific tuna fish stocks.