Low-emission rice is helping boost the value of Vietnamese rice in global markets, but it also brings major challenges, especially around financing and how farming is organized Low-emission rice slow to scale due to funding gaps In mid-2025, 500 tons of low-emission rice from the one-million-hectare high-quality rice project were exported to Japan under the brand “Vietnam Green Low-Emission Rice,” at US$820 per ton—more than twice the price of Vietnam’s 5% broken rice at the time. At the same time, a rice–shrimp farming model based on integrated plant soil management (IPSM) in the Ca Mau Peninsula, developed by engineer Ho Quang Cua and his team, has pushed average yields of ST24 and ST25 rice to about 6 tons per hectare, 1.5 to two tons higher than older varieties. With an average selling price of around VND9,200 per kilogram, revenue from ST24 and ST25 reaches roughly VND55.2 million per hectare. Profits are more than double those of traditional rice farming, adding nearly VND1.8 trillion a year. These examples highlight the growing value of low-emission rice for both farmers and Vietnam’s rice sector. More broadly, over the past two years, specialized low-emission rice farming in the Mekong Delta has cut input costs […]