In Southeast Asia, ‘local weather tech’ and ‘digital tech’ have been advocated however practised for too lengthy in isolation. Local weather know-how (local weather tech) includes applied sciences developed to cut back greenhouse gasoline (GHG) emissions from agriculture, whereas digital know-how (digital tech) refers to instruments, gadgets, and methods utilising digital info and processes to enhance agricultural operations.
Because the agricultural sector is the biggest GHG emissions contributor in six out of the ten Asean Member States (AMS), converging each applied sciences is a low-hanging fruit that may assist Asean cut back the area’s influence on international warming.
Climatetech can be utilized for mitigation and adaptation functions, as proven on this article’s instance of rice cultivation. Mitigation can cut back GHG emissions straight or improve the capability of soil-based carbon sinks to soak up GHG emissions, whereas for adaptation, local weather tech consists of applied sciences that may assist agrifood methods adapt to climatic variability and local weather change.
In response to the World Financial institution, on common, rice cultivation contributes 43 per cent of complete nationwide agricultural GHG emissions in Southeast Asia, with the best shares in rice exporting nations like Vietnam (50 per cent) and Thailand (65 per cent).
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It’s crucial that local weather tech and digital tech mechanisms and teams be united below the Asean umbrella to find out precedence motion on decreasing GHG emissions in agriculture.
A local weather tech known as “Alternate-Wetting-Drying” (AWD), the place paddy fields are periodically drained to a sure threshold after which re-flooded, can cut back methane emissions by as much as 50 per cent.
AWD makes use of hole pipes embedded in paddy fields (Image 1) to watch water ranges when they’re drained to a depth which avoids damaging the rice crops. Presently, farmers make handbook observations of the water depth; analysis in Vietnam and Japan has proven the practicality of digitalised low-cost sensors to watch water ranges at scale.
Image 1. Rice fields with hole pipes monitoring water ranges for Alternate-Wetting-Drying know-how. Picture: Pranav Nalawade, Rize-Farm Firm Singapore
Bettering the benefit of monitoring would incentivise farming communities to scale up the usage of AWD. Utilizing digital sensors as an alternative of handbook strategies would additionally allow governments and the personal sector to estimate the whole methane discount from a locality.
This could then contribute to a Measurement, Reporting, Verification (MRV) system for carbon credit. Governments, together with Vietnam’s, are piloting this strategy, and firms are estimating carbon credit for his or her Nationally Decided Contributions (NDCs). Notably, Vietnam is the primary AMS to make use of AWD to assist meet its NDC goal.
Climatetech for mitigation can probably be enhanced with digital tech to enhance the effectivity of fertiliser software and supply options to burning, for example, in decreasing nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from pastureland and decreasing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of crop waste.
The usage of digital tech in agrifood methods has grown quickly in Southeast Asia prior to now decade. Displays at a latest Asean-Japan symposium held in Vietnam confirmed how digital agritech might help farmers improve crop yields, cut back prices, and anticipate extreme climate occasions.
Japan is sharing its experience with AMS and Timor-Leste: Japanese farmers have lengthy converged digital tech with local weather tech to adapt farming practices to protect crop yields. The farmers anticipate water provide and demand to judiciously apply fertilisers, amongst different strategies.
Agrifood methods contribute to and undergo from international warming, which mitigation and adaptation local weather tech, respectively, can ameliorate. Nonetheless, making use of digital tech to enhance or improve local weather tech’s influence requires financing. On the coverage stage, governments have to contemplate this side when nations supply for extra investments for local weather motion, as was known as for throughout COP29.
Moreover, whereas particular person farmers have efficiently applied local weather tech for mitigation, scaling up throughout the AMS would require collective motion below public-private partnerships. This would come with working with Asean dialogue companions and the personal sector.
AMS can use present Asean mechanisms to determine priorities for high-impact local weather tech collective motion, such because the Asean Local weather Change Initiative (ACCI), the Asean Working Group on Local weather Change (AWGCC) and the Asean Local weather Resilience Community (CRN). All these mechanisms can present collaborative platforms for knowledge-sharing and informing policymakers and practitioners about greatest practices and improvements in climate-resilient agriculture.
Individually, together with digital agriculture in teams such because the Asean Sectoral Working Group on Crops (ASWGC) and the Asean Technical Working Group on Agricultural Analysis and Growth (ATWGARD), and utilizing Asean Pointers on Selling the Utilisation of Digital Applied sciences for Asean Meals and Agricultural Sector have helped Asean’s push for digitaltech.
The long run will convey severe challenges to the area’s meals safety. For Asean, build up local weather resilience in agriculture shall be a precedence.
To this finish, it’s creating a successor to its Imaginative and prescient and Strategic Plan for Asean Cooperation in Meals, Agriculture and Forestry (FAF) 2016-2025. The 2016-2025 plan has guided AMS collaboration for the previous decade however the subsequent plan might want to leverage the mixed use of local weather tech at neighborhood and regional ranges with digitaltech, to create an additive influence on meals methods.
It’s crucial that climatetech and digitaltech mechanisms and teams be united below the Asean umbrella to find out precedence motion on decreasing GHG emissions in agriculture. Multi-stakeholder collaboration requires digital tech: in 2025, the time is now to converge the 2 for accelerated local weather motion.
This text was first printed in Fulcrum, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s blogsite.
