VietNamNet Bridge – It is amazing that the two Vietnamese projects “Straw for housing” and “Biogro fertiliser” were recently praised and granted $400,000 in Washington DC.

Phan Thi Cong and Ivan Kennedy receive the award

One, at first, would not think that straw is closely connected with development, the environment and is discussed as much in the US capital as it is today.

The story begins with the Global Development Marketplace (DM), organised by the World Bank (WB), which attracted 1,768 projects from 144 countries.

DM is an annual event held by the WB, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and GTZ. Since 1998, the DM has awarded more than $46 million to some 1,000 early-stage, innovative projects worldwide.

Turning straw into construction material

Annually, there are several topics on development for participating countries to ask for financing through projects. The 2008 Global Development Marketplace was a grant competition held in collaboration with the Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) team of the World Bank, entitled “Sustainable Agriculture for Development”. The competition sought innovations in three sub-themes: (i) linking small-scale farmers to input-output markets; (ii) improving land access and tenure for the poor; and (iii) promoting the environmental services of agriculture in addressing climate change and biodiversity conservation.

From September 24 to 26, 2008, 100 projects from 42 countries were announced and invited to World Bank headquarters in Washington DC to vie for grants at the DM 2008 Marketplace event, including four from Vietnam: Eco-Benefits From Transforming Pig Slurry In Vietnam, Sustaining Nitrogen-Efficient Rice Production, Waste Rice Straw Construction Panels For Low Cost Housing, and Mekong Floating “Edible Crop & Flowers” Gardens.

Nguyen Minh Quyen (second from the left) received the award.

At the close of the Marketplace, 22 projects were named winners, including two projects from Vietnam: Sustaining Nitrogen-Efficient Rice Production (to establish an integrated production-supply-extension chain to ensure a reliable biofertiliser product that reduces chemical contamination and increases yield) and Low-Cost Housing: Waste Rice Straw Construction Panels (to reduce carbon emissions and increase farm income in the Mekong Delta region by creating a sustainable enterprise that manufactures kits for affordable environmentally-sustainable housing made from recycled straw waste). These projects were granted $200,000 each.

During the rice harvesting season, farmers in the Mekong Delta have two worries: harvesting rice and burning straw. They can sell paddy to traders, not straw, so they have to burn straw, which “contributes” more CO2 to the environment.

Nguyen Minh Quyen, Deputy Director of the Ben Thanh Tourist Company for 16 years, saw this fact so he established Vinh Sang Company, based in the southern province of Vinh Long, to seek a way-out for Mekong Delta farmers.

Phan Thi Cong (in ao dai) introduced her project to the WB President Robert Roelick.

The idea of Vinh Sang company’s project is that instead of burning straw in fields, farmers can sell straw to factories, where it will be compressed into pieces of material to build houses.

This technology has been popular in many countries for decades but in Vietnam this is the first time such an idea has been introduced.

Vietnamese farmers love to use chemical pesticide to boost the development of crops. They use any kind of stimulant and fertiliser and don’t think about consequences. This is a quiet way to kill the environment.

Dr. Phan Thi Cong from the Southern Institute for Agricultural Science and Technology and Professor Ivan Kennedy from the Sydney University (Austria) convened donors to finance their Sustaining Nitrogen-Efficient Rice Production to establish an integrated production-supply-extension chain to ensure a reliable biofertiliser product that reduces chemical contamination and increases yield.

To turn these ideas into reality, $200,000 in financing is a start. Sometimes small projects of several hundreds of thousand USD are much better than projects of millions of USD since they are practical and can benefit farmers and the environment.

Hieu Minh