Capacity Building for Saline Agriculture in the Mekong Delta - Innovation in Focus: Salt Farming

This series showcases innovation in action in the water sector. Using case studies by topic from Asian Development Bank’s developing member countries, it highlights the efficacy and benefits of these solutions and explores their potential for replication and broad development impact.

Spotlight: Viet Nam

The Mekong Delta in Viet Nam is a vast labyrinth of waterways encompassing swamps, rivers, and fertile floodplains in the country’s southwestern region. Viet Nam’s rice paddies, floating markets, and pagodas all sit on the delta, making it the region’s agriculture and aquaculture powerhouse. Approximately half of Viet Nam’s total rice harvest and nearly three-quarters of its aquaculture, fisheries, and fruit products are produced in the Mekong River Delta.

In recent years, the impacts of climate change have threatened the Mekong Delta’s natural systems. Changes in seasonal rainfall patterns have decreased freshwater availability, and climate change-induced sea level rise has caused inland saline intrusion.

Saline intrusion has resulted in substantial crop loss. Approximately 70% of rice crops have become salt-affected, while the remaining 30% yielded no grain (footnote 2). This loss translated to a severe loss of income for thousands of farmers.

To tackle the pressing challenges of the Mekong Delta, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), through the Netherlands Trust Fund under the Water Financing Partnership Facility (WFPF), partnered with the Netherlands Water Partnership that brought together the Can Tho University, Eurofins, Fresh Studio, Royal Eijkelkamp, SkillEd, The Salt Doctors, Wageningen University and Research, and Witteveen+Bos to develop a pioneering training program on saline agriculture.

The WFPF is pivotal in enhancing ADB’s operations and responding to the region’s challenges by delivering “business-as-unusual.” Since 2006, the WFPF has been changing lives by catalyzing innovative, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable water investments in Asia and the Pacific.

Through this capacity-building initiative, ADB supported the Government of Viet Nam to focus on inclusive economic growth in agriculture and rural development, while also bolstering environmental sustainability and climate resilience. The program highlighted key adaptation strategies for rural communities, including sustaining agricultural productivity in salinity-affected areas and adopting salt-tolerant crop varieties.

The program actively engaged farmers and the private sector to instill confidence in investing in the supply chain for saline-resilient crops. This collaborative effort was done to demonstrate that long-term agricultural success is possible in salt-affected regions, driving both economic growth and climate adaptation.