More recently, the agricultural sector launched the project to develop 1 million hectares of high-quality and low-emission areas in the Mekong River Delta. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam said Vietnam’s first low-emission rice will be produced by August 2024.
Mekong Delta is not only a rice granary, but also the homeland of coconut trees. All parts of coconut trees, from trunks to leaves and flowers, can be used to create value-added products. And farmers can also obtain carbon credits from coconut plantations.
At Sokfarm, owned by Thach Thi Chal Thi and Pham Dinh Ngai, organic coconut palms are planted for nectar. They can make a wide range of products from nectar, from soy sauce, honey vinegar, molasses, fermented coconut nectar, cocoa beans and coconut blossom nectar.
According to Ngai, a cluster of coconut flowers can produce about ten coconuts, which can be sold for VND50,000. If you use the flowers for nectar, a bunch of flowers can yield 25 liters of nectar, worth 250,000 VND. As such, a farming household can earn up to 6 million VND per month if they have twenty coconut trees.
Sokfarm has 50 households growing organic coconut in accordance with international nectar standards.
Chal Thi said climate change is becoming serious and coconut is a kind of tree that maintains drought and salt intrusion in the Mekong Delta. Sokfarm aims to have 500 farming households by 2030 and 1,000 households growing coconut palms by 2035.
Growing coconuts not only generates money from the exploitation of nectar, but also makes a major contribution to the fight against climate change. Ngai and his wife seek information and follow procedures to sell carbon credits from coconuts.
It is estimated that after ten years of growing, each coconut tree can generate a number of carbon credits worth $1 per tree. The farm now has 25,000 coconut trees that are more than ten years old, which can earn the farmers at least $25,000. In the meantime, they grow more and more coconut trees every year.
In mid-April, Ben Tre Province began assessing its potential to join the provincial carbon market. Local agencies are exploring and building Ben Tre provincial carbon credits in some areas, with a focus on coconuts.
Amid the trend of sustainable development and emission reductions, carbon credits have become an attractive opportunity for the agricultural sector and the specialized coconut growing area in Ben Tre.
Ben Tre now has over 79,000 hectares of coconut growing area and it is estimated that one hectare of coconut can contain 25-75 tons of CO2. With a carbon credit price of at least $5 per ton of CO2, Ben Tre can get $10-30 million from coconut trees.
Additional revenue from the sale of coconut carbon credits
In Vietnam, coconuts are an important agricultural crop. Vietnam now ranks seventh in the world in coconut production, with a cultivation area of 188,000 hectares, mainly located in the provinces of Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, Tien Giang and Vinh Long.
In 2023, coconut exports brought Vietnam a turnover of $900 million. According to Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, chairman of the Vietnam Coconut Association, Vietnam’s coconut export turnover could reach $1 billion by the end of 2024.
Thanh said the products made from coconut are diverse, from food to handicrafts, and create livelihoods for 390,000 Vietnamese households.
The economic value of coconut trees will further increase due to the sale of coconut carbon credits. Vietnam has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. Meanwhile, one hectare of coconut palms can absorb 70 to 75 tons of CO2 annually.
An expert has estimated that with the existing coconut growing area and the tree’s carbon absorption capacity, if Vietnam were to sell coconut carbon credits at prices equivalent to forest carbon credits, the country would earn trillions of dong more every year.
However, Tran Minh Hai of the School for Public Policies and Rural Development pointed out that to create carbon credits from coconuts, farmers must change their cultivation methods and adopt new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Tam An
