Steps Toward Green: 2-page Briefs Six Case Studies in Commodity Landscapes

Overview

From palm oil plantations in Indonesia to organic tea farms in China, these six case studies formed the primary material for analysis in Steps Toward Green. Each of these briefs summarizes the context, challenges, policy innovations and obstacles, and key lessons learned from the case. Read them to get a 10 minute overview of the challenges, and possibilities for achieving agriculture green growth in East and Southeast Asia.

Download each brief as a separate, 2-page PDF

Palm Oil in West and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Tanja Havemann, Uray Endang Kusumajaya

Coffee in Dak Lak, Vietnam
Tanja Havemann, Samiska Nair, Emilie Cassou, and Steven Jaffee

Shrimp Aquaculture in Ca Mau, Vietnam
Samiksha Nair

Tea Landscapes in Yunnan, China
Tanja Havemann

Multiple Commodities in the Mae Chaem Watershed, Thailand
Tanja Havemann, Naomi Rosenthal and Janjarang Kijtikhun

Banana Production in Mindanao, Philippines
Tanja Havemann and Naomi Rosenthal

Key Challenges

Since the 1970s, the primary focus of agricultural policy in East and Southeast Asia has been on food security and developing export-led economic growth. These goals, coupled with poor policy choices, led to the overexploitation of water, land and coastal resources, resulting in explosive growth that was accompanied by significant environmental damage. With demand for sustainable goods and food systems on the rise, leaders are looking to ‘green’ commodity markets. However, major gaps exist between green aspirations and applications.

Opportunities in East and Southeast Asia

Countries have begun to experiment with different approaches to ‘green’ existing production systems and prevent further environmental impacts. The identified successes and shortcomings accentuate entry points for policy to strengthen, coordinate and broaden efforts to align agricultural production and environmental protections. These opportunities include:

Better integrating governmental response to environmental risk mitigations across units and levels of government.

Uncoordinated efforts to engage key stakeholders across ministries and at different levels of government led to over-extraction of water resources in the Dak Lak Province of Vietnam. A recent reorientation of priorities at the national, provincial and local levels help align government bodies across ministries and direct lower levels of government into complementary roles.

Standardizing data and information systems and decision support tools used to make land use decisions.

Many Asian countries suffer from a lack of consistent and up-to-date maps. A new spatial planning tool in Indonesia, the One Map Initiative, seeks to resolve this issue by providing a single all-encompassing map of the country that will include all concession boundaries and land-use claims.

Identifying feasible near-term interventions for environmental risks that can inform subsequent policy actions.

In Vietnam, pilot projects allowed the government to experiment different systems for encouraging farmer compliance with Good Aquaculture Practices. Lessons learned from partnerships with NGOs and pilot communities informed the application of an integrated landscape management approach for the the promotion of an ‘organic coast.’

Examining five roles of government to assess how government can better leverage the capacities of value chain actors, civil society groups and bilateral donors.

In the Mae Chaem watershed in Thailand, land use decisions were decentralized to local administrative groups (TAOs) that were granted the power to manage natural resources. These organizations work in conjunction with provincial and national agencies, making them dependent on government funding and subject to conflicting policies. In this capacity, government must be able to provide financing, capacity to develop spatial planning tools and clarification of land tenure.

Selecting game-changing strategies that remove policy barriers and improve accountability.

In Indonesia, West and Central Kalimantan implemented regulations for the social and environmental impacts of oil palm production. However, the effectiveness of these efforts are limited as neighboring provinces do not exhibit similar policies, allowing companies the opportunity to move business elsewhere. The fear of chasing away business impedes the widespread adoption of environmental protections similar to that of West and Central Kalimantan.

Applying natural or green accounting methodologies.

An example of this exists in the Philippines, where natural capital accounting transfers the cost of water pollution, soil erosion and overexploitation of Lake Laguna’s resources to its users.

Considering the regional context in the design of policy instruments.

Recognition of the connection between a decline in coffee yields and deforestation has led the Vietnamese government to support tree replanting programs. Due to the costly initial investment of planting trees and the susceptibility of degraded soils to fungal infections, the government will have to lead advocacy campaigns for the long-term benefits of replanting, create funding sources for smallholder farmers and link support for replanting with the private sector.