Research Projects

Environmental Engineering for Supporting Agriculture, Livestock, and Fishery Industry

Summary and Aims of the Project

In this research project, we aim to develop sustainable environmental technologies from the three perspectives of "water circulation", "resource circulation", and "food production", with the purpose of solving environmental problems regarding Vietnamese agriculture, livestock, and fishery industries. For this purpose, we will not only proceed with this project based on our research achievements and the human networks that have been established in recent years, but also aim to contribute to the friendly co-development of Vietnam and Japan in the future through training young graduate students from Vietnam at Ritsumeikan University.

Vietnam has achieved the highest growth rate in its GDP among developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region. Japan is also providing economic cooperation to Vietnam through ODA and other means, and not only large enterprises but also Japanese SMEs aiming to penetrate into Vietnam are increasing. However, environmental pollution in the air, rivers, and oceans due to industrial development has become a problem in Vietnam. It is not only Vietnam but also Japan that is responsible for these issues. Vietnam's basic industries are agriculture, livestock and fisheries. In particular, environmental conservation of farmland and fishing grounds are important issues in terms of sustainable economic development and food safety and security.

In Vietnam, excessive use of agricultural chemicals, chemical fertilizers, and antibiotics to increase product yields has triggered the pollution of agricultural and livestock products, as well as the soil and water environments. In this situation, there has been an increase in the number of cases of violations against the food sanitation laws regading foods imported from Vietnam to Japan, due to their exceeding the permissible amounts of agricultural chemicals and veterinary drugs for imports to Japan. However, primary industry workers in Vietnam are not aware enough of product safety. In this regard, these producers need safe and secure production methods for agricultural, fishery and livestock products.

In response to this problem, Japan has historically accumulated experiences in various problems of pollution and has modeled suitable environmental measures. It can be expected that these experiences and technologies will be applied well in Vietnam. However, at present, although we could achieve a certain extent of contribution to the appropriate treatment of problems of municipal and industrial wastewater in Vietnam, it is still not enough to address Vietnam's unique problems in its agriculture, livestock, and fishery. In order to address this issue, this research project can contribute to the improvement of water quality and the environment by using water-based plants such as Spirodela polyrhiza, clam shell, and also geographic information system (GIS) technology.

Research Projects