During the training, local women learned how to use fiber extracted from the leftover lotus stems on their farms to make a form of high-quality silk-like material. This is an extra income earning opportunity that increases economic value of a crop that unlike a third rice crop is naturally adapted to the Mekong’s flood pulse.

Extracting lotus fibre by hand requires patience and skill to preserve the delicate fibre to produce the lotus yarn. Between them, the trainees produced about 300 kg of fiber at a market price of 30,000,000 VND or $1,200/kg. Many trainees committed to continue production next year. Realizing the economic and environmental benefits, Dong Thap has organized training courses for tourists visiting the Go Thap Monument Area in Thap Muoi District.

Lotus yarn from a training in 2021 has been used together with worm-silk to make high-end products such as the traditional Vietnamese ao dai, purses, and handbags. These were proudly exhibited at a lotus festival organised by the province in May 2024 that attracted more than 200,000 visitors including 300 foreigners.

Photo: High-end products made of lotus yarn and worm lotus mixture © IUCN Viet Nam

After the festival, the province organised a technical workshop on lotus value chains and invited IUCN to give a presentation on lotus farming as an NbS because of its economic returns and by its dependence on the flood regime, its ability to reconnect the river and the floodplain. In the next phase, the project will strengthen collaboration with local partners to commercialize and scale up lotus silk production.

Photo: IUCN's representative presented about lotus farms as NbS at workshop organised by Dong Thap PPC © IUCN Viet Nam