Worldwide increasing water demands have made alternate wetting and drying (AWD)
irrigation an attractive water-saving technology for paddy rice farming. With AWD,
rice paddies are intermittently irrigated, except during the rooting and flowering
stages, reducing water use by 15%-40%. We assessed AWD uptake by comparing the
standardized AWD used by official institutions and the practiced AWD used by farmers
in An Giang Province, Mekong Delta, Vietnam. We observed that 1) farmers did not
use plastic pipes to measure the water level, although these allow assessment of the
correct timing for watering and 2) farmers also practiced AWD during the rainy season,
despite it originally being developed as a water-saving technology. These modifications
indicate that farmers have adapted AWD for use in their local farming conditions.
Agrarian certification systems should be used to increase AWD uptake; however, these
require standardized procedures. Therefore, this disparity between the standardized
and practiced technology should be addressed to improve AWD uptake.