Case 1: Farmers as first adopters
Our farmers’ interviews reveal a number of cases in which farmers through their informal and formal interactions with academics have learned and applied new technical knowledge and farming models. Such applications have brought about higher productivity and higher income and lifted them out of previous economic difficulties. Of course, new technology adoption is not always a simple straight line from scientific knowledge inputs leading to improved production outputs and better income for farmer households. Inside the black box between those points is the struggle of old and new knowledge,
53 “Ruot” literally means intestine. In Vietnamese language, usually it is collocated with nouns such as father, mother, brother, aunt, etc. to assert a blood relation. The term becomes difficult to be translated here, but can be understood as very closed or very familiar.
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amplification of sources of knowledge and experience, including input from family members, and constant learning by doing. The stories above of frog and seed rice farmers both describe similar knowledge- localising efforts.
The following example illustrates how ideas and suggestions from informal talks with an academic led to training participation and new work for a farmer form Can Tho who made use of the opportunity and created a change for her life and her community.
Mrs. T.D.H. from Yen Hoa village, Can Tho used to be a local secondary school teacher. She left her job after ten years of teaching due to a low salary. She then stayed at home and helped her husband with a home-scale business. In 2005, she started raising frogs. In the following years she became well- known as one of the first froglet suppliers in the Mekong Delta where frog raising has been promoted as an income generation model for farmers all over the delta. Her business ideas arose during polite conversation with a university lecturer who shared a hospital room with her father. The lecturer was working at the Agro-Forestry University and mentioned their new Thai frog breeding experiments and recommended that she learn to raise this kind of frogs, as their research suggested frog culture had high development potential for Mekong Delta farmers. Taking the academic’s suggestions seriously, she, thanks to introductions by the lecturer, visited the university many times to observe and learn how frogs and other animals were bred and reared. Armed with new technical knowledge and equipped with materials and leaflets, she decided to invest in frog culture, bought new frog broodstock from the university, and started to apply what she had learnt into the real situation of her farm and water source.
Her husband, who had graduated with an aquaculture university degree but had hardly worked in his chosen field, now had a chance to use his knowledge in frog artificial breeding. With these combined knowledge sources, they without great difficulty produced a brood of 1,000 froglets from ten male and female frogs, making profits in excess of 900% from froglet sales. For many years, she has been an exclusive froglet supplier with customers from Can Tho, Hau Giang, Soc Trang, and elsewhere in the delta (Narrative generated from Interview 269, farmer, female, Can Tho, 01.12.2010).
The next vignette is about how a farmer has employed that which he learnt from working as a rice experimental assistant for CLRRI on their farms and farming planning.
Compared with many others with working experience of ten years and over, Mr. N.V.D. is one of the newly-recruited workers to help with CLRRI’s rice experiments. By contract, their working period is office hour-based all year long, except in September when the water is rising. His duties as a rice experimental assistant related to the life cycle of rice plants include rice transplanting, caretaking, harvesting, grain counting, and storing under the close guidance and directions of researchers. Over time, he has learnt new rice cultivation techniques and became familiar with old methods, all of which are done with tremendous care and written monitoring. He had better knowledge about varieties under prioritised experiments, policy recommendations, and high or low demand by the market. He and his wife have a one-hectare field where normal rice has been replaced and updated with new varieties developed and recommended by CLRRI researchers and new technologies he acquired. He has sold his certified54 seeds to farmers and seed centers. He often shares new knowledge and technology with interested farmers. (Narrative generated from Interview 197, farmer, male, Can Tho, 24.08.2010)
54 The hierarchical system of rice seeds include breeder seed, pre-basic seed, basic seed, and certified seed. Farmers in the Mekong Delta and in Vietnam in general are still largely dependent on “uncertified” seeds that they randomly selected and saved from their previous crops. It has been promoted a wider use of certified seeds by training certified seed farmers and clubs. Pre-basic and basic seeds are produced and provided by universities, research institutes and seed centers to certified seed producers.
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It is noteworthy that these first adopters are highly committed to share their acquired knowledge and technology with their communities. This is not always the case in terms of the elite bottleneck, in the model farmer transfer system (as discussed in Chapters Three and Six).
“Descended from a peasant family I thoroughly understand difficulties farmers are facing. I am willing to assist those who are in need. I transferred frog breeding techniques to many farmers from other provinces; some stayed at our house for days to learn it. I instructed them with my best knowledge, though I know I might lose my customers and this job one day. I can find other work then.”
(Interview 269, farmer, female, Can Tho, 01.12.2010) Case 2: Farmers as innovators
The main characteristic of this group of farmers is their untiring passion, love, and zealousness for homemade agricultural experiments and developments. They are effective producers on their farms, but their innovative power is actually kindled and flourished through the contact with academics via knowledge interactions. Their accumulated knowledge is gained from long-term self-practice and learning process supported by external learning and exchanges with local and international scientists, experts, and local farmers. Their inventions include new varieties of plants such as pest-resistant, salt-tolerant, indigenous rice seeds, novel technical procedures, production tools and machines, or innovative ways of thinking and practice in agricultural production:
Before national reunification in 1975, Mr. V.V.C. from Tien Giang was a rice grower in the region well-known for consistently higher productivity. He was invited by CTU to deliver regular talks with students about his in-field practical experience. On such visits, he learnt rice multiplication techniques from academics. One day, a CTU agronomist gave him an envelope with eight grains of IR36 rice seeds, the last seeds of this type because amounts distributed to localities in the delta could not be kept after a high flood. Not much time later, new rice plants were bred and filled up his three-hectare field.
This year, brown planthopper (Nilaparvata lugens Stồl, BPH) outbreaks spread over the delta, which seriously damaged fields with contemporary varieties and endangered crop yield and food security.
Surprisingly, BPHs landed in his field for a while but flew away without causing any damage. In three years (1977–79), he produced and provided more than sixty tons of pest-resistant rice seeds, helping the delta escape from a food crisis by a narrow margin. Since then, agro-academics and officials, even state leaders and managers, have visited his home more and more often to exchange information and knowledge and promote his experimental work, just as he travelled to talk about his experience (Data taken from Tien Trinh 2011a, Thanh Nien Online August 17, 2011).
The works of Mr. N.V.L from Bac Lieu or Mr. T.T.H. from An Giang provide other examples of farmers who are devoted to rice selection and breeding. Their achievements are gained again from patient and steady on-farm experiments, backed up by knowledge and skills previously supplied by formal breeding technology training courses delivered by CTU, MDI, or CLRRI. Among hundreds of their new-developed rice lines, many varieties have been recommended for wide application, and some are even nationally recognised. Rice-breeding successes have pushed and pulled farmers to work closer with academics. Through this partnership have they learnt to work with more scientific methods and expert thinking and had chances to go abroad and share experience with farmers in the world (Data taken from Tran Thanh Phong, Thanh Nien Online August 19, 2011; Bao Van, Thanh Nien Online August 19, 2011).
Besides rice breeding, Mr. D.V.C. from Tra Vinh is famous for providing consultations to farmers to rescue challenged rice fields. He pursues and practices the method that he calls “positive therapy”
which heightens the concept of the “existence will” of rice plants. Before any chemical treatment action is chosen, he examines very carefully the diseased sample and encourages other farmers to follow the same methods (Data taken from Tien Trinh 2011b, Thanh Nien Online August 21, 2011).
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Farmer D.V.C. is taking consultation work with the knowledge and skills of an expert and his “positive therapy” practice is quite close to the idea of integrated pest management (IPM) discussed at length in academic books. His success does not rely on words or written arguments other than practice-based concepts and actions. Careful and caring principles (see Chapter Seven) suggested as a lodestar in localised conceptualisation of IPM and sustainable agriculture development are nicely realised and promoted in reality by farmers like Mr. D.V.C
The above are selected examples of innovative rice farmers in the Mekong Delta. Innovations and inventions can widely be found in fruit planting, aquaculture, and agricultural mechanics. Applications and impacts of farmer’s innovations sometimes go far beyond specifically-originated conditions and locations when they are further developed in cooperation with scientists or adoption of scientific methods and manner through farmer experimentation.
Case 3: VACB farmers as knowledge brokers The narratives of three VACB55 farmers X, Y & Z
In 2009, Farmer X was accepted onto a VACB “clean environment” project administered by CTU scientists and researchers. The project focused on pig raising technologies in response to the spread of blue ear disease. His house, easily accessible for local villagers from all sides, was selected as the project communication post and permanent classroom for the project training courses. Partially financed by the project, his temporary house was upgraded by extending the eaves and capable of housing 60-70 seats. A plastic biodigester was installed to connect waste from a newly-built toilet and animal raising facilities, facilitating farming using a complete VACB system. More than 10 courses have been conducted by CTU
55 VAC, an intensive household-scale symbiotic farming system of horticulture (V), pisciculture (A) and animal husbandry (C), was the first model of its kind, and was initiated and launched by the National Association of Vietnamese Gardeners (NAVG) in 1986. It is based on traditional gardening methods used by Red River Delta farmers, and it has rapidly gained farmers’ interest because it promises to combat rural hunger and malnutrition by providing diversified vegetables, fruits and animal proteins, helping to reduce economic risks that stem from their dependence on a single product, and instead increase their self-reliance and household income through saved capital input from the output-input recycling mechanism between subsystems. Additionally, the VAC itself is ecologically desirable and sometimes called the “VAC ecosystem”, as it helps to vitalise and make green fallow and uncultivated land while sustaining local resources (Ikeguchi, Lam My Lan, and Duong Nhut Long 2008, 12; NAVG 1995, 4f;
Wieneke 2005, 23f). In the course of development, the model has been modified to be more appropriate for the climate and typology specifications of application areas. For example, it is observed in the Mekong Delta that an internal alum-washing drainage system is dug around and between a garden, where prominent citrus species and coconut palms are intercropped with mango, guava, pineapple, cacao and pepper plants (NAVG 1995, 4f). The system can also be extended by adding more possible subsystems; for example, VACRRR (R: rice, R: cash crops and R: forestation) is well developed as a typical farming model in Song Hau Farm areas. VAC and its modified versions, however, do not provide an apposite treatment of animal waste, particularly within the C component where swine raising is prominent. In order to make it a more sophisticated and practical appliance, a combined biogas module was supplemented, which created the VACB system (B: biogas). Biogas technology has long been adopted in livestock- based farming in Vietnam. Biogas construction design is principally distinguished by two models: (1) brick and concrete biogas plants designed by NAVG and (2) lower-cost and easier-to-operate plastic (tubular polyethylene film) biodigesters introduced by Ho Chi Minh City University of Agriculture and Forestry in 1992. Biodigesters produce properly treated by-products within the system, clean domestic energy and better rural sanitation from an ecological perspective (especially where both animal waste and human faeces are connected to and treated in biodigesters).
Farmers in the Mekong Delta widely use the latter model, as it suits their small-scale farming, initial construction investment and technical maintenance.
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experts on different VACB-related topics, from horticultural diversification, swine farming techniques, swine disease prevention and treatment, fish hatching and fish stock management, to biogas plant construction and maintenance. In each thematic course, 60-70 local farmers are invited and CTU trainee students participate as observers. The training, which is structured around a theoretical component followed by practical sessions, lasts normally from one to three days and sometimes longer. To date, Farmer X has actively attended all classes and intensively worked with experts in solving local emerging issues, as he plays the role of intermediary between scientists and locals applying for new technologies. He often communicates with other advanced farmers such as Farmers Y and Z to exchange practical experiences and lessons. Problems that cannot be solved within the group are presented to external researchers/experts, who either advise the farmers in a phone call or visit directly for sample collection and laboratory testing. Farmer X and his wife are willing to share their experience with local people, explain to them any issues they do not thoroughly understand and distribute the project’s training materials. At the time when this interview was conducted, an older villager was waiting for Farmer X to check his new biogas plant operation. Farmer X also helps CTU trainee students implement their experiments in his field.
It is through such formal and informal learning and practice that he can acquire essential knowledge of the VACB system. For him, passion, knowledge and practice are the key elements to his present success. In the expansion phase of the project, he was selected to follow the project’s researchers in assisting new VACB households to set up the model, a testament to his persistent thirst for learning. This recruitment drive also provided him with a second job as a knowledge broker.
Farmer Y participated in the VACB implemented by CTU researchers in 1996 (see Figure 4.10 for his VACB system). He was carefully instructed how to handle and release Trichogaster pectoralis regan (TPR) fish into the lake, feed and take care of them. His fishery mentor maintained weekly visits to his farm. He shared that he followed all the instructions strictly and tried to understand thoroughly every procedure to induce spawning, from hormone preparation, dosage calculation and injection techniques to egg collection and larvae feeding. His first crop was a great success, with an average weight of 100 grams per six-month old fish, which surprised even provincial agriculture leaders. He became the first Mekong Delta farmer to succeed in TPR breeding and fertilised fish egg production and was well-known in local and national mass media. Finding new technology and knowledge for him was as important as localising such knowledge by proposing modifications, advancements or improvements gleaned from local practical application. He realised that apart from a strong educational background, local understanding, good communication skills and continuous learning create a high-profile knowledge broker. Besides collaboratively implementing applied research provided by the university on his farm, he has been employed as a lecture assistant and technical advisor in CTU’s VACB training projects, as well as a number of other provincial and international development projects. Farmer Y is also energetically involved in local development activities.
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In 1998, he was appointed the head of his commune’s extension club of 22 members, which went on to become the 21-participant agriculture cooperative that he has chaired since 2003. For him, farmer groups are useful for VACB technology and knowledge diffusion among members.
Recently, he has delivered on the spot training sessions to farmers from various provinces in the Mekong Delta, based on their invitations and contracts. Some initial efforts are being made to establish a VACB technology transfer association comprising state managers, scientists and knowledge brokering farmers.
Throughout his knowledge brokering, new knowledge is generated through improvements, modifications and practical implications; however, little is discussed and added to VACB training materials. When asked about training material preparation, he pointed to his head: “Here, it is all inside here”.
Figure 4.12: Farmer Y’s VACB system
Source: Author 2011
In 2000, Farmer Z learnt about Farmer Y’s VACB model from a local television programme and went to see him and learnt from his experiences. Back home, he decided to chop down more than 60 longan trees to create a pond, and applied for a bank loan of VND 10 million to invest in TPR and pig-raising.
However, the first crop failed because of poor TPR eggs. Not discouraged, he kept on the second TPR crop, but still quite a number of fish were dying after the first 20-30 days. In fact, after his first crop failure he started participating in a project run by CTU researchers on native fish conservation through protection zoning and local livelihood improvement. One day, while transporting a CTU scientist around the village to select suitable households for biodigester construction, he was so worried and impatient about his fish
A V B
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conditions that he recounted his futile attempts at fish rearing to the scientist, a fishery mentor who also helped Farmer Y in another VACB project: “If I fail this time again, I guess I will have to leave my house.
I have little hope now that the fish are dying”. Without delay, the scientist visited his pond. Sample testing revealed the disease was related to brachial parasites. After two days of treatment under scientific instructions the health of his fish recovered significantly. Under the continued supervision of the scientist, ten months later he had more than 10 tons of mature fish that he continued to culture, in order to satisfy market demand, into brook fish. He earned a profit of VND 30 million for this crop. In the next crop in 2003 he mastered TPR spawning and produced nearly one ton of TPR fish eggs, but still could not meet demand. He then became the direct technology transferor for nearby interested farmers and the quality checker of fish eggs for selling to out-grow farmers. He developed and led a group of 30 local farmers to specialise in TPR egg production. After learning biodigester construction techniques, under other projects or within his own schemes he instructed on and built an array of biogas plants for others in the Mekong Delta. He also helped to spread Trichanthera gigantae plant as a feedstuff for livestock and fish after successful experiments carried out by CTU agro-scientists. Similar to Farmer Y, Farmer Z first worked as a knowledge broker within CTU projects, before being introduced and connected with provincial and international development partners. His experience taught him the importance of on-farm, throughout- the-process training for farmers whereby, accompanied by his colleagues, he would stay the whole week with farmers to transfer fish breeding techniques. Essentially, he ruminated on the applicability of what he presented to farmers during his theoretical and practical courses. One of the most difficult questions that many farmers asked him during his courses was: “Thanks to your technology we can make good production, for sure, but we are now worried about the market, so can you help us with our product sales?” After a few years of VACB knowledge brokering, he formed a wide network of application farmers from his own region and all over the Mekong Delta, who agreed to collaborate in a VAC fish egg supply group that was able to satisfy any immediate order for one to two tons of TPR eggs. This networking initiative helped to develop Farmer Z’s knowledge brokering over the production chain, from TPR breeding to marketing.
Academic-farmer partnership construction
It is important to note that the transfer of integrated farming technology and knowledge is mainly designed as part of a project’s framework with the participation of (inter) national project managers, universities and/or development agencies as technology developers, technical advisors and local governments and communities as beneficiaries. Following mainstream technology transfer56, the “from
56 By this we mean the prominent approach of agricultural and rural extension in Vietnam. Since 1993, a professional extension system has been created nationwide over four levels of administration (national, provincial, district and commune). However, service performance is confronting insufficient funding and staff and a lack of up-to-date extension principles and practices (Poussard 1999). Influenced by the top-down and hierarchical structure, in order to