The formation of the current agricultural extension in Vietnam is essentially the government’s response to the acceleration of local extension services after the promotion of agricultural household autonomy in the late 1980s. The system inherited state-management culture and features but has undergone momentous transformations, though the question of whether such changes are state-centric or society- centric and at the policy or implementation levels needs further exhaustive exploration.
The formation of the agricultural extension system
The history of human agricultural development might be that of sharing and learning farming experience. In history, the development of agriculture towards a certain level required extension activities to promote unified and collective actions in natural resource use, crop damage control, and
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revenue increase36. In ancient Vietnam, many successive feudal dynasties attempted different extension-style methods and organisations to promote the rice paddy-based economy, in addition to establishing irrigation infrastructure. Maintaining physiocratic policies since the 10th century, kings and mandarins ploughed the first rows for land tilling in solemn ploughing ceremonies (le tich dien) to start the crop of the year, and agricultural extension services were established with corresponding mandarin positions appointed down to the district level (Nguyen Duy Linh 2004; Nguyen Thanh Binh 2008).
From the birth of modern Vietnam in 1945 through 1993’s establishment of agricultural extension organisations, the developmental history of agriculture extension systems can be divided into three stages (cf. Do Kim Chung 2005, 18-19). The 1945–1975 stage involved land reforms and the establishment of agriculture institutes and universities in North Vietnam and agricultural development and extension aimed at contributing to the struggle for liberation of South Vietnam. In South Vietnam, an agricultural extension department was established by the government in 1960. After national reunification, in the period 1975-1985, collective agriculture was implemented in the entire country.
Under the central planning economy, agricultural extension was primarily conducted for and via agricultural cooperatives. From 1985 to 1993, with the national renovation (doi moi) policy and sector renewal by the promulgation of Resolution No.10 recognising the farm household as the core unit of agricultural production, agricultural extension services became desperately needed. To meet the rising demand, several local governments such as An Giang, Bac Thai provinces in collaboration with local research institutes and universities, formed their own extension centers (Nguyen Duy Linh 2004). The new context suggested a need to manage extension activities by the central government as well as the establishment of a “conventional” extension system national wide.
The current agricultural extension system in Vietnam was officially established in March 1993 with the propagation of Governmental Decree 13/CP, mandating the creation and operation of a state-centered agricultural extension network from national to provincial and district levels. Agricultural extension has thus far been structurally and functionally divided and recombined several times in accordance with organisational changes of the responsible ministries and agencies. This agricultural extension system as the core and prominent service provider in the whole country stretches its activities into diverse fields including agricultural extension, forestry extension, fishery extension, agriculture-based industrial extension, agriculture-supplied water management, and rural sanitation and environmental protection.
To date, the three main Governmental Decrees 13-CP, 56/2005/ND-CP, and 02/2010/ND-CP issued in the years 1993, 2005, and 2010 respectively, provide the main landmarks of agricultural extension system changes in Vietnam, including the Mekong Delta (see Table 3.1).
36 Nguyen Thanh Binh (2008, 12) reviewed a number of archaeological evidence of agricultural extension-like activities aged more than 3,000 years, such as Mesopotamian clay tablets with advice on watering crops and getting rid of rats, Egyptian hieroglyphs who provided advice on avoiding crop damage and loss of life from Nile’s floods, or Chinese agricultural minister, at approximately 800 B.C., responsible to train farmers to do crop rotation.
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Table 3.1: Major landmarks of the development of the public agricultural extension system in Vietnam Date Legal documents Effects
02.03.1993 Government Decree 13-
CP - Department of Agriculture and Forestry Extension (DAFE) was established under MAFI
- Establishment of agricultural extension network from national to provincial and district levels
01.11.1993 Fishery Ministry Decision
766 TS/QĐ-TC Fishery extension work was under the management of Department of Fishery Management (until 7/2000) 01.11.1995 Government Decree 73-
CP MARD was established on the basis of the mergence of MAFI, MFo and Ministry of Irrigation
07.07.2000 Fishery Ministry Decision
590/2000/QĐ-BTS National Fishery Extension Center (NFEC) was established 04.2002 MARD Decision Establishment of Central Agricultural Extension under DAFE 18.07.2003 Government Decree
86/2003/NĐ-CP Dividing DAFE into Department of Agriculture and National Agricultural Extension Center (NAEC) under MARD 26.04.2005 56/2005/NĐ-CP New regulations on agricultural and fishery extension work 28.01.2008 MARD Decision
236/QĐ-BNN-TCCB. National Agricultural-Fishery Extension Center was established on the basis of the mergence of NAEC and NFEC
(MARD and MFi were merged into new MARD by the government Decree 01/2008/NĐ-CP dated 03/01/2008) 08.01.2010 Government Decree
02/2010/NĐ-CP - New regulations on unified agricultural extension - Present NAEC network is under a on-going perfection process
23.05.2011 MARD Circular
38/2011/TT-BNNPTNT - Department (vu) of Science, Technology and Environment, being the general focal point of state management of agricultural extension, directly manages general and multi- sector extension programs as well as regular extension missions.
- General Departments (tong cuc) of Forestry and Aquaculture and Departments (cuc) of Cultivation, Animal Husbandry, Processing, Agro-forest Product Trading and Salt take state management functions on specialised sectors of agricultural extension.
- Financial Department directly manages financial issues related to central extension missions.
Source: Own presentation
The agricultural extension system in transitional policy: Change or rearrangement?
In investigating the chronological changes above, one might argue that the restructuring of the extension system is highly dependent on and shaped by the reorganisation of its parent agricultural and rural development agencies. However, a close content analysis of the cited government documents shows that this argument is not completely accurate as extension work, despite changing policies, illustrates added values reflecting contemporary global development thinking and practice and local demands of agricultural and rural development. I suggest that we should emphasise at least three main concomitant waves of rearrangement and restructuring, as further analysed below, which were forces of change that are decisive to the internal transformation of extension: its positioning as a professional organisation within the state agency system, the defined objectives of extension services, and the development and expansion of its networking to all local levels.
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During the initial structure, agricultural extension was undertaken by state management agencies under ministerial or provincial levels. At the central level, because several ministries were involved in agriculture and rural development—such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry (MAFI), Ministry of Forestry (MFo), and Ministry of Fishery (MFi)—MAFI was selected to be the government’s permanent agency responsible for extension work with the establishment of the Department37 of Agriculture and Forestry Extension under its auspices. In other ministries, such as MFi, extension work was also assigned to relevant sub-ministry departments. At provincial levels, centers of agricultural extension were established under Departments of Agriculture and of Fishery.
These provincial centers continued to form a line of agricultural extension stations by region or communal cluster. This way of structuring gave extension organisations dual duties: state management and public service delivery, which was found to be of substantial ‘inadequacy’ at the operational level (MARD 2008). Since 2003, the Department of Agricultural and Forestry Extension has been divided into the Department of Agriculture, which focuses on state management duties of agricultural development, and the National Agricultural Extension Center, which concentrates on agricultural extension; accordingly, extension organisations at central and local levels have been recognised as professional units under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and Departments of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARDs).
Neglected by the assessments in existing extension literature, the decision to reposition extension work from the state management mission is an important turning point in creating autonomous space for specialised knowledge and targeted education such as agricultural extension. Such labour division appropriately helps reduce the financial burden imposed and the directional dependence on the central level, but instead gives chances for local resource mobilisation, priorities, and development of local operational machineries and mechanisms that meet local needs. How to make use of the State’s support while maintaining the system’s agency, localised self-improvement requires changes in activity and strategy management that is far removed from traditional state management and its hierarchical and bureaucratic practices.
The second major change relates to re-identification of agricultural extension goals and objectives.
Motivated by transfer of advanced technology, economic management skills, and market information to farmers, the agricultural extension mandate in Decrees 56 and 02 puts an emphasis on the increase in agricultural productivity in relation to the rural economic structure shift, poverty reduction, and agricultural modernisation (see Table 3.2). Furthermore, unlike Decree 56’s prioritisation of the enhancement of agricultural producers’ awareness of the state’s guidelines, policies, and law of agricultural production and development, Decree 02 stresses household economy development.
Decree 02 in particular connects economic development to international export demands, food security, new rural construction, and environmental protection. In other words, there is a change from
37 For a briefing of the Vietnam’s state management system, see Appendix 3.1.
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hard technology and state policy dissemination towards more farmer-driven, diversity-appreciating, and sustainable development-based sources of technology and knowledge. As such, the policy direction makes good use of the current line of research argument that khuyen nong38 or agricultural extension should include promoting agricultural and rural development in addition to the well-being of farmers as subjects of these development processes, as nong can be understood as nong nghiep (agriculture), nong dan (farmers) and nong thon (rural development) (e.g. Nguyen Thanh Binh 2008). In addition, the recent policy encourages participation and contribution from various societal actors in agricultural extension, including international cooperation and active involvement of local farmers, which implicitly promotes global-local knowledge exchange and local knowledge utilisation.
Such alternate mandates require different extension approaches that inform the heterogeneous needs of farmers and the diverse contexts and conditions in which new technologies and knowledge are applied, and demand that extension workers are not only qualified with expertise but also need a good understanding of the community and “soft” skills in organising community development activities.
Table 3.2: Redefined objectives of agricultural extension Decree Agricultural extension objectives
Decree 13-CP
(Article 3) - Disseminating advanced technologies of cultivation, animal husbandry, food
processing and preservation of agricultural, aquaculture and forest products as well as good production practices
- Building and developing farmers’ skills and knowledge on economic management to promote effective agricultural production and business.
- Collaborating with functional agencies to provide farmers with market information on which farmers can rely to effectively plan their production and business.
Decree
56/2005/ND-CP (Article 2)
- Enhancing agricultural producers’ awareness on guidelines, policies, laws and their knowledge and skills on agricultural technology science, management and business.
- Contributing to the promotion of the economic structure shift in agriculture and rural areas; increasing the productivity, quality, and efficiency of agricultural production in the direction of sustainable development, employment generation, income increase, hunger elimination and poverty reduction and contribute to foster agricultural and rural industrialisation and modernisation processes.
- Mobilising resources from domestic and international organisations and individuals in agricultural and fishery extension work
Decree
02/2010/ND-CP (Article 2)
- Increasing the agricultural productivity and business efficiency of producers so as to raise income, escape from hunger and poverty and get rich through knowledge and skill training activities and agricultural service deliveries to support farmers to obtain high-quality production results and well adapt into various ecological, climate and market conditions
- Contributing to the economic structure shift in agriculture in the direction of commercial production and an increase in productivity, quality and food safety in order to meet domestic and export demands; fostering agricultural and rural industrialisation and modernisation processes, new rural construction, national food security, socio-economic stabilisation and environment protection.
- Mobilising resources from domestic and international organisations and individuals in agricultural extension work
Source: Own translation from government’s decrees and presentation
38 In the Vietnamese language, agricultural extension is called khuyen nong, which according to the Vietnamese encyclopedia, means propagandising, encouraging and facilitating agricultural development.
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The third major change of restructuring focuses on the development and expansion of local extension networks. While Decree 13-CP regulates the formation of the local extension network from provincial and district down to communal clusters, Decrees 56/2005/ND-CP and 02/2010/ND-CP clearly mandate the establishment of extension network to the communal level with one or two extension workers and at the village levels with extension collaborators or volunteers and extension clubs. It is stipulated that the provincial government, via DARD, chooses its own local extension mode. Very often, the district extension sub-system is established as a complete organisation under the provincial extension system. Depending on the provincial socio-economic situation, available resources, and the provincial leaders’ perception of the importance of communal workers, commune extension models are varied and the staff can belong to commune people’s committees, district extension stations, or the provincial DARD (see Section 3.3 for further analysis). In implementing Decree 56/2005/ND-CP, there was a national program to assist several provinces in establishing grassroots extension organisations, from which a number of collaborators were collected and trained and villages’ extension clubs coalesced. It is reported that there were 10,543 agricultural extensions working in 10,306 agricultural communes and 15,749 agricultural extension volunteers in villages (in 2007, NAEC website) with 3,676 extension clubs nationwide (in 2002, Le Ngoc Thach et al. 2007). Together with about 3,200 professionals employed under central, provincial, and district extension services, it is estimated that one extension worker on average has to provide service to 3,700 farm households nationally (Seth 2009, 30) and 1,500–2,000 farm households in the Mekong Delta (Le Ngoc Thach et al. 2007).
The development of a multi-levelled extension system is important to ensure smooth information and knowledge flows within a hierarchical structure of extension management. However, the true power in the system rests with the performance of extensions who work with local communities in everyday problem-solving, not with the state management staff of agricultural and rural development as designed in other functional state organisations. Thus, grassroots extension should not be a secondary component to make the system complete, but is a key link in both knowledge diffusion processes to local communities and the feedback loop of policy implementation. In the same manner, extension groups, unlike any other type of rural assemblage without a knowledge-based foundation, can trigger smoother and broader knowledge flows within rural communities.
This section has highlighted three patterns of change within the extension system since its formation in 1993, based on changing policy analysis and implementation. However, to what extent such policy- based orientations are comprehensively interpreted and realised in the practice of extension at various levels is greatly dependent on transformational practices of centralised power and knowledge entrenched in the current bureaucratic structure of the extension system. Otherwise, change may possibly go no further than the evident disjunction between written rhetoric and practical implementation.
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3.2. “Elephant’s head, little mouse’s tail”: The bureaucratisation of the extension system
As discussed above, the agricultural system at all levels has shifted from state management function into professional organisations. This is a crucial change that permits resources to be concentrated on professional development-oriented objectives and services. Examining the method of extension system structuring, including task allocation, resource distribution, and communication mechanism, it is argued that the extension system replicates the centralised and administration-styled model in managing knowledge-based work and staff. Using the metaphor of “elephant’s head, little mouse’s tail”, this section argues that in replicating a state bureaucracy, extension resources, physical, financial and human are mainly concentrated at the upper-level organisations that are responsible for state management, planning, and monitoring while maintaining weak, dependent but extended lower-level organisations as mere implementers of decisions made by the higher levels. The metaphor also connotes the cultivation of achievement disease or tokenism at the extension performance level.
Extension agents concentrate on the commencement of propaganda, projects, or programs, their outward successes and model practices, while ignoring monitoring and evaluation processes as well as service expansion to the wider rural population, who are mostly small farmers and resource-poor. Such insertion of bureaucratic structure and practice penetration on the agricultural extension system, which should be functioning as an expert professionalised organisation, has further abetted the soft, silent, and business-as-usual bureaucratisation of extension work in the Mekong Delta and elsewhere in Vietnam.
Mandates: “Top-down” versus “on-the-spot”
At the central, provincial, and district levels, extension mandates are operationalised into organisational objectives, while the role of communal and village extension workers is more related to personal performance of direct interactions with local needs. NAEC, functioning as a central extension manager and provider, carries out a wide range of tasks including proposing and promulgating of agricultural extension policies, operational mechanisms, and economic-technical norms of all levels; directing, organising, and implementing advanced technology transfer, information dissemination, training, and other extension service delivery; and engaging in international cooperation. Provincial agricultural extension centers and stations are the main planners for extension within their administrative areas, as well as direct implementers of upper-level mandated extension projects. The communal extension staff is mainly and merely the local need and extension feedback providers to the district level, due to their close and everyday contacts with local farming communities. In general, the mandates of extension of various levels, at least from as conceptualised by managers, can be described as follows:
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Table 3.3: Mandates of agricultural extension organisations at different levels
Levels Mandates
National - Is a focal point on agricultural extension in the whole country - Synthesize extension demands from extension agencies and farmers
- Provide guidelines on extension message, methods, monitoring and evaluation of
extension activities, yearly report to ministry - Directly carry out extension communication at central level and cooperate with
related organization to carry out training activities
- Organize and participate in competition festivals, workshops, exhibitions and fairs relating to extension activity in seven ecological zones
- Cooperate with other departments of science and technique to identify the advancements which relevant to audiences for extension in different periods Provincial - Propose extension project that suit the provincial conditions
- Provide extension guidelines to district level and cooperate with district to carry out extension activities
- Directly implement extension communication, trainings for district extension staff and key farmers in the province
District - Directly carry out extension activities
- Provide training courses for commune/village extension staff - Provide trainings to farmers
Commune/village - Promote farmers to participate in extension activities - Reflect farmers’ needs to higher level
- Directly implement extension activities at village level
Source: Entries from national to commune levels are taken from Nguyen Van Van (2010, 5-6)
I argue that the above-cited mandates illustrate the state management system’s way of thinking, in which the headquarters decides and local networks implement and report, or expectations of extension managers from higher levels to the lower levels, rather than reflecting the real tasks and missions of extensions as direct and indirect service providers to rural communities. It seems that the specified missions of extension workers from the district level upwards, where the managerial task is prominent, are more accurately reproduced while those who work directly and daily with farmers in the village find their missions are not fully acknowledged. Building wide and dependent local extension systems based on a centipede-foot-shaped network thinking merely demonstrates the controlling ambition of a power-centralised system. Some national-scale projects of grassroots extension capacity-building with participation of some selected provinces thus turned out to be no more than comfort taps on the vicious cycle of failure to recognise the full role of local direct extensionists, recruitment of low quality staff, low capacity and working conditions, and low extension performance. The grandiloquence of a broad local extension network might endanger the foundation of the whole extension system in its disguised and widening gap between local demand and trust and knowledge supply and capacity of local direct extensionists.
Human resources: Improvements or improved gaps
In 2010-reported data, NAEC comprises 82 staff, including 6 doctoral, 15 masters and 54 undergraduate degree holders, a fourfold increase from a 20 member staff in 2004. The Center includes nine divisions and a southern standing office. Recently, divisions of cultivation extension, animal husbandry extension, rural industry extension, forestry extension, and aquaculture extension