Challenges For Sustainable Agri & Nat Res MGT in Vietnam Uplands

Challenges on Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management in Vietnam Uplands:
A Case Study
SANREM CRSP SEA
Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program in Southeast Asia
SEAMEO SEARCA
Southeast Asian Ministers of Educational Organization (SEAMEO) Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture
PCARRD
Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development
USAID
United States Agency for International Development
Published by SEAMEO SEARCA
COPYRIGHT 2004 by SANREM CRSP SEA First Year of Publication, 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for brief annotations for a review, without permission in writing from the authors.
Cover and Book Design by Jerome P. Bonto Printed by
ISBN 971560-101-4
Table of Contents
List of Figures/Tables ................................................................... List of Case Studies ..................................................................... Foreword ..................................................................................... Acknowledgment ........................................................................ Findings .......................................................................................... Introduction ................................................................................. Research Methodology ................................................................ Driving Forces of Change at the National Level .......................... Nature of Land Use Change ....................................................... Conclusion .................................................................................. Selected Research Notes ................................................................ How to Assist Farmers in Coping with Changes in Market Prices Soil Erosion: Causes or Consequences? ...................................... Can Forestland Allocation Policy Succeed without the Participation of the Local People? ..................... Changing Agricultural and Forestry Extension Approach in the Management of Natural Resources to Address the Needs of Diversified Bio-physical and Socioeconomic Settings in the Vietnam Uplands ....................................................... Women and Rural Development .................................................. Speed Up or Go Slow Policy for Water Intervention in Bac Lieu Province, Mekong Delta .................................... References ...................................................................................... Authors Profile ............................................................................... 4 4 5 6 7 9 12 15 29 48 51 53 58 63
66 72 76 87 88
List of Figures/Tables
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Process of Land Management ............................................................... Figure 2. Coffee Production in Vietnam, 1985-1997 ...................... Figure 3. Changes in Cultivated Area of Major Crops in Dai Lao and Loc Chau Commune ............................... Genders Economic Contributions ................................................... Table 1. Area Planted with Major Crops in Dai Lao and Loc Chau Commune .................................................. Table 2. Average Monthly Income Per Capita and Percentage of Farmers by Wealth Category in Dai Lao Commune in 2001 .......................................... Table 3. Major Cropping Pattern by Villages ................................. Table 4. Costs and Returns from Shrimp versus Rice Cultivation in Winter-Spring Season .................................................. Table 5. Income Sources by Villages ............................................. Table 6. Reasons and Places of Migration .................................... Table 7. Determinant of Household Income ................................. Table 8. Self Economic Situation Evaluation by Respondents ............................................................... Table 9. Stated Reasons for Improvement in Economic Conditions ................................................... Table 10. Stated Reasons for Deterioration (percent of multiple response) ......................................... 11 19 31 74 37
39 80 80 81 82 83 84 84 85
List of Case Studies

Bao LocLarge Farm ...................................................................... Medium Farm ................................................................................. Large Farm ..................................................................................... New Migrants to the Area ............................................................... Diversified Farming ......................................................................... Tea-Mulberry Farming .................................................................... Mulberry-Black Pepper Farming ...................................................... Black Pepper-Banana-Livestock Farming ........................................ 17 20 25 35 42 43 44 47
Foreword
The Southeast Asian upland environment is undergoing a rapid transition. Deforestation and conversion of forest lands into non-sustainable agricultural areas are serious concerns among the scholars and resource managers in the region. In 1993, the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM) Collaborative Research Support Program Southeast Asia (CRSPSEA) embarked on a participatory research program aimed to address the issue of sustainable development in the uplands of the region, with the Philippines as the pilot site. SANREM is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is a collaboration between international scientists and local counterparts in universities, government, non-government organizations and local communities. The Philippine research site is the Manupali watershed within the Mt. Kitanglad, Lantapan, Bukidnon in Mindanao. The Philippine experience yielded substantial learning in innovative strategies and technologies related to promoting sustainable agriculture in the uplands. The research results featured the adherence to the principles of participation, interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration, and a landscape approach to resource and environmental issues (Coxhead and Buenavista 2001). In 1999, with the goal of adapting and transferring some lessons learned from the Manupali Watershed, Philippines to other critical watersheds in Southeast Asia, SANREM CRSP SEA embarked on examining the conditions of mainland Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, Laos and Vietnam in order to select a comparable site for replication. The search for the site ended up with Vietnam. Vietnams selection as a replicate site of SANREM in Southeast Asia is based on the fact that it is viewed as undergoing a similar land resource transformation, brought about by multitude of factors such as integration to global economy, population growth, and national and local policies. This monograph is the result of a case study using Participatory LandscapeLifescape Appraisal as a research methodology, the same methodology used in the Philippines. The case study showcases the process of land use transformation and how the integration to the global market has influenced and continues to influence land management decisions of the upland farmers. Hopefully, this book will serve as a useful reference material to students of environmental science, geography, human ecology and resource economics, as well as to colleagues in the development profession engaged in promoting sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
Arsenio M. Balisacan Director
Acknowledgment
Interaction, collaboration, as well as expertise and suggestions, involvement and commitment of all concerned made an international and interdisciplinary research project like this successful. This research has been so fortunate because dedicated individuals who have deep commitment, knowledge and experience in conducting research participated in it. Therefore, it is appropriate and necessary to recognize those who contributed to make this study successful. We would like to express our sincere appreciation and thanks to the following: To our partners in Vietnam, faculty and staff of Nong Lam University in Ho Chi Minh City: Dr. Pham Hong Duc Phouc, head of the team, and to his members namely, Dr. Dang Thanh Ha, Dr. Le Quang Thong, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tuy, Mr. Le Van Du, Dr. Phan Thi Giac Tam, Mr. Pham Trinh Hung, Mr. Huang Huu Cai, Mr. Trang Thai Huy Nhat, and Mr. Phan Trieu Giang; To the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) who facilitated the teams entry to the study area and helped in gathering related information and materials needed by the team; To the people of Dai Lao and Loc Chau village in Bao Loc Province, Vietnam who were very helpful and cooperative; To the members of the State Farm who provided maps and other information, which made data gathering easier and significant; To the management of SEARCA who were supportive of this undertaking especially to Dr. Arnulfo G. Garcia and Dr. Paulo Pasicolan, head of NRMP during the conduct of the study; To the management of SANREM CRSP SEA Regional Office in PCARRD previously headed by Dr. Rogelio Serrano and currently headed by Dr. Romulo T. Aggangan for giving their technical and financial support; To SANREM CRSP Management in the University of Wisconsin for giving their all out support technically, financially and morally, headed by Dr. Ian Coxhead, Dr. John Rowe, Dr. Gladys Buenavista and to the University of Georgia, headed by Dr. Carlos Perez. To the editors of this publication: Dr. Victoria O. Espaldon, Teodoro A. Casio, and Jennifer Lee-Bonto; To Erlinda H. Belen for editing the research notes; To USAID for giving us financial support and being considerate in our request; We are expressing our profound appreciation and sincere gratitude to all the people, agencies and institutions who helped in accomplishing and finishing this piece of work.
Findings
Introduction
Ma. Victoria O. Espaldon, Dang Thanh Ha, Pham Hong Duc Phuoc, Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, Le Van Du, Pham Trinh Hung, Le Quang Thong and Annielyn O. Magsino OVER THE PAST two decades, the Central Highlands of Vietnam have undergone rapid social, economic and environmental changes. Deforestation, high rates of migration and increasing commercialization in agricultural production have been observed in many parts of this region. These rapid changes were the result of government interventions over the past 25 years and more recently by institutional and policy reforms and changed market conditions (Kerkvliet and Porter, 1996, Thuy, 2000). At the national level, while deforestation has been a concern of government for years, policies contrary to upland development have been implemented. For instance, driven by stereotypes that cast swiddeners as the primary agents of deforestation, the governments efforts largely invested in sedentarization and fixed agriculture which started in 1968. This national program expanded to the Central Highlands after the countrys reunification in 1975. Another main government agenda for the area casts the uplands as a frontier for economic development, treated like a sleeping princess to be awakened. Interventions in this direction include the establishment of New Economic Zones, state farms and forest enterprises, and a program for long-term population redistribution through a mass organized migration to the Central Highlands (Thuy 2000). In the 1970s and 1980s, people were sent here from densely populated provinces in the countrys northern and central coastal provinces (Giang et al., 2001). With a series of institutional and policy reforms implemented since the early 80s, Vietnam deviated from a centrally planned economy towards a state-regulated, market-oriented economy. The main focus of production in the agricultural sector shifted from cooperatives and state farms to individuals. The household became the basic unit of agricultural production and was free to decide on the kind and amount of crops to grow based on market signals. Through such policy reforms, the country achieved a dramatic increase in agricultural output, particularly in rice production, and higher diversification in agricultural production. The agricultural sector slowly shifted from monocrop, self-sufficient production to a more commercialized orientation. Dramatic land use changes in the upland areas have occurred during the transition period towards a market-oriented economy, particularly with the promotion of upland cash crop production. The influx of migrants was repeated after the advent of Doi Moi (Renovation) in the late 1980s, when a flow of
spontaneous migrants arrived, seeking new economic opportunities in various natural resource-based businesses. Motivated by the high market price of coffee at the start of the 1990s, not only landless farmers but also better-off people flocked to Dak Lak, Lam Dong and other provinces in the Central Highland seeking lands to develop into commercial farming. Commercial cash crop production, especially of coffee, expanded rapidly in the Central Highlands. The rapid expansion in coffee production has made coffee one of the countrys major export crops. The rapid changes in the landscape and lifescape 1 including the degradation of the natural resources, has raised serious concerns among different sectors in Vietnamese societythe farmers organizations, local governments, resource managers and policy makers. In many areas, agricultural growth is commonly associated with deforestation, soil depletion, degraded watershed function and floods. The rapid and uncontrolled expansion of coffee in Dak Lak province, for example, makes water a scare resource (Ha, 2001). In recent years, natural resource management has become a central theme in planning for agricultural sustainability. This is due to a history of agricultural decisions that: (1) were based on short-term market feasibility which dominated the economic landscape; (2) failed to consider long-term consequences on the natural resource base; and (3) failed to consider flirtatious market conditions. These have been foreseen to generate negative impacts on the small farmers livelihood. Achieving economic growth without excessive environmental degradation remains a major challenge for upland communities in Vietnam. This report aims to provide empirical evidence on the complex interplay of changes in policy, specifically land tenure and market conditions, in areas still in agricultural transition based on a case study of a commune in Lam Dong province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Specifically, it traces institutional reforms such as change in policies and market conditions and examines how these institutional changes influence the way farmers use and manage their resources. It also analyzes the impacts of these changes on the livelihood systems among members of the local community. The study is guided by a conceptual framework on the driving forces of land use and management decisions and their respective outcomes, both on the state of the environment and the welfare of the farming communities (Figure 1).
1
Lifescape refers to the way people live on different agroecological zones.
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Challenges for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management in Vietnam Uplands
SEAMEO Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA)

Driving Forces
Policies Market Biophysical Population
New economic zone/ Prices state farm Market Reallocation policy access Agricultural program Facilities Regreening/ reforestation program Rainfall Migration Soil types and Natural characteristics population Biological growth Characteristics Forest Resources
Land Management Decision

Farmers Community groups State farm People committee
Outcomes
Environmental quality Socio-economic aspects Institutions
Forest cover Soil quality Water resource Resource degradation Employment and income Type of cropping systems Agricultural production Reversal of role of institution Social organization
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Process of Land Management.
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Research
Methodology
THE RESEARCH TEAM used the Participatory Landscape-Lifescape Appraisal (PLLA) as method for the studies. PLLA is a rapid, iterative and system-oriented approach to understand agroecological and socioeconomic conditions prevailing in the area (Espaldon and Magsino, 2001). In this research, PLLA was utilized as a research method to examine the factors and forces that influence and drive land management decisions and land use changes in selected study area. The study area is Dai Lao Village in the District of Bao Loc located in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It was selected because it represents a community in transition both in terms of the biophysical aspects as well as in terms of its socioeconomic context. Dai Lai Village is an example of a community that is undergoing rapid changes as a result of a multitude of factors. It is traditionally, a tea-growing area that has gradually been cultivating more and more coffee as a response to the changing market characteristics. Recently, as coffee declines its profitability, Dai Lao portrays a village that is adapting to the new condition.
Location of the Study Area
The PLLA team employed a combination of techniques to generate the needed information. Instead of a structured survey, a checklist of information is drawn and collected from the study area based on the conceptual framework and the hypotheses, a combination of oral history that reconstructs historical events, use of secondary data, key informants interviews, farmers profiling, maps and map analysis, and focus group discussions. To conduct data collection in the field, the interdisciplinary PLLA team was divided into two smaller groups, each one retaining the interdisciplinary nature of the PLLA team.

RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL EVENTS. The history of the area was traced by reviewing related reports from the district office and University of Agriculture and Forestry (UAF) research reports. Interviews with Peoples Committee officials and group discussions with older farmers who vividly remember the development of the village were also done.
1. 2.
Pictures, clockwise from top: (1) The team confers with the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development District Officer; (2) The team discusses with a supervisor of the State Enterprise; (3) Discussion with the Peoples Committee Official.
3.
SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS.
Statistics on agricultural production and land use allocation over time were collected from the district office. The district office provided records on major crops such as coffee, tea and mulberry and also the agricultural plan for the area, including irrigation development.
KEY INFORMANTS INTERVIEWS AND FARM PROFILING. Selected farmers based on tenure, land holding and crops grown were interviewed by the PLLA team. A total of 12 farmers were interviewed for farm profiles. MAPS AND MAP ANALYSIS. Maps available at the District Office and
at the Mulberry State Farm were collected. Based on these, the current
1. 2.
(1.) The research team discusses with a farmer; (2.) Coffee farming on forest land.
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land use allocation was estimated during the field visits.

FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSIONS. Meetings with farmers were organized
to be able to generate an overview of farming systems among upland Vietnamese farmers, get a brief history of the area, and discuss major issues and constraints that they have experienced. During the focus group discussions, the information given by farmers during household interviews were also validated.
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Driving Forces of Change at the National Level

CHANGES IN POLICIES and market conditions are the major factors explaining the rapid changes in the upland areas of Vietnam. Since 1975, massive transformations have occurred in the countrys Central Highlands. After reunification, Vietnams upland region was seen as a frontier for economic development. Government interventions included the establishment of New Economic Zones, state farms and forest enterprises, and a program for long-term population redistribution through a mass organized migration to the Central Highlands. Together with the establishment of state farm and forest enterprises, a collectivization process was also implemented. Large areas of forest and barren lands were allocated for state farms and forest enterprises. In the 70s and 80s, people were sent there from densely populated provinces in the northern and central coastal provinces. As a result, the upland areas underwent remarkable socioeconomic and environmental transformations. The population increased and the social structure changed rapidly. Large forest areas were replaced by the expansion of agricultural areas for food subsistence then cash crop production. The traditional management systems for forest, land and water resources were replaced by subsidiary state-run agricultural farms and forest enterprises. Agencies that were not well motivated to enforce formal regulations were tapped to prevent an open access situation. Land use change and forest depletion in Vietnams upland ecosystems occurred at an alarming rate (Trinh Truong Giang et al., 2001). Since the early 80s, when the country shifted from a centrally planned to a state regulated market-oriented economy, a series of institutional and policy reforms have been adopted. Key elements of the reform program include sound macroeconomic management combined with dramatic reforms in the agricultural sector. They also include the first steps towards integration into the international economy, towards making the state enterprise sector more viable, and towards having a sustainable banking and financial system. Agricultural production shifted from cooperatives and state farms to individual farmers. Major institutional changes in the agricultural sector included first, the contract system (Directive No. 100) in 1981. Under this system, lands initially allocated by the state to cooperatives were re-allocated
to individual households for family farming. Households were supplied with most of the farm inputs from cooperatives and were obligated to submit output quotas. The shift away from a cooperative-managed land system to a householdmanaged system was continued with the implementation of Resolution 10 in 1988 and through decollectivization of agriculture after 1988 and a shift to the market pricing system. The key features of the decollectivization policies are: Recognition of the farm household as the main unit of agricultural production. From this point of view, government implemented land use policies, credit policies and agricultural extension policies that encouraged farming households to intensify and expand agricultural production for increased food production; Liberalization of farm decision making with respect to purchase of inputs and sale of outputs. This was done by lifting barriers to food transport and distribution and by promoting multi-sectoral institutions to take part in the free trade of food products; Privatization of land use rights. With the policy reform in 1988, the tenure right of each household to an allotted land plot was secured for a long term of 15 years. Farm management was decided by the household subject to land use tax. The process was similar in many state farms but occurred some time later. The agricultural sector experienced a rapid institutional transformation from 1989 to 1993 leading to higher economic efficiency. A decisive finale in the process of policy reform was the 1993 Land Law allowing five rights in agricultural land: the right to be leased, transferred, exchanged, inherited and used as collateral. Households were secured with long-term land use-right certificates for a period of 20 years for annual crop land and 50 years for perennial crop land. A large area of forest land was allocated to individual households for production, reforestation, and forest protection. With the policy reform, the household has become the basic unit of agricultural production. Households, not leaders of collectives or state farms, are now the principal units for deciding what and how much crop to grow based on market signals. Markets have become the primary means for determining prices for farming inputs and outputs. With policy reforms, the country has achieved a dramatic increase in agricultural output, particularly in rice production and higher diversification in agricultural production. A market integration process has occurred in both the countrys lowland and upland areas. The agricultural sector slowly shifted from being monocrop, self-sufficient production oriented to more commercialized production. The institutional and policy changes have brought the country to the third then
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Case Study: Bao LocLarge Farm

Name Age : Tran Hoai On : (53 years Old), 1977 1.5 has, 3 children, lived in the farm since Oct. 1977, former army soldier Location : Dai Lao State Farm Family size : 5
History of the farm:

A farmer army soldier from Hoi Duc, Hanoi, Mr. Hoai On started farming in 1977. His family has a small land there. But after the war, he decided to go to Dai Lao. He knew the place because during the war, Dai Lao was where the Vietnamese army went in 1974. This area was their food bowl. He found that the land was fertile. Lands for farming in Dai Lao were acquired either through state farms or by opening up new lands for permanent cultivation. He started farming in 1977 with a farm area of 1.66 ha, 0.4 ha of which was planted with mulberry. The land was allocated by the state farm and contracted for growing mulberry. But in 1995, the price of mulberry dropped so he stopped growing it and returned this land to the state farm. He then opened another land for cultivation, which was originally a fallow area with some minorities inhabiting the place from time to time. He was allowed by the government in 1984 to cultivate 0.4 ha to coffee, tea and vegetables. The new land which was lying on the foot of the hill, was relatively flat and had low risk of soil erosion. In 1986, he bought another 0.4 ha on a steep slope and planted it with tea. In 1987, he opened another piece of land under a secondary forest covered mostly with grasses planted with coffee. Between 1988 and 1989, he bought about 0.4 ha of mulberry and then replaced it with fruit trees. This piece of property lies on a relatively flat area and was near water sources. In 1990, he acquired another 0.26 ha, developed a fishpond and planted mulberry in other parts. The topography of this piece of land is flat so he does not practice soil erosion prevention measures.
CharacteristicsoftheFarmandFarmHousehold
The household is composed of five members, three of whom are effective laborers. Some plots have the red book while others are still being processed. A red book is a record of legitimate ownership of the property.The main sources of income are from tea, coffee, fish, pig, mulberry, poultry and pension from being a retired army officer.
T grossincomeperyear: otal
Tea: 6 mill Mulberry: 0 Coffee: 2 mill Pig: 35.2 mill (2 rotation, each 1600 kg, price: 11 000D/kg) Poultry: 4.4 mill (4 times, each 50 kg/time; 22000D/kg) Salary (retired) : 6.24 mill (260000D/person/month* 2 persons) Conversion rate: 1 USD14000 VND
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Total income: 54.84 mill

Tea: 11 percent Pig: 64 percent Coffee: 4 percent Poultry: 8 percent Fish: 1 percent (also for home consumption) Salary: 11 percent
AccesstoAgriculturalServices
Most of his cultivation techniques were learned while he was working at the state farm. He did not receive any training from extension workers. Access to credit is difficult and his money is not enough to further invest on the farm. He could not get enough loans for further investment. He does not have a red book and one could not get loans from banks without it. He used his house as collateral for borrowing money to invest on his farm. He does not practice any soil erosion prevention measures because his farms are located on flat areas. However, he practiced diversity in farming and is engaged in other livelihood activities. He uses less fertilizers on coffee and tea due to lack of cash. He plans to grow good varieties of mulberry but lacks investment. He does not borrow from banks because he is afraid of not being able to pay back the loan.
second place among rice exporting countries. Together with rice, the production of perennial crops (industrial crops) such as rubber, coffee, tea, mulberries and other crops as important sources of export earning has expanded rapidly.
However, the path to sustainable upland development has been challenging. The influx of migrants was repeated after the advent of Doi Moi (Renovation) in the late 1980s, when a flow of spontaneous migrants arrived seeking new economic opportunities in various natural resourcebased businesses. Motivated by the high market price of coffee at the start of the 1990s, not only landless farmers but also better-off people came to Dak Lak, Lam Dong, and other provinces in the Central Highlands seeking land for commercial farming. Thus, commercial cash crop production, especially coffee, expanded rapidly.
The population pressure created by both planned and spontaneous immigration has played a major role in transforming the physical and socioeconomic landscape of the uplands. Land use change dramatically started. The policy of transition towards a market-oriented economy was promoted and cash crop production was encouraged. The rapid expansion in coffee production has made coffee one of the countrys major export crops. In 1999, coffee green bean production rose to 439,000 tons, the highest since 1990. The increase in the price of coffee, particularly in 1994, has encouraged small farmers to plant more coffee in larger areas (Figure 2). This trend was well reflected in the Central Highlands, especially in Dak Lak province where basaltic soil and favorable climate provided an ideal site for coffee. Ten years ago, this area was still covered by tropical forests.
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50000 Production (ton) 40000 30000 20000 10000 0 1985 1987 1989 1992 1993 1996 1997 Area (ha)
Figure 2. Coffee Production in Vietnam,1985-1997

Economic reforms in 1986 and the opening of new markets for cash crops since 1993 provided incentives for investments in coffee plantations. Monoculture coffee planting has been the most widespread (Thanh Ha, 2000). Spontaneous migrations of farmers from the northern and central coast provinces in the 1990s have increased the pressures on forest lands. The rapid expansion of areas planted to coffee due to high coffee prices in the last few years has undoubtedly created ecological and socio-economic impacts. (Cai and Ha, 2001-Tam dao). In Lam Dong province, a large forest area has been converted for mulberries, tea and coffee. The shift from mulberries and tea to coffee has also been observed. Concerns have been raised as to the economic as well as environmental risks associated with this behavior. In many areas, growth is accompanied by excessive deforestation, soil quality depletion and degraded watershed function. The rapid and uncontrolled expansion of coffee over a large area in Dak Lak province, for example makes water resources scarce. There is a real concern regarding the sustainability of natural resources in the Central Highlands of Vietnam (Ha, 2001) because of a history of agricultural decisions based on short-term market feasibility that dominated the economic landscape, the failure to consider long-term consequences on the natural resource base and flirtatious market conditions. These have been foreseen to generate negative impacts on the livelihood of the small farmers. The rapid changes in the landscape, lifescape and the associated degradation of the natural resource and the environment in the upland areas created a concern for people and policy makers regarding sustainable development. Natural resource management has become a central theme in planning for agricultural sustainability in the recent years. The official goals of Vietnamese agricultural policy as stated in the Agricultural and Food Production Sector Review (1998) include:
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Case Study: Medium Farm

Name of the farmer Age Education status Location Family size : : : : : Mrs. Nguyen Thi Tinh 43 class 12/12 Dai Lao village, Bao Loc district. 6
HistoryoftheFarm
MRS. TINH COMES from Northern Vietnam. After her service in the army, she and her husband decided to stay in Bao Loc because the area is large and they could get land for cultivation easier than in the crowded places of North Vietnam. In 1983, they were working at the state farm as plantation workers. The state farm allocated 0.8 ha in 1983. They were to grow mulberry and raise silkworm. The area they got had mulberry planted on it. Her family also opened one hectare and planted it with mulberry until 1996. In 1996, the state farm stopped operating and sold the land to the workers. Her family decided to give up the allocated land because they did not have enough labor. Instead, they concentrated on the one hectare they owned. Her land is located on a relatively flat area on a hillside. This area was previously forested and it was her family who cleared and opened up that portion. In 1985, her family grew 0.3 ha of tea and another 0.2 ha of coffee. In 1987, the price of coffee fell very low. Her family decided to cut down the coffee trees and then replaced it with tea. The other 0.4 ha was still planted with mulberry. But in 1993, due to a drop in mulberry price and increase in coffee price, she cut down the mulberry trees to plant 0.4 ha of coffee. However, in the close of 1999, the price of coffee once again declined. From that time on, her family decreased its investments on coffee. They observed that the price of mulberry was increasing but they couldnt decide to shift back to mulberry from coffee because of high investment requirements of the crop.
They are six in the family. Two of them worked in the farm, her husband and herself. Her familys land use certification is still being processed. The main source of income is the farm where they grow crops as well as raise livestock. They grow tea, mulberry, fruit trees like durian, and coffee. They also raise pigs and cattle. From tea, they regularly earn 780,000 VND, and 19 million VND from coffee. From raising pigs, they earn up to 6.4 million VND per year. They raise fish for home consumption only.
Farmincome
Pig: 3 rotation/year* 2-4 pigs Cattle: 4 cow, gives birth of 5 cattle/year Animal production for income; manure used for coffee, fruit trees. Other crop: tea that mostly uses chemical fertilizer
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a. achieving food self-sufficiency; b. generating foreign exchange earnings from exports of agricultural products; c. providing a leading role for cooperatives and state farms; d. providing an acceptable level of rural income while maintaining urban consumption levels; and, e. protecting the environment.
Income:
Tea: 50kg/sao* 3 times /month*4 sao * 1300 D/kg Coffee: 1 ton* 19000D/kg ( 1999) Pig: 16 con * 11000D/kg* 80kh/con Bo: 6.4 mill/year Fish: for home consumption and for pig Poultry for family consumption Fruit trees: 9 trees (14 years old) with a harvest of 2 tones per year * 7000VND/ kg (Durian) Her current problems related to agricultural activities are the following: - Certification of land use right (red book) is not yet complete - Lack of technical knowledge - Lack of credit - Low price of coffee. Although she is a member of the Vietnamese Womens Association, she receives no training from extension workers because they lived in a remote area, far from the village centers. Her technical knowledge on mulberry cultivation was provided by the state farm where they first got employed. Knowledge on cultivation of other crops is drawn from her own experience and learning from other farmers. She does not employ soil conservation measures since her area is relatively flat. As to credit, she has reservations regarding application to on applying to credit facilities because of the high interest rates. She fears that she might not be able to pay interest. She does not have a problem on soil erosion and degradation of soil fertility. Her main concern is water scarcity.
Driving Force at the Local Level

At the local level as in the case of Dai Lao of Lam Dong province, a similar process occurred. After the countrys reunification in 1975, this area was mainly covered with forest and very sparsely populated. Following a government program for economic development in the Central Highlands, a state farm named Dai Lao State Farm was established in this area in 1977 with the objective of producing food, mainly rice, maize, cassava and other food crops for food self-sufficiency. The state farm was under the management of the provincial people committee and was allotted 263 hectares of land, mostly secondary forests for agricultural development. Agricultural production was mainly concentrated on the flatland with water availability for rice cultivation. At the beginning, the personnel of this state farm included 300 persons of the youth volunteers brigade.
Policy for Mulberry Development

The biophysical and climate conditions in Lam Dong province, especially in areas around Bao Loc, were considered by decision makers to be favorable for the cultivation of mulberries. A program for the sericulture industry in
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Lam Dong province was developed with the establishment of a sericulture station in Bao Loc in the year 1980. The Dai Lao State Farm was renamed Brau Sri State Farm in 1980 and was allotted a total area of 700 hectares of forest land for mulberry cultivation. At the same time, another state farm specializing in mulberries was also established in this commune. Both belonged to the sericulture station of Bao Loc. Together with the establishment of state farms specializing in sericulture production, people were encouraged to move to this area for the development of a new economic zone. In response to this, a large number of youth volunteers and families from the crowded northern provinces came to this area to clear the forest and establish new villages. As in the case of the Brau Sri State Farm, 70 families from northern provinces such as Thai Binh, Ha Tay, and Nghe Tinh were organized to migrate to this state farm in 1980. The number of farm workers reached 650 persons in 1981. The second planned immigration of households from the northern provinces occurred in 1984 with 300 additional laborers. From 1985 to 1987, another 300 new workers arrived at the state farm.
Shift from State Farm to Individual Management System

The operation of the state farm was mainly based on plans set up by its higher management agents in the government. During the period from 1980 to 1985, this state farm operated as a unit of the General Mulberry and Silk Company. It was later transferred to the National Sericulture Company based in Bao Loc. The financial management of the state farm is mainly based on a bookkeeping system. Laborers of the state farm worked according to the plan of the state farm and received a monthly salary. Due to the inefficiency of its operation based on the monthly salary
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payment to workers, the state farm started implementing a payment system based on actual output of farm operations for some of its workers in 1985. This payment system was fully applied to all workers in 1987. The state farm received subsidies from the government but operated inefficiently. It was reorganized several times through merging with other state farms but after operating for some years without improvement, it was split again. The state farms main task was to specialize in mulberry cultivation and raise silkworm for providing silk cocoon to the silk industry located in Bao Loc. According to the plan, all land areas to this state farm should be cultivated with mulberries. However not all land in the state farm was suitable for the purpose. Besides working on land opened by the state farm for mulberry cultivation, farm workers were also allowed to use forest land for agricultural production. They were not required to grow mulberries and allowed to grow other crops such as tea or coffee. This land was only subject to a land use tax. Until 2000, the total area under the management of this state farm officially covered over 2000 hectares. However actual land area managed by the state farm was only about 102 hectares. The remaining land areas were under cultivation of individual households, mainly of the farm workers family and later by other incoming people. Due to poor management and inefficient operation, the state farm had to implement a policy of selling the mulberry plantation to its workers in 1993. However, none of the workers were willing to buy the plantation because the income from cultivating mulberries was low. The mulberry plantations were not well managed and have died gradually. The contract system was applied relatively late in this state farm as compared with cooperatives and state farms in other areas of the country. In 1994 and 1995, the state farm shifted to the contract system wherein the state farm provided substantial credit to its workers in the form of fertilizer and credit for constructing houses for raising silkworms. Farm workers were obligated to cultivate mulberries and raise silkworms on the land allotted to them by the state farm. They also had to pay credit, land tax, administrative costs at fixed level and output quotas based on average yield level. However, most of the workers did not grow mulberries as contracted because of the low price of silk cocoon. Instead, these shifted to other profitable crops such as tea or coffee. The shift of land tenure from the state farm to individual land use right occurred later. The contract system later changed to a form by which workers themselves decided on the crops to grow and the inputs to be used. In exchange, they were obligated to pay land taxes to the state farm. Farm
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workers have also been provided land use right certifications as long as they fulfill all obligations to the state farm such as repay loans or credits inputs that were provided by the state farm before. The years 1994 and 1995 were periods of poor performance for the sericulture industry. Prices for silk cocoon were extremely low and failed to attract farmers to cultivate mulberries. While the price of coffee or tea was very attractive, this encouraged farmers to shift from growing mulberries to coffee or tea. With a low price of cocoon in the period from 1993 to 1995, the state farm was operating inefficiently and could not buy products from workers even at a very low price. A large number of workers have left the state farm to work on their own land plot. In 2001, there were 1400 households with 5000 individuals living in the area previously allocated to the state farm. With the shift to the individual management system, 100 percent of the land previously belonging to the state farm was allocated to individual farmers. Currently, the operation of the state farm is concentrated mainly on providing technical services to support sericulture production of individual households and to collect land tax. The number of personnel of this state farm was reduced to only 17 in 2001. These people who mainly perform administrative functions.
Forest Resource as Open Access Resource

The large areas of forest and barren land were allocated for the state farm and for the forest enterprise of Bao Loc. However, due to their limited management capability, these areas have become an open access resource for spontaneous migrants. The unplanned or illegal expansion of agriculture into forest land accelerated with better market access at the start of the open door economy. Starting in 1987, a large number of spontaneous migrants came to this area seeking land to develop for the commercial farming of coffee or tea. At the beginning, people came to this area for harvesting rattan for export. When there was no more rattan to harvest from the forests, they opened up the forest land for agriculture cultivation. The highest number of spontaneous migrants arrived in this area from 1987 to 1993. Many people came to this area to illegally mine precious stones, or stayed and opened up land for agriculture. After 1995, spontaneous migrants still arrived but the number has been reduced because not much new land was available or open for agriculture. It was reported that about 10 percent of the population lived here before, 20 percent arrived after 1975 as planned migration for providing workers to the state farm and about 70 percent of the population arrived in this area as spontaneous migrants after 1987.
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Changes in Market Conditions

Free markets coexisted with the central planning system in this area before 1989, their role in resource allocation was, however, not only discouraged but also limited. Since 1989 market forces have determined the prices of commodities. Based on these prices, farmers make decisions on the level of inputs used and outputs to be produced. With better access to the market, commercial crop production accelerated. The market has clearly opened new opportunities for farmers to turn to more profitable crops.
Case Study: Large Farm

Name of the farmer Age Education status Location Family size : : : : : Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa 42 class 12/12 Dai Lao village, Bao Loc district. 7
HistoryoftheFarm
MR. HOAS FAMILY comes from the district of Bao Loc. He went to Ho Chi Minh City for his college education. After graduation, he ran a small private brewery plant making local beer but found that he could not compete in this business. He then decided to return to Bao Loc district to invest in agricultural production. In 1997, he bought two hectares in the district of Bao Loc. One hectare was planted with tea while one hectare was still uncultivated. In 1998, he developed an agro-forestry project and applied for the regreening program allocated for Bao Loc. He was able to get 23 hectares of bare land with land use rights for 50 years. Of the 23 hectares under the program, one hectare was already planted with tea while the rest were uncultivated. The land allotted to him Coffee dominates Mr. Hoas farm. was sloping. Slopes ranged from 5-40 degrees with high risk of soil erosion. To date, he has a total of 25 hectares of land under cultivation. Mr. Hoa believes that one should have enough capital and labor to develop the land. That was one condition for one to get land for cultivation under the program. Another condition was that the land should be grown with 40 percent agricultural crops and 60 percent forest trees. As an incentive, the holders of the land under the re-greening program need not pay taxes for 5-7 years.
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The household has seven members mostly of schooling age. To develop and maintain the farm, Mr. Hoa hires permanent workers. He also hires additional labor especially during the harvest season and during the peak seasons. The family has no other source of income but farming. He planted his area with tea, coffee and cinnamon. The gross income from tea per month per hectare amounts to about 2 million VND/month with a net income of 8 million VND per hectare per year. During his first harvest in year 2000, he earned about 15 million VND from his 3-ha coffee farm. Other areas are still under cultivation. Tea is harvested every ten days with an average yield of 1 ton/month of fresh tea leaves with a price of 2000VND/kg. This yields a gross revenue of 2 million VND/month from tea or 24 million VND/year. The average cost of production is 6 million VND per hectare gaining a net income of 8 million VND/ha/year. Coffee yield on the first harvest was 1.5 tons/ha. The prevailing price during that time was 13000VND/kg (motica species) dry coffee beans. His gross revenue was 19.5 million VND/ha. The average cost per hectare was 14 million VND gaining, therefore, a net income of five million VND/ha of coffee. This earned a total net income of 23 million VND/year. He expects that his income will increase in the future when other coffee trees bear beans. The cinnamon is not yet harvested. His expects to harvest in ten years. He also planted 0.3 ha of blackpepper. He kept the area cultivated with tea. He has no plans to expand it. Although tea requires low input, it requires a lot of labor. While the price of tea is low, he recognizes the fact that tea provides stable income. His preference for coffee is high because when he first planted coffee, its price was still high. Coffee brings higher income than tea but requires higher investments. Cinnamon was selected as a forest crop to comply with the requirement that 60 percent of the land should be planted with forest trees. Planting trees like cinammon which brings economic returns to the household is an apparent preference of farmers as against planting just ordinary forest trees. Black pepper was planted in 1999 because of the high price of dried black pepper. The price of black pepper is 70000 VND/kg while coffee is sold only at 12000VND/kg of dry beans. He did not grow mulberry because during the time when he started operating his farm, mulberry production was not profitable. Price was very low and there was no market for mulberry and silk products. Even the state farms that cultivated mulberry faced losses and stopped growing mulberry altogether. Other farmers also shifted from mulberry to either tea or coffee. The current problem that he faces in the development of his farm is the lack of credit facilities that could help him invest further. He did not have the Certification of Land Use Right or the red book. Without the red book, he could not get loans from banks for investment. To access loans, he had to use his house as collateral for borrowing. Another problem he had to face was the high risk of soil erosion of his lands. Because his lands were located in hilly to
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steep slopes, he had to be very careful in his cultivation. Poor farm-to-market roads were another difficulty to make his farm activities profitable. The last problem and most serious is the low price of coffee.
Generally, Mr Hao had no training from extension workers. He learned cultivation techniques from reading books and technical materials.
FarmersPerception
The most critical environmental problem related to agricultural activities that Mr. Hao perceives is soil erosion. Other problems included water scarcity, pest and pesticide use. He mentioned that the water that he used for coffee was mostly from rainfall although he was able to tap water from a spring in the upper part of his landholding. Water from the spring is brought to the land by gravity using plastic pipes and hose. Planting cinnamon with mungbean and other nitrogen fixing crops is considered a measure taken against soil erosion. He also showed that coffee and other trees planted on contour lines reduce soil erosion. In the future he intends to raise animals to improve soil fertility.
ConclusionsFromtheCaseStudy:
Mr. Hoa who is educated and has a good grasp of technical knowledge chooses his crops according to its profitability. His awareness in soil erosion risks drives him to take measures in controlling it. He invests money on employing soil conservation measures like hedgerow and planting nitrogen fixing trees.
The improved infrastructure and market condition through lifting of market barriers have made the supply of cheap rice from the Mekong Delta available to the local farmer, encouraging them to specialize in perennial industrial crops like tea, coffee, and mulberries that have comparative advantage in this upland area. The fluctuation of market prices is also a driving force for changes in cropping patterns. A rise in coffee prices and a fall in mulberries lead to a shift from mulberries to coffee. In the case of coffee price fluctuation in the recent year, the government has not had the necessary economic instrument to secure the benefit of coffee producers when coffee prices fall. This situation has a negative impact on coffee growers. Poor farmers reduce or even stop investing in coffee. Many tend to shift to other crops if the price of coffee is still at this low level. The policy for encouraging investments in agriculture and the processing industry also contributed to the growth in this area. Tea is another example aside from mulberries as shown in the past years.
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Tea is a crop developed in this area even before coffee and mulberry. Tea was introduced to Lam Dong province about 70 years ago. In 1927, it was brought to Dalat and then has been spread widely in the area around Bao Loc and Di Linh. Tea was already cultivated on wide areas of the province prior to the period of policy reform. The tea production and processing industry has also been affected by the policy of encouraging cash crop production and the export policy. With the governments renovation policy from 1995 to 1999, the tea industry in Bao Loc developed rapidly with the establishment of numerous private tea processing plants or tea companies and large tea farms. There were also some changes in the market of tea from Lam Dong province. Some traditional markets such as those in the counties belonging to the former Eastern Block and the former Soviet Union have shrunk while new markets were established in Central East Asia, Northern European countries, the US, France and Japan. The policies that encourage multi-sector economic development, the law for foreign investment, and the law for encouraging domestic investment have created an encouraging environment for new investors to open their businesses in tea production and processing industry in Lam Dong province. Currently, the tea processing industry in Bao Loc can absorb all fresh tea leaves harvested in this area, making tea prices relatively stable. Aside from five factories and two processing plants of the Tea Company of Lam Dong province, there are 98 private enterprises involved in tea processing in and around Bao Loc town. Until now, there is usually no contract between farmers (tea producers) and the tea processing plants for the direct supply of materials (tea leaves). The fresh tea leaves supplied to the processing plants come mostly from private traders who buy tea from local farmers. The quality is not only varied from farmer to farmer but has also been reduced due to the long duration from harvesting to processing. The price received by farmers has also been under control of private traders. Farmers, especially those in the remote areas, usually get low prices.
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Nature of Land Use Change

Changes in Forest Resources
BEFORE 1975, THE area of the Dai Lao commune was sparsely populated due to distance and poor transportation caused by the war. The areas main vegetation cover was rainforest, including secondary forest, bamboo forest and bushes. Forest land covered about 85 percent of the communes total land area. Agricultural activities were limited in the valley that was suitable for the cultivation of rice and other food crops such as maize and cassava. Although tea was a traditional crop in the province, tea plantations were mainly concentrated in the areas around Bao Loc. However, few tea plantations were developed in this commune. The landscape started to transform largely when the state farm for developing sericulture and a program to redistribute population were established. The population redistribution is a long-term program done through a mass organized migration from the crowded northern provinces. Many youth volunteers came to clear the forest and establish their new home in this upland commune. At first, forests were cleared for growing mulberry and raising silk cocoon to supply raw materials to the silk industry. The state farm allowed farmers and their families to open forest lands for them to cultivate. However, the state farm could not control all land areas allotted to it. The opening of forest lands for agricultural production of the state farm and the allocation of land to households was also done without clear land use planning and control. Even the planting of mulberries was done without considering soil conditions and suitable varieties. At the beginning, mulberry varieties were brought from the northern provinces without considering the areas soil and climatic conditions. Due to problems of high diseases, attached pests and low yield, the state farm was forced to look for other mulberry varieties more suitable to the conditions in this area.
With the increasing agricultural activities of the state farm from 1980 to 1984, the forest area was reduced rapidly from 85 percent of the total land area to just above 45 percent. The state farm continued to expand its agricultural land within its allotted land area until 1987, with a deforestation rate of about 5 percent per annum. Hills covered by forests that were far from water sources were opened for growing mulberries. Both the state farm and families of its workers participated in the process. From 1988 to 1990, the state farm opened a limited forest area near water sources for mulberry cultivation.
The poor resource management of the state farms and forest enterprises in the area have made the forest into an open access resource. Under this condition, the expansion of domestic and international markets, particularly the price boom
of coffee, has led to large spontaneous migration and unplanned land clearing for agriculture, often in fragile upland areas of this commune. The number of spontaneous migrants increased rapidly with the shift to a market economy. Spontaneous migrants started arriving in 1987, first for harvesting forest products like rattan, wood, and fire wood and then later for opening land for commercial farming, mainly of coffee and tea. The highest rate of deforestation by spontaneous migrants occurred from 1989 to 1992. Until 1995, most of the forest land suitable for agriculture were cleared and cultivated. In 2000, the forests dwindled to less than 15 percent of the total land area in this commune, mainly as poor quality forests located on the top of the mountain or on very sloping and rocky hills not suitable for agricultural cultivation. The situation in this commune showed that small land holders are not the only stakeholders causing rapid changes in land use and vegetation cover, and creating an environmental impact. Large-scale agribusiness operations such as state farms, forest enterprises and cooperatives have also rapidly transformed large area of forests into monoculture mulberry, tea, or coffee plantations in this commune as well as in other areas in Lam Dong Province. The process, however, differs from large-scale state farms to small farms. While the operations of large-scale state farms are subsidized and planned, operating according to government programs, small farms are spontaneous and market driven.
Changes in the Production Area of Major Agricultural Crops

The institutional and market driving forces have not only led to rapid deforestation due to the expansion of agriculture, but have also affected the areas cropping pattern. The changes in agricultural policies and market conditions characterized by gradual decentralization and integration into the global economy have influenced the way local farmers use and manage their farms. The expansion of tea, coffee and mulberry plantations illustrate this transformation well. The rapid changes in the areas cropping pattern and a response to the external global market are both internally driven. Factors like bio-physical characteristics of the cultivated land, socio-economic characteristics of the farm, access to credit, experiences in crop cultivation, infrastructure and market conditions have significantly influenced the farmers crop choices. From 1980 to 2000, the total area for major crops increased by 7.6 times (i.e., from 733 hectares in 1980 to 5584 hectares in 2000). Both coffee and tea have the highest area expansion. The area planted to mulberry increased much lower than the other two crops, with the total area peak of 240 ha in 1995 before it decreased due to the low price of mulberry. Mulberry cultivation
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was mainly a result of the mulberry development program implemented in this area. The Dai Lao state farm, for example, was assigned to grow mulberry on all lands belonging to it, a target it could never achieve. Even when mulberry production was receiving strong support from the government in the form of subsidies and financial support, the area planted to mulberry increased slowly. At its highest growth, the area planted to mulberry occupied only a small proportion of the total cultivated land area in this commune mainly due to bio-physical constraints. With the high price of mulberry from 1989 to 1991, the state farm tried to expand the area for mulberries to cover the communes hilly area. Unfortunately, hills are bio-physically inappropriate for the cultivation of mulberry, resulting in high soil erosion and a rapid decrease of soil fertility. The high level of soil degradation forced the state farm to stop cultivating mulberries on these lands. Later, when individual households managed the lands, they shifted to tea or coffee, as these crops caused much lower soil erosion than mulberries. The largest area planted to mulberries in this state farm was achieved from 1990-1992, measuring around 160 hectares. Reports say that currently, there are only about 102 hectares of land located within the boundary of this state farm suitable for mulberry. The actual area of mulberry monoculture was only 20 hectares in the year 2000 while 10 hectares were allotted for intercropping with other crops. As estimated by the state farms board of directors, the area planted with mulberry can increase to 50 hectares if the price of silk cocoon remains at a favorable level as the current price. Tea and coffee are the two major crops in this area occupying the largest cultivated land but receiving much less support from local authorities as compared to mulberries. Also, tea has been a traditional crop in this area since the French period. On the other hand, coffee was also present in the area before the 1990s. But the area planted to both crops did not change much prior to 1994 due to unfavorable market conditions and the low price of coffee and tea. Together with the central planning system in the agricultural sector, mainly through the system of cooperatives and state farm and farm processing industries, free markets were also present in this area prior to reform. However their role in resource allocation was not only discouraged but also limited as the state attempted to gain control of certain markets such as markets for farm inputs and produce. Since 1989, market forces have determined prices of commodities. Based on these prices, farmers decide on the level of input to use and farm commodities to produce. The changes in land use practices occurred more rapidly with the decollectivization process and better access to the market.
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4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 Area (ha.) 0 Year
Tea Coffee Mulberry
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
Figure 3. Changes in Cultivated Area of Major Crops in Dai Lao and Loc Chau Commune.
As in 1994, the state farm fully applied the allocation of land for individual worker families for their cultivation. Households, not leaders of collectives or state farms, are now the principal units for deciding what crop and how much to grow based on market signals. In addition, the improved transportation infrastructure and marketing systems have facilitated the export of cash crops like tea and coffee, and other commodities. With better market access, the land use change process has been accelerated. With the low price of mulberry, farmers have incentives to shift from mulberries to tea or coffee. The rapid expansion of coffee and tea cultivation in this area began in 1994. Compared to other crops, the price of tea remained much more stable through the years. Besides its relatively stable price, fresh tea leaves can be harvested by local farmers every month throughout the year. Tea, therefore, is considered by local farmers as a crop that can secure a stable family income. Since there is only one statistical data recorded for both Loc Chau and Dai Lao as they were one commune before being split in 1998, this date was used to trace the changes in area planted with major crop over time (Figure 3). In 1994, when coffee prices increased in the domestic market (a price boom), the area planted with coffee increased rapidly. The area planted with coffee was limited to only 300 hectares before 1994. Due to the high coffee price, the area expanded rapidly, reaching 1,291 hectares in 1999. The area planted with tea also expanded rapidly since 1994 reaching up to 4,212 hectares in 1999 (about 4 times higher than the area planted in 1994). The large expansion of tea and coffee areas was achieved not only from the transformation of forest land cleared earlier by illegal logging, but also from the shift from mulberry to tea and coffee.
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The improvement in rice production in the Mekong Delta and the better performance of the rice market also facilitated the trend of rapid expansion of commercial farming in the area. Given a relatively good transportation system and a fairly good marketing system, the supply of cheap rice from the Mekong Delta encouraged farmers to specialize in producing perennial industrial crops that have comparative advantage over other food crops. The expansion of areas planted with coffee and tea came from both the unused forest land cleared before through illegal logging and also from former mulberry areas. With the high price of coffee, many local farmers have an incentive to invest in coffee. A bandwagon effect in coffee planting was observed in this area. Many farmers have planted coffee even when they do not have experience in cultivating this crop or do not know about the variety and soil condition suitable for coffee. Many of them even planted coffee on very sloping hill sides or on hill tops where the soil and water conditions were not suitable for coffee. As a result, the yield was very low and the practice caused high soil erosion. In the past, farmers in the area had already experienced changing cropping patterns. Due to the low price of coffee in 1987 and 1988, many farmers destroyed their coffee gardens to plant mulberry as the price was very high. As the price of mulberry went down in 1994 and 1995, farmers again cut down on mulberry and planted tea or coffee. The expansion of coffee areas has slowed down since 1999, as the price of coffee in the world market decreased. Currently, this low coffee price still has a longterm impact on the driving forces of land use change. The expansion of coffee areas stopped with the fall in coffee prices. Due to the low price and therefore low profitability of coffee, many local farmers apply only minimal amounts of fertilizer, or have stopped investing in inputs for coffee. The objective is to keep the coffee garden alive to wait for a higher price of coffee and then invest more in fertilizer. Some also tend to cut their coffee plants and shift to other crops such as tea or mulberry if the coffee price remains at a low level.
Current Trend in Commune Farming System

The changes in policy and market conditions have led farmers to depend greatly on the market forces. However, since crop choice is usually based on current market value, and since there is no information on the long-term value, farmers become more vulnerable to market changes. Many farmers now find tea as a more secure crop. With the decrease in coffee price, the cultivation of coffee is no longer profitable. Many farmers have stopped investing in coffee, or want to shift to tea if the
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price continues to decrease or remains at a low level. As the prices of mulberries go up, many farmers again have the incentive to expand their mulberry mainly in areas suitable for this crop. The changes from coffee to other crops are expected to occur not only because of the degradation of the soil , as many coffee fields were established on poor soil with very steep slopes and high rates of soil erosion, but also from price fluctuations (i.e. , low price of coffee). With the low price of coffee, the area for coffee also decreases. Farmers may shift from coffee to tea, most probably starting with areas whose bio-physical traits are unfavorable for coffee cultivation (e.g. poor soil, sloping land with difficult water access). To cope with the fluctuation in market price, local farmers tend to diversify their farming activities by planting more than one crop and investing in other livelihood activities such as animal production. In general, the changes in cropping pattern in this commune show that: The conversion from mulberries to coffee and tea and, for some farmers from tea to coffee, as a major crop among small farmers and land owners has been gradual but insidious. This trend has been a result of attractive profits that coffee generates for farmers who traditionally grow mulberries or tea. Consequently, this action has slowly transformed some forest lands into coffee plantations. However, the farmers have become susceptible to losses due to the abrupt drop in the price of coffee beans in the world market, especially between 1998-2001. The PLLA conducted also described how the changing access to land influences farm management decisions. A shift from state farm ownership to individual land management makes the farmers more flexible in the choice of crops to cultivate like the coffee bandwagon observed since 1994. However, this transformation is also indicated by some changes in environmental quality, particular soil quality and available water for irrigation. Both planned and spontaneous agricultural expansions by varying combinations of small landholders and large-scale plantation developers were observed. In the first stage, forest lands were converted to agricultural areas on a large scale. In the later stage, changes in land use were observed, including intensification of agricultural production where bio-physical, infrastructure, and market conditions were favorable. Some areas were then abandoned where crop choice and cultivation methods were inappropriate. New migrants coming mainly from the lowland area brought with them their traditional cultivation techniques that were often not suitable under the conditions in this upland commune. The newcomers also brought some new crop varieties.
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Case Study: New Migrants to the Area

Name of the farmer Age Origin Family size : : : : Nguyen Van Chu 45 Thai Binh 4
History of the farm

MR. VAN CHU is from Tai Binh province, north of Vietnam. He has a large family in his province but land is limited for cultivation there. In the capital, each family has only 500 sq m for cultivation. The land is very small and living conditions are too difficult. He heard from his friend and brothers who live in Dai Lao that there were still opportunities to get land for cultivation and living conditions were much easier. He decided to sell his house and moved to Dai Lao. With support from his brother and friend, he bought a house with a garden with a total land area of 500 sq m He opened a plot on the hillside that was abandoned due to very poor soil. Later, this land was allotted to him but he had to pay for some protection fees. He was allowed to cultivate and practice agroforestry on this land. When he first opened his farm, it was covered with grass. The soil was very poor and rocky. He had to clear the land in order for him to cultivate coffee and tea. Due to poor soil and water shortage, his coffee could not grow and soon died. The 0.3 ha of tea is still growing. The land is on the hillside with a slope of over 15 degrees. At the beginning, he grew coffee because of the expectation that coffee could bring high earnings for his family. However, he found out that the soil was too poor for this crop. Tea is grown because this is a steady source of income.
The family has four members, two members do labor for the farm. The land, although allocated by the government, has no certification of land use right or red book yet. The main source of income is from working as laborers for other farmers in the area and from working as laborer for local brick making plants. The problems related to their agricultural activities include poor soil fertility, sloppy and rocky land, high erosion risk, and strong winds. His future plans include continuing to work as laborer to get money for his family and his farm.
Similar to other farmers, he did not have any training from the extension services. Credit is also difficult to get because he does not have a red book yet. He is a new comer in the area. He learned techniques of cultivating tea and coffee from other farmers.
FarmersPerception
He is aware that he has a problem with soil erosion and low soil fertility. As a measure to control soil erosion and to conform to the contract under the forest allocation program, he planted some forest trees. He plans to develop this into agroforestry. He also plants on contour lines.
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Soil erosion evident along contours of coffee.
The conversion of forest land to agricultural land happened on a large scale. The resulting problems of open access resources and the expansion of agricultural activities in fragile, slopping marginal land were considered to be causing serious soil erosion and degradation of land and water resources.
Impacts and Implications of Land Use Changes

THE CHANGES IN land use and vegetation cover described above have significant impacts on the socio-economic conditions and ecosystem in the study area.
Impacts on the Environment

The survey in the area revealed that the increase in agricultural production and economic growth in the study area was achieved at the expense of the natural ecosystem. The rapid population increase, mainly due to migration, the increasing intensification of agricultural production and the rapid expansion of agricultural areas have placed high pressure on the natural resources. Forest to expand mulberries, tea and coffee plantations, especially in sloping land, usually meet the short-term development goals. But other aspects of economic and social valuation are often overlooked within this development strategy, in particular the loss of biodiversity and off-site impacts along with converting natural landscapes to commercial crop production system on a large scale.
A sloping agricultural land technology model.
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The topographical condition in the study area is subject to the high risk of soil erosion. It was reported that about 36 percent of the communes total land area had a slope of more than 30 degrees and 64 percent with a slope of less than 30 degrees. Land on the top of the hills and hillsides are usually very steep. Farmers usually planted coffee on the hill-tops. On hillsides that have a steeper slope and are subject to high risk of soil erosion, farmers usually planted tea. Thus, in both tea and coffee plantations, soil erosion is usually high. Some farmers reported that the rate of soil erosion is visible as indicated on the trunks/roots of tea or coffee plants. In many tea plantations, soil erosion is so high that farmers have to replant each year. Currently, many land plots on the side of the hills and mountains around the commune have a slope of over 30 degrees and should not be allowed for agricultural cultivation. However, due to poor management, many farmers still occupy the land and illegally cultivate tea or coffee. Their agricultural production activities on these land plots yield only poor harvest but result in high soil erosion and loss of forest cover. The commune has also experienced high resource degradation in the past. From 1987 to 1990, the state farm developed mulberry plantations on the hilltops of the commune. However, due to high erosion and loss of soil nutrients, the yield of mulberries decreased rapidly after being cultivated for about three years. The average yield of mulberries planted on the hilltops was less than 2.5 tons of fresh mulberry leaves per hectare while the yield on
Table 1 . Area Planted with Major Crops in Dai Lao and Loc Chau Commune. (Ha.)
Year 80-85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 Tea 600 714 726 721 721 726 728 733 749 1062 1675 1826 2385 3296 4212 Coffee 116 116 188 299 299 299 299 299 301 309 691 701 876 906 1291 Mulberry 17 17 17 43 47 52 57 66 73 131 240 116 106 121 81
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flat land was from seven to ten tons per hectare. Plots with high soil loss yield even less than one ton per hectare. The rapid reduction in mulberry yield due to high soil and nutrient loss forced the state farm to stop cultivating mulberries on hilltops and to concentrate cultivation on flat land. Farmers also reported that tea and coffee planted on steep areas could only achieve 50 percent of the yield of plants cultivated at the foothills or on flat land. The average yield of coffee planted on hilltops or slopping hillsides was less than one ton per hectare, while the yield of coffee planted on flat land was about three tons per hectare. Even for tea, a crop considered by local farmers as less risky subject to soil erosion, yield also declined with increasing slope of the land. Soil erosion and very high nutrient loss are two of the major constraints to agricultural production in the study area. Farmer group discussions revealed that most of the farmers realized the soil erosion problem and its impact in agricultural production but few of them realized the actual levels of soil loss. Only few farmers reported or claimed to effectively manage or control soil erosion. Many reported that they did not apply any measure to control soil erosion. Some farmers reported that they have reduced the frequency of weeding at the beginning of the rainy season to prevent soil loss. The uncontrolled expansion of agricultural production in general and coffee cultivation in particular at the margin of the remaining forest land creates a potential threat to the whole ecosystem. Agricultural practices on hillsides or on top of steep sloping hills often cause serious soil erosion. Some efforts have been taken from research institutions, universities, and non-government organizations in supporting farmers to more effectively control soil erosion. However, the number of farmers who benefited from such support has been very small. For example, the Rural Life Center located in the commune has established demonstration plots to introduce soil erosion control measures to local farmers. It has provided farmers with some training on soil erosion control. However, many farmers reported that they did not apply the soil erosion models set up by the center as well as its recommendations. The major reason reported by farmers was that the centers demonstration plots were just models and were only good for very rich people because it imposed very high costs and required so much family labor that they could not afford. The high cost of soil erosion control implies a reduction in farmers income. The design of the soil control measure was done without the full participation of the farmers and therefore, had little chance of adoption. It seems that participatory technological assessment and design could have been done to better serve local farmers.
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The situation in the study area shows that the gain in higher income of local farmers was derived from unsustainable resource utilization and management such as large deforestation, soil erosion and degradation. Under the condition of open access resources due to poor resource management and poor implementation of rules and regulations, as in the case of the study area, the improved market conditions favoring cash crop production have accelerated the process of unsustainable expansion and intensification of agricultural activities. The cultivation of land has been expanding into fragile and steep areas. The degradation of forests, land and water resources in the study area are more profound than those that have been occurring in the past years and are impacting not just on local communities but also other lowland communities. There are growing concerns that the process of agricultural intensification may lead to the degradation of natural resources such as increased soil erosion, and loss of soil nutrients, contamination of surface and ground water due to intensified fertilizer and pesticide use. While in the short term the increasing market integration in the area results in increased economic growth and farm incomes, the natural resource base of the commune suffers, especially in the longer term. Such evidence was reported in the farmers group discussions. The concern of local farmers and authorities is that throughout the area, increased agricultural productivity slowed down due to decreasing soil fertility and soil erosion and, to a lesser degree, water shortage. One major environmental problem in this area concerns the forest resources. In 1977, the forest cover was about 85 percent of the communes total land area. Today it has been reduced to only 15 percent, mainly comprising poor quality forests. Both planned and spontaneous migrations from densely populated provinces to the upland commune brought new pressures on the ecosystem, leading to rapid resource depletion and unstable cash crop farming systems. Not all deforested areas have been successfully converted into agricultural use. The expansion of coffee and tea cultivation into sloping fragile land has largely been motivated by the crops higher prices and has led to high social costs. The changes in land use in this commune over the past decades illustrate clearly the high cost of ignoring the negative externalities that emerge from rapid growth and threaten long-term sustainability of the development process. Deforestation, high rates of migration and commercialization in agricultural production have also been observed in many parts of Vietnams upland areas. The rapid changes in the landscape, lifescape and the associated degradation of natural resources and the environment in the upland areas are a growing concern of people and policy makers. Vietnams policy response to these developments has been to adopt measures aimed at reversing deforestation and erosion. Concerned with
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these problems, Vietnam has designed some policies to promote conservation practices and reforestation. The Re-greening of the Barren Hills Program (Decision 327) was adopted on September 1991. In 1998, the government promulgated Decision 661 to reforest five million hectares by 2010, and the related Decree 2 on the allocation of forest land to households. These programs recognize the potential to develop, reforest and protect a natural resource system through sound and careful management involving local households. However, the planning and implementation of such projects have usually been undertaken without the full involvement of farmers and other potentially affected sectors and have failed to address the root cause of environmental degradation. The new Water Law of 1998 recognizes water as a community good, owned by the government, to be managed in a fully integrated manner at the river basin scale. The primary challenge has been in translating the broad intent, as enshrined in the discourse and in these emerging laws, into effective practice at the watershed level. Environmental protection for sustainable development has become an important issue in Vietnams economy in recent years. At the local level, achieving higher growth in agricultural production without excessive environmental degradation remains a major challenge for this upland community. Local authorities have undertaken some efforts to protect and enrich the forest resources. Forest utilization and management planning has been done by the state forest enterprise. The commune also has a plan to allocate 300 hectares of forest land to individual households for forest protection, reforestation and agroforestry. However, the implementation of these programs is still at the beginning stage and has yet to result in much positive impact on the local resources. There is also a lack of full participation from the locals. The increasing population pressures, poverty, land constraints, and lack of appropriate production technologies to intensify agriculture, particularly when the main proportion of land in this area is sloping land, are major sources of environmental degradation in the commune. Poor households are forced to use available natural resources in unsustainable ways to survive. The problem of growing soil erosion and soil nutrient loss, the unplanned expansion of agricultural areas, the encroachment of agricultural activities into remaining forest cover and fragile land, the problem of growing water shortage... all these problems are reflections of inefficient institutions and rules, and weak enforcement of land and water management policies. Property rights (or long-term land use right certification as in the case of Vietnam) are an important determinant of agricultural productivity and natural resource management. They determine long-term incentives for the sustainable management and improvement of resources. They also facilitate the emergence
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of markets for resource transactions that are crucial for achieving production efficiency and for making resources usable as collateral in credit transactions. However, the simple proclamation of private property rights and the emergence of a land market do not necessarily lead to sustainable land use. Private poverty leads to shortsightedness and the inability to bear the investment costs of conservation. Also, private incentives for reforestation are weak because the benefits come after a long period and they are not internalized completely by the investors themselves. The cultivation of coffee in marginal lands has also been encouraged by inefficient institutional arrangements with respect to water. The protection of the uplands through the restriction of illegal encroachment should have been enforced long before.
Socioeconomic Impact
Agriculture is by far the most important source of income for local people in the study area with tea, coffee, and mulberry as the predominant crops grown for market. The proportion of non-farm income contributes to only a small proportion of the total income of the households in this area. The liberalization and commercialization policies of the government have resulted in a large expansion and intensification of agriculture that have significantly increased total farm output and income. The market has clearly opened new opportunities for farmers who turn to most profitable crops and more efficient allocation of resources. The survey in the Dai Lao commune revealed that with market integration, there was an improvement in the living standards of the local people. For now, at least since 1995, living conditions of local farmers in the area seem to be improving. Poverty reduction was reported. Many poor farmers feel that their living standards have improved in recent years. The survey in the commune showed that the declining poverty level has been marked with improved access to markets, education and infrastructure. Farmers with better education and living near the road with easy access to the market, usually belong to the farmer group with a higher average income. With the changes in institution, particularly in land tenure, towards individual land use right and changes in market conditions since the end of
Table 2. Average monthly income per capita and percentage of farmers by wealth category, in Dai Lao commune in 2001.
Wealth category Better-off farmer Medium farmer Poor farmers Average monthly income (VND/ capita) >400000 150000 50000-100000 Percentage of farmers ( %) 5 45 50
Source: Farmers group discussion and estimation from key informants.
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the 1980s, farmers have the incentive to intensify cash crop production. This change has led to an increase in the local peoples cash income. During the farmers group discussions, all farmers said they benefited from better access to the market. However, the level of welfare improvement was different among local farmers, with about 70 percent reporting that their welfare has much improved since early 1990 while 30 percent reporting that their welfare has improved but at a much lower level. None of the farmers reported a worse living condition compared to the period before 1986 (Table 2). There is no doubt that changes in policy and improved market conditions have led to the economic growth of the local community. However, the importance of economic growth for raising the living standards of the poor in this area cannot be overestimated. The result of the PPLA showed that for many farmers, the poverty problem is still a predominant phenomenon in the study area. Despite the rapid growth in agricultural production in the area since the late 1980s, when the government started adopting a marketoriented development policy, the per capita income of local farmers has remained very low. It was reported that currently, the farmers average income is at about US$200 per capita per year. Nearly 50 percent of the population are considered poor farmers.
Case Study: Diversified Farming

Mr. Pham Quang Vinh is a retired military officer. He is 56 years old. He is married and has three children. He came to live in Thai Binh Province in 1990. He started to cultivate 2,700 sq.m. of mulberry. In 1991, he owned the biggest house in the area. He sold his mulberry to the factory. He also started to grow tea. In 1994 the price of cocoon dropped from 45,000 VND/kg to 13,000 VND/kg. In 1995, he started planting more tea than mulberry. He also planted fruit trees for home consumption. In 1995 he was able to pay his land fully. In that year, he cleared 5,000 sq.m. of grass land to plant tea. This was also the year when he cut down his mulberry. From 1996 to 1997, he started to plant coffee. In 1997, he also grew eucalyptus and acacia. In 1998 and 1999, coffee prices dropped. This led him to cut down some of the coffee trees. In 2000, he planted coffee, tea, mulberry, fruit trees for home consumption and cut flowers. He uses fertilizers and pesticides for tea and mulberry. He intercrops tea with peanut and mungbeans for fertilizer management.
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The situation in the study area is also similar to other regions in the country during the transition period. With better market access, households who have enjoyed most rapid gains in well-being over the past few years are usually those who have access to information about markets and new techniques, have land and financial endowments which allow them to cover consumption need without resorting to selling assets or taking loans, and have access to reserves or formal credit to invest in their farm. However, many poor farmers feel extremely vulnerable to market and environmental risks. Poor households that can barely cover essential food and non-food expenditures are acutely vulnerable to any sudden changes in market bio-physical conditions, which either demand higher expenditures or reduced family income. Crop failures due to pests, adverse weather condition or a fall in output prices (for example, the fall in the price of mulberries in 1994, 1995 and of coffee in 2000 and 2001) often cause severe economic stress to them.
Case Study: Tea-Mulberry Farming

Mr. To Dang Thuan is 62 years old. He was a former director of a State Farm, trained in sericulture by Chinese experts. He worked for the State Farm in Blao Sre until 1992. His farm household is 0.8 ha. He believes that tea is the most appropriate crop to grow in his farm. Mulberry is also his choice but since mulberry needs more capital which he doesnt have, he prefers tea. Labor is also a main constraint other than capital. He suggests to plant seeds based on variety and type rather than plant cuttings. He doesnt join extension activities. He finds no incentive to attend these activities. He has no idea about the relation between water resource and farming. He observes that local farmers did not care much about conservation measures even though they knew that the environment was getting worse.
Diversification in farming activities are usually solutions suggested by researchers and rural developers to cope with risks and to face with poverty. However, many poor farmers reported that due to their limited resource base, poor households have constraints in diversifying their farming activities. Their limited resource base also means that they have only few options for generating a stable cash income for the family. The survey results showed that the composition of land holdings varied among household in this upland village. Farm size varied from less than 1 hectare to more than 30 hectares. A large proportion of poor households are those with greater proportion of slopping upland with poor soil conditions resulting in low harvests.
Lack of information about farm technologies and market prices, reported during farmer group discussions, was one of the major constraints that made poor farmers in this commune face higher risk in cash crop production. Fluctuations in market prices have affected poor farmers badly. As in the case of mulberries, a fall in the price of silk and therefore of silk cocoon
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Case Study: Mulberry-Black Pepper Farming

Mr. Toan is 54 years old. He came from Thai Binh. He has been cultivating his 5 ha land since 1988. His household is composed of six, four of which are laborers. He planted 0.6 ha of mulberry but decreased the area to 0.3 ha due to lack of labor. Mulberry yields 1.5tons/ha/month. Target for a good yield is 2tons/ha/month. He will plant mulberry only if the price of mulberry is good and stable which is anything over 25,000 dong/ kilogram cocoon. He cultivates tea and finds it suitable. He plants black pepper but finds the crop unreliable in terms of efficiency. Fruit trees are not suitable on his land. His land preparation starts September to October. He starts harvesting by March. He is able to harvest once a month for the next 7 months afterwhich he starts cutting down the plants. Changing land use will incur costs. There is no problem with water sourcing. He hardly implements soil conservation Productive black pepper on nursing trees. practices even with the knowledge that in five to seven years, the yield of tea could decrease to 50-60 percent due to soil erosion. He believes that farmers need extension for payment of debts incurred from mulberry contract growing projects seven years ago.
price from 1993-1995 had made the cultivation of mulberries unprofitable and had largely reduced farmers income. This forced many farmers to shift to tea or coffee. The cost of this change in crop was usually a burden for poor farmers as they usually did not have much cash for new investments. Over the last two years as the price of coffee failed, poor farmers again experienced a hard time deciding whether to maintain their coffee plantations by reducing or eliminating fertilizer inputs or to shift to other crops. Changing crops again is a high cost for poor farmers. The analysis of how poor households respond to crises and cope with times of hardship suggest that government support services such as credit and extension systems are extremely important to poor households. Land use change in the study area showed that farmers crop choice is usually based on current market value, but there is no information on longterm value. This makes them more vulnerable to market changes as in the case of mulberries and coffee. The large and unpredictable fluctuation in prices of major crops grown in the area has made it difficult for farmers to maintain stable crop production and crop intensification in a sustainable
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way. Poor people in the commune may be facing the problem of poverty breeding poverty by making the wrong choices in crop production. Poor quality of land, difficulties in access to water, unavailability of appropriate credit, and lack of information on improved techniques and markets were reported by poor farmers as major problems they face in making decisions regarding land use and income diversification.
Extension and Credit System

The situation in this upland community clearly shows that alleviating poverty while managing the natural resource base to assure sustainability is a big challenge for local people and decision makers. Investments in research and extension will be needed if agriculture and rural development is to be sustained in the areas. Constraints in agricultural production as reported during farmers group discussion are: Low and fluctuating prices, particularly of coffee; Lack of credit for investment in intensive crop and animal production and diversification in farm activities; Water for irrigation of fields, hilltops and on hill sides; Cultivation of tea, and coffee on sloping land causes high rate of soil erosion and the loss of soil fertility. There is a lack of technological knowledge, lack of extension and training on this; No effective soil conservation system due to lack of planting material for soil stabilization and lack of effective soil erosion control measures. For agricultural development, the availability of appropriate agricultural technologies and the provision of credit are indispensable for farmers to increase efficiency in agricultural production and farm income. It was revealed from the farmer group discussions that the local extension service did not meet the demand of the farmers since only a limited number reported benefiting from extension services. The number of farmers having any contact with an extension worker is even lower. Farmers in the study area appear to rely mainly on their own farming experiences, on interpersonal networks of co-farmers, friends, and relatives, and other sources such as radio and television for technical advice on agricultural production. Many farmers showed an interest for information on agricultural production techniques, especially on soil conservation. In general, lack of knowledge about new farm technologies and technical support are also mentioned as major problems/constraints in agricultural production. The lack of available relevant technology to local farmers, especially the many small and poor farmers, is not only due to the lack of budget for activities of extension workers but also due to the poor linkages between local farmers, researchers and extension officers. Local extension
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activities are not able to address the real problems of farmers, especially the poor ones. The survey in the study area revealed that currently, there is a lack of farmers participation in extension activities. There is also a problem of the extension system being too narrowly focused, mainly in the direction of supporting cash crop production while lacking farmer-driven and farmeraccountable systems and sustainable farming practices. This situation implies that there is an urgent need to improve the local extension system, particularly the linkages between local farmers, researchers, and extension workers to ensure the relevance of research to the farmers priorities and needs. Lack of credit was indicated by the farmers as one of the major constraints in agricultural production for many households. As reported by local farmers, major formal sources of credit include: Vietnam Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development; Poverty eradication fund Credit from Vietnamese Women Association The informal sources of credit include credit from friends, relatives, and local traders. It was reported during the farmers group discussion that many small farmers have difficulty in accessing formal credit sources because they lack the necessary collateral and/or red book. Since poor farmers face difficulties in generating investment funds due to lack of resources and/or capital base, credit support is needed to get them out of the poverty trap. Currently, there are still a large number of farmers without the land use right certification (red book) as the process is slow. Many farmers did not have a red book because they were unable to pay back their earlier credit loans to the state farm. Without a red book, farmers find it difficult to have access to formal credit sources. The PLLA reveal that for more sustainable development in this upland commune, local community and decision makers need to pay more attention and spend more efforts to increase agricultural productivity, improve market efficiency, control population growth particularly spontaneous immigration, increase diversification in farming activities and pay greater attention to sustainability of the farming system and practices.
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Case Study: Black Pepper-Banana-Livestock Farming

Mr. Le Ngoc Thu is 50 years old. He is a newcomer in Thanh Hoa Province. He has cultivated his land for the past four years. He cultivates durian, black pepper and bananas. He grows 1240 heads of pigs per year. Rice cultivation is his only experience in farming. He considers the market as a deciding factor in choosing what to cultivate. However he doesnt hastily change crops just to follow market changes like the market changes of coffee. He believes that a crop should be maintained for at least two years. Land tenure for him has no big effect on farmers decisions. He has been practicing soil conservation by applying fertilizers and coverings. He gathers information from friends who worked with extension agents.
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Conclusion
RESULTS OF THE PLLA conducted in the study area showed that land use and vegetation cover in the study area have undergone rapid changes over the last two decades. Both planned and spontaneous migration from densely populated provinces to this upland village brought new pressures on the natural resource base, leading to rapid resource depletion and unstable cash crop farming systems. All have been considered as threats to the development of upland sustainable agriculture. Agricultural development policy implemented after the reunification of the country, including the establishment of state farms for sericulture industry and mass planned migration, has focused mainly on economic development without a clear assessment of environmental and social impacts. The PLLA also described how the changing access to land has influenced farm management decisions. A shift from state and cooperative farms to individual land use right has made the farmers more flexible in the choice of crops to cultivate. Better access to markets have clearly opened new opportunities for farmers turning to most profitable crops and more efficient allocation of resources. With the liberalization and commercialization policy of the government, the market integration process accelerated, leading to a large expansion and intensification in agriculture. While this process has led to increased total farm output and incomes of local villagers, it also brought new risks to farmers and the areas ecosystem. Due to the poor management practices of the state farms and forest enterprises, the forest resources have became open access resources. The large conversion of forest land to coffee and tea plantations started due to the motivation of high coffee prices in 1994 resulting in an observable bandwagon effect. Increased commercialization and changing market prices have influenced land management practices and decisions of farming households, community and higher policy making bodies. The conversion from mulberry to tea and coffee production and, for some farmers, from tea to coffee has been gradual but insidious. This trend is a result of attractive profits that coffee generates for farmers who are traditionally tea or mulberry growers. However, the farmers have become susceptible to losses due to the abrupt drop in the price of coffee beans in the world market, especially between 1999 and 2001. In the case of coffee price fluctuations, the government did not have the necessary instrument to secure the welfare of the coffee farmers. In this

situation, poor farmers are more vulnerable to price fluctuation. The transformation of the landscape in this study area has also indicated some changes in environmental quality, particularly soil erosion, loss of soil nutrients and decreased water availability for irrigation and other uses. It was revealed from the survey that poverty, land constraints and lack of appropriate production technologies to intensify agriculture in sloping land are major sources of environmental degradation as many poor farmers are forced to unsustainably use available natural resources to secure their family income. Achieving economic growth without excessive environmental degradation remains a major challenge for this upland community as well as other communities in the upland areas of Vietnam. If the resource base in this upland commune is not used in an effective manner, sustainability of agricultural activities will be difficult to achieve. There are some issues regarding improvement of the sustainability of the agricultural production system in this area such as: How can existing institutions and local policies promote sustainable agriculture and regulate market forces that dictate what farmers want to plant and where? How can local institutions better assist farmers, particular poor farmers, in practicing farming systems that considers long-term economic and ecological feasibility? What sustainable agricultural production systems or cultivation techniques are locally available for farmers to select from? How can the current farming systems in this area be modified to be more sustainable? An economic development program for this area as well as in other upland areas need to be tailored in such a way that the poor farmers can be better integrated into the market while reducing the level of resource degradation. In this direction, the provision of land use right certification to local farmers should be accelerated and the performance of local service systems such as those for credit and extension need to be improved to be able to provide better services to the poor. Some recommendations: Increase investment in agricultural research and extension services; Focus extension on resource management; Conduct more training for farmers particularly in sustainable farming practices; Identify improved land-use options, formulate an action plan and conduct on-farm experiments, and participatory technology
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identification for sustainable farming (There is a need for farmers and community to determine which production system is best suited in their particular area. Farmers can now identify which land use options or farm management strategies to adapt in order to prevent/reduce adverse environmental changes.); Document and examine the sustainability of selected upland farming systems that can serve as learning examples to both farmers and policy makers. This can serve as future references for farmers and agricultural policy makers at various levels. Institutional arrangements, gender concerns, migration and labor relations will also be examined in relation to changing agricultural practices among farmers; Deal with the current problem of agricultural price fluctuation. The promotion of diversification in farming is needed. Cropping system diversification, promotion of water and soil conservation practices and greater income security need to be included in extension programs. Support for credit systems for poor farmers and for promoting conservation farming practices; Increase research and development efforts, with the participation of local communities, to promote environmental protection and conservation farming especially in the area.
There is also a need for improving land-use planning and management systems that improve local welfare and restore watershed functions in the area. The reforestation program, for example, has relied too heavily on government agencies and has been implemented without the full participation of the local community. To guide, support and enhance the participation of the local community in this system, a clear and detailed policy framework is needed.
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Selected Research Notes
How to Assist Farmers in Coping with Changes in Market Prices

Dang Thanh Ha, Pham Hong Duc Phuoc, Huang Hu Cai and Ma. Victoria O. Espaldon
THE SERIES OF institutional and policy reforms implemented since the early 80s when Vietnam shifted from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy ushered a dramatic increase in agricultural outputs, particularly in rice production. However, the country continues to cope with both socioeconomic and environmental problems such as high rural poverty, increased income disparity between urban and rural population, high forest loss, and degradation of land and other natural resources, particularly in the uplands. More significantly, the changes in market conditions placed the farming population and the sustainability of agricultural production at risk.
Objectives
This research aims: 1) to examine the implications of changes in policies and market conditions on the sustainability of agricultural production in the uplands of Vietnam using case studies; and 2) to distill lessons learned from the experiences and come up with options to promote sustainable agriculture and natural resources management.
Methodology
The research team employed a participatory baseline research process known as Participatory Landscape-Lifescape Appraisal (PLLA), a rapid, iterative and system-oriented approach (Espaldon and Magsino, 2001) to understand the agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions prevailing in the study area. To generate the needed information, the PLLA team employed a combination of techniques such as oral history that reconstructs historical events, use of secondary data, key informants interviews, farmers profiling, maps, and map analysis and focus group discussions (Ha et al, 2001). The team also looked at two more case studies of Kado commune in Lam Dong Province, and Ea Tul Catchment in Dak Lak Province. The examination also used participatory research approach.
The Study Area

Dai Lai commune is located in Lam Dong Province of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It is an example of a village that underwent rapid changes in landscape and lifescape as a result of multitude of factors. Farmers cultivate rice, mulberry, tea and coffee. Kado commune is also located in Lam Dong Province and is characterized by high diversity of topography, soil type and water availability. Compared with the Dai Lai commune, land use transition is gradual due to strict implementation of regulations on forest conservation. Ea Tul catchment of Dak Lak Province underwent a dramatic change from forest to coffee plantations.
Results and Discussion

Dai Lai Commune
Results of the study showed that Dai Lai commune experienced a rapid decline in forest resource over the last two decades. The forests covered about 85 percent of the total land in the commune in 1980 which was reduced to about 45 percent in 1984 due to increasing agricultural and timber harvesting activities. The remaining forest continued to decrease at a rate of about 5 percent per annum from 1985 to 1987. Shifting to the market economy in 1986, a high rate of deforestation caused by land clearing to accommodate spontaneous migrants occurred. In 1990, only 27 percent of the forests was left. Until 1995, most of the forestland suitable for agricultural cultivation were cleared and cultivated. The remaining forest area of the commune was reduced to less than 15 percent in the year 2000. It was recorded that not only small farmers but also state farms and forest enterprises were among the stakeholders causing rapid deforestation in this area. While the operation of the state farms were planned, operated according to government programs, and subsidized, small farms were spontaneous and market driven. In contrast to the reduction of the forests, agricultural land increased rapidly from 15 percent of the total land area in year 1980 to 83 percent in year 2000. The total area of major crops such as mulberry, tea, and coffee increased by 76 percent from 733 ha in year 1980 to 5,584 ha in year 2000. The expansion was highest for both coffee and tea. But the mulberry areas reached a maximum of only 240 ha in 1995 even with the strong support of the sericulture industry development program of the province. It then declined due to low price and irrigation water constraints.
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With better market access and favorable prices, tea and coffee areas expanded rapidly since 1994. This area expansion was achieved not only by the transformation from the forests that were cleared before by illegal logging but also by a shift from mulberry. Motivated by the high coffee price, a bandwagon effect in coffee planting was observed. Many farmers planted coffee even when they have no experience in cultivating this crop or did not know the varieties and soil conditions suitable for coffee. Many even planted coffee on very steep slopes where the soil and water conditions were not suitable for this crop. As a result, the yield was very low and caused high soil erosion. Farmers in the commune shifted from crop to crop due to the fluctuations in market prices. Change in prices have differential effects on land use by different groups of farmers. It was reported that due to the low price of coffee and a high price of mulberry in 1987-1988, some farmers cut down coffee to plant mulberry. When prices of mulberry went down in 1994-1995, farmers again cut down mulberry for coffee or tea. Crop choice of farmers is usually based on current market value that leads them to be more vulnerable to market changes, particularly the poor farmers. With the decrease in coffee price since 1998, the cultivation of coffee is no longer profitable. Large coffee farmers stopped intensive investments in coffee. Medium to small farmers even wanted to shift to tea if coffee price continued to decrease or remain at low level. When the price of mulberry went up, many farmers found an incentive to expand mulberry again. The shift from coffee to other crops is expected to occur not only because of price fluctuations but also due to degradation of the soil, sloping land with high risk of soil erosion, and difficulty in water access. To cope with the fluctuations in market price, some local farmers diversify their farming activities by planting more than one crop and investing in other livelihood activities such as animal production. However, the level of diversification in farm activities among farmers is still limited to the more innovative and resource-rich farmers.
Kado Commune
The forest in the commune is a watershed that regulates water for the two important hydroelectric power plants. Compared to the situation in the other two case studies, there was no dramatic transformation from forests (only about 6 percent) to agricultural land over the same period. There was only a small expansion of agricultural land due to a strict enforcement of regulations on forest conservation, less favorable market access and less suitable land for high valued cash crops such as coffee and tea. Despite the constraints, the commune is gradually shifting from self-
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subsistence mode of production to a more commercial cash crop production that has some negative impacts on its natural resource base. Before 1986, the village concentrated on the production of food crops to satisfy the needs of the local people. Main food crops of the ethnic minority groups such as the Chil, Kho, and Churu were wetland and upland rice, local traditional maize, beans, cassava and other root crops. The production of cash crops like vegetables, beans, and mulberry was not very intensive due to unfavorable market access. Most households of the ethnic minority groups in the community are very poor and maintain their traditional practice of shifting cultivation. Only less than 10 percent of their total farm production was channeled through the market. Wetland rice cultivation is the traditional agricultural system of the Churu group and some of the Kho group. Shifting cultivation is the traditional cultivation practice of the Chil and Kho people that continues until now. (Hoang Huu Cai and Bui Cach Tuyen, 1997). With better market access since 1986 there was a rapid change in cropping systems towards high value crops. Many farmers intensified vegetable production and other cash crops. In the year 2000, the proportion of market share increased significantly to about 60 percent and 94 percent of the total farm production for ethnic minority farmers and Kinh farmers, respectively. The computed man-land ratio suggests the increasing scarcity of agricultural land for cultivation among local residents. With limited land for agricultural cultivation (18.5 percent of the total commune land), villagers put more effort in the efficient use of scarce land resources to increase income and provide food security. The production area for subsistence food crops decreased while commercial vegetable production and other cash crops like hybrid maize and coffee expanded considerably.
Ea Tul Catchment
Over the last decades, the study area underwent remarkable changes in land use. Forested areas reduced from 58 percent in year 1980 to 20 percent in year 2000. Many forest areas were replaced first by annual food crops and then by coffee plantations. With very fertile balsatic land suitable for growing cash crops, especially coffee, the area was very attractive for migrants from other regions in the country searching for economic opportunities. When farmers first came to the area, they cleared the forest to cultivate maize, beans and other food crops to satisfy their food demand. A large forest area was cleared for agricultural production. Before 1986, agricultural production was semi-commercial. With better market access since the early 80s, farmers production became more oriented to cash crop production. The production of coffee, a highly profitable crop in terms of family labor and per cubic meter of water, replaced other less profitable annual crops. At
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the same time, farmers used high levels of mechanization, fertilizer, pesticides and labor. Since 1994, there has been a large change in the cropping pattern in this area. As the price of coffee increased, coffee area expanded rapidly. There was a large change from annual crops and forests to coffee. Coffee production now contributes the largest share of farm household income in this area. To date, the agricultural production system in this area is highly monoculture, high input, high water consumption and marketoriented.
Farmers Adaptive Strategies under Changing Market Conditions

In the transition toward a market economy, the process of land use changes. The expansion of coffee in the Central Highlands reflects the governments policy for supporting export-oriented cash crop production. It also reflected the rational judgment of farmers in coping with market situations. With better market access, farmers in the Central Highlands are increasingly integrated with national and global markets. Changes in prices have differential effects on land use by different groups of farmers. This condition makes the farmers vulnerable to fluctuating market prices as was observed in the cases reviewed, particularly the resource-poor farmers. Farmers are coping with the changing market conditions in various ways. Coping strategies of farmers include crop diversification, livestock and fish integration in the farming system, and shifting from coffee back to tea and mulberry production as observed in Dai Lai or to other cash crops such as fruit trees, cacao, cutflowers, blackpepper and tree farms. These are potential agricultural practices that can cushion farmers from changes in conditions in the market, both local and global. However, these are limited to resource-rich farmers who can invest and have land tenure security. Other farmers are constrained due to lack of access to information and technical assistance from extension agents of the government.
Some Research Issues

There is a need to examine land tenure security and its impact on the development of sustainable agriculture in the uplands. What is the role of credit facilities in the promotion of sustainable agriculture? What is the impact of global market conditions on the sociocultural aspect of upland farming communities of Vietnam?
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Soil Erosion: A Cause or A Consequence?

Le Van Du, Dang Thanh Ha, Pham Hong Duc Phuoc, Le Quang Thong1 , and Ma. Victoria O. Espaldon2
SOIL EROSION IS often a severe problem in sloping areas. It is attributed both to physical as well as human-induced factors, and results in onsite and offsite environmental damages. Because of this, maintaining agricultural productivity and environmental management in the uplands has always been a difficult task. As in other upland areas of Vietnam, there were dramatic land use changes in Bao Loc district, Central Highlands after the war. Consequently, there were rapid changes in the landscape and lifescape, especially the degradation of natural resources. In most areas in Bao Loc, agricultural growth is commonly associated with deforestation, soil erosion, and degraded watershed function.
Cropping Patterns and Soil Erosion Rates in Dai Lao Commune

Due to the generally sloping area (>25 percent), the erosion rate is very high with soil loss rate of about 10 and 20 mm per year for tea, coffee, and mulberry, respectively. The yield of all crops in sloping land was low and declined sharply despite increased application of fertilizers. Average yield of mulberry planted on the top and sides of the hills was less than 2.5 t of fresh leaves per hectare, while the yield on flat land was from 7 to 10 t per hectare. Some farmers reported that during a 3-year cultivation, the yield of mulberry planted on hillsides decreased by 30-40 percent despite the application of more fertilizers. Plots in high slopes yield only 1 t per hectare after one-year of planting. It showed that the yield of mulberry was more negatively affected by soil erosion. The rapid reduction in mulberry yield on sloping land was associated with high soil erosion rate. The average yield of coffee planted on the hilltop or hillsides was less than 1 t/ha, while coffee planted on flatlands was about 3 t/ha. Even tea, a crop considered by local farmers as much less risky, is

also subject to soil erosion. The yield also decreased with increasing slope. The average yield of tea planted on top of hills was 2.5-3 t of fresh leaves per hectare, while on hillsides and on flat land were 3-3.5 t and 4-5 t respectively. The yield of tea planted on the top or hillsides decreased by more than 70 percent without fertilizer application.
Soil Erosion and Land Management Decisions among Farmers

Although soil erosion and soil nutrient losses caused yield reduction, implementation of effective land conservation techniques among farmers was not evident. In Dai Lao commune, farmers planted coffee on the hilltops, tea on the hillsides, and mulberry on the flat lands. Moreover, only a few farmers reported or claimed to have effectively managed and controlled soil erosion. Many of them reported that they did not apply any measure to control soil erosion. Some farmers reported that they reduced the number of weeding time or simply mulched the land at the beginning of the rainy season to prevent soil erosion. They limited tillage by digging the holes for coffee planting. Some farmers used multi-cropping systems for the same purpose. In the northwestern areas, farmers engaged in survey work reported that they did not apply any measure to prevent soil erosion although some of them realized and observed the loss of soil by erosion. The differences in perception and farming practices of farmers between two study sites, relates to the physical condition, and the declining levels of crop yield. Soil in Dai Lao has very low fertility level. It has thin top soil and bad soil structure. Lands have high degree of slope. These lead to high degree of erosion and high crop yield decline, so the farmers there could see easily the soil erosion impacts, and compare them with those in other sites. In the northwestern part of Bao Loc, crop yield was also reported to have declined rapidly through time. In the case of farmers who did not use any additional fertilizer and who did not have soil conservation skills, mulberry yield tended to sharply decline. Due to the differences in cultivation techniques, the effect of soil erosion on coffee yield was relatively lesser compared with that of mulberry. On the other hand, in the case of tea, there were no negative observations between the relationship of soil erosion and productivity. It was assumed that the effects of other factors had overcome the impact of soil erosion on the yield of tea, especially the change in using new tea varieties by farmers. Another reason was that six years was too short to observe a change. Moreover, the land where tea had been planted usually were those with highly fertile soil and with thicker topsoil. However, soil fertility that had been lost was substituted with high chemical fertilizer input. With this, the effect of
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soil erosion on crop yield may not be measured fully, especially in short periods of time. The yield of crops in Dai Lao commune was lower than that in other parts, and its decline therefore, was sharper. It is possible that soil properties and land slope differ in some degree between the two sites.
Soil Erosion and Land Use Management Decisions among Local Authorities
Transformation of landscape in Bao Loc largely started with the establishment of state farms for sericulture development. At the start, forests were cleared for growing mulberry. Workers of the state farm and their families were also allowed to open forestlands for their own cultivation. The state farm, however, could not control all land allotted to it. Opening of forestland for agricultural production was done without a clear land use planning and control. Even the planting of mulberry was done without considering natural resource conditions. With increasing agricultural activities, the forest area rapidly decreased. Hills covered by forests that were far from water sources had been opened for growing mulberry. This led to degraded land quality, even the topsoil of some hills was completely lost to erosion. The rapid reduction in mulberry yield due to high soil erosion forced the authorities to stop cultivating mulberry on hilltops and high-sloped land (land with slope of more than 25 percent) and concentrate mulberry cultivation on flat land. On the other hand, tea and coffee can be cultivated on the hillsides. However, due to poor management of forest resources and weak enforcement of regulations, many farmers still occupied the high sloping lands and illegally cultivated tea or coffee. Their agricultural production activities on these land plots not only yielded very poorly but also resulted in high soil erosion and loss of forest cover. The authorities had also experienced serious problems of soil erosion in the past when the state farm implemented a program during the early part of 1990 expanding mulberry plantations to the hills. Due to high erosion and soil quality degradation, mulberry yield decreased rapidly after cultivation for about three years. In high slopes, degradation started a year after cultivation. When most farms were given to individuals, land availability and use had become a constraint. Meanwhile, farm cultivation of commercial crops such as coffee, tea and mulberry in Bao Loc district promised to give more
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attractive benefits to farmers, and agricultural production had increased with intensification. Although intensification has increased production, it has also led to some soil erosion problems, especially in the highly sloping lands. Research results showed that intensification was done using improved varieties, increasing chemical fertilizers and water. However, it also led to the problem of soil erosion. The major concern arising from the increase in growing crops on the hillside caused quite a high rate of soil loss per year. As a result, soil erosion had been identified with declining crop yield in later years. Unfortunately, the investment on soil conservation practices among households was found limited. Without adequate investment, soil loss will rapidly continue. Research institutions, universities, and NGOs contributed in supporting farmers to effectively control soil erosion. However, the number of farmers who benefited from such support is still very small. For example, the Bao Loc Rural Life Center, a foreign NGO, located in Dai Lao commune has established demonstration plots to introduce soil erosion measures. Another institution has been doing experimental demonstrations of soil conservation measures. The Silviculture General Company, located in Bao Loc town has conducted research on soil conservation practice since 1994. It encouraged mulberry farmers to use contour planting of plant Mimosa invisa to prevent soil erosion. The Office of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Resources in Bao Loc organized workshops and conducted studies on soil erosion. However, many farmers reported that they did not apply these soil erosion measures. The major reason for this was that the demonstration on soil erosion control was just a model and was only good for very rich people because it imposed very high cost and required much family labor that they could not afford. These high costs of soil erosion control implied a reduction in farmers income. The design of soil erosion control measure was done without full participation of the farmers and, therefore, had little chance of adoption. There seems to be a need to do participatory technological assessment so that a design of procedures could be made to suit local farmers needs.
Conclusion
Land use and management of land with inappropriate physical characteristics rapidly resulted in increased soil erosion level accompanied by decrease in crop productivity. Soil loss in tea and coffee areas appeared to occur at the lower levels but this still needs further study considering the set target of production in the future for these crops. Soil erosion rate, in general, is occurring at an extremely high level. Although most farms now are run by individuals, and farmers realize soil
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loss through simple indicators, i.e. foot of trees, siltation on their ponds, crop yield reduction, and more fertilizer input, there was not enough evidence to show that farmers adequately invested on land conservation practice. Only few farmers applied simple land conservation measures i.e., not weeding intensively, grass mulching, and multicropping. They tended to adjust their farming system quickly to the market changes related to their products. Currently, land management decisions at the commune, district, and provincial levels had been done without full consideration of the changes in environment and natural resources, particularly land and water resources. Controlling soil erosion is only one way of increasing land productivity. It is crucial to encourage farmers to adopt and help them adequately invest in land conservation practices.
1 2
Lecturers, University of Agriculture and Forestry, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Science and Management, University of the Philippines Los Baos, Philippines.
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Can Forestland Allocation Policy Succeed without the Participation of Local People?
Phan Trieu Giang
SINCE 1943, VIETNAMS forested areas dramatically reduced from 43 percent to about 27 percent. In 1989, it was estimated at less than 20 percent. Every year about 130,000 to 200,000 ha of forest is being cleared. Forestland allocation (FLA) to households is a pilot forest policy aimed to protect forest resource. However, case studies in Nam Dong and Tien Yen district of Thua Thie Hue and Quang Ninh provinces respectively showed that the implementation of this policy will fail without true involvement of the people.
Why Forestland Allocation?

Since the late 1980s, the Vietnamese government had supported a land reform program with a quick process of agricultural land allocation that brought about increase in land productivity in the lowlands. This success resulted from a guaranteed land security program. Based on in-country experience as well as results from international experience, secure land use rights for people in the uplands was also believed to have helped reduce rural poverty and conserve forest resources. Therefore, the land allocation policy was extended to the uplands in 1993 with the initiation of forestland allocation. Up to 1997, 1 M ha of forestland had been allocated to 334,000 households, 4.4 M ha to 327 state enterprises, and 0.5 M ha to 1,700 cooperatives and other institutions.
Current Difficulties
IGNORING LOCAL SOCIO-CULTURAL CONDITIONS AND TRADITIONAL LAND OWNERSHIP LEAD TO MORE CONFLICTS IN THE COMMUNITY. About 50 percent of the Nam Dong interviewees
addressed the unfair allocation of land. In both sites, voiceless people often receive inferior lands which were remote, steep and infertile.
Communal land was allocated to one or few households that prevented others from accessing the resource. Allocated land in the borders of Tien Yen was not available to households. Allocating ancestors land of one family to another household was a common issue. All of these led to critical conflicts among people.
TOP-DOWN PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT LEAD TO NONCOOPERATION OF LOCAL PEOPLE. Because land was not fertile, far
from their homes and already planted with acacia and eucalyptus, 68 landowners, 44 percent of total landowners of the Nam Dong site, left their allocated land and moved into a buffer zone area of Bach Ma National Park. They moved in to practice slash and burn cultivation producing about 60 percent of the total food production of the commune. In Tien Yen, allocated land left unused was common. Traditional management of ancestors land was still maintained ignoring the new land entitlement. In Tien Yen, predetermined cultivation patterns for the people failed with the failure of the market. All farmers who receive dia lien, a medicinal and spice species left the products on the field because of low market price.
THE WEAKNESS OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN LED TO RED TAPE AND WASTE IN BUDGET EXPENDITURE. Many undesirable
results resulted from the lack of a proper institutional design. The inefficient management and the lack of strict coordination at the local level created negative impacts including corruption, bribery and ignorance. The failure of many extension activities is more or less related to the mismanagement of the credit system. High collateral and high household economic status as requirements for a loan and the untimely provision of the loans (i.e. after the cultivation season started, etc.) created problems. In many cases, farmers could not invest the money as planned; instead, they used it for buying food. The amount of money was also rigidly tailored so that the farmers could not get the right amount enough for their investment. Most land receivers in Tien Yen did not know how the credit loan accompanied in the forestland allocation process was used. In Tien Yen, farmers had to receive up to 70 percent of the loan in kind such as seedlings of fruit trees (orange, lychee), and piglets, which had very low survival rate. Many farmers did not want to pay back their credit because of this unfair loan practice.
True People Participation is a Critical Factor for Success

PROVIDING MORE INFORMATION TO INCREASE THE PARTICIPATION OF PEOPLE. The study showed that over 80 percent of
the people in Nam Dong did not understand the FLA. People did not learn
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about FLA at all and was not asked to participate in the process. People in Tien Yen site knew more about the project but they did not know the schedule / action plans of the FLA so that many of them were not prepared to receive seedlings and did not have plans on how to use their credit. Most of the interviewees of the two study sites believed that they could have participated in the FLA if they knew more about the requirements and their rights.
INCREASING PARTICIPATION OF PEOPLE WILL INCREASE THE SUCCESS OF FLA ACTIVITIES. Except for the staff of the authorities
in the communal lands, only the village heads and very few land receivers participated in designing and planning the use of the land. Most of the farmers were unprepared when invited to be recipients of land and materials for cultivation. Interviewees in Tien Yen believed that their involvement in the FLA at the beginning would solve major conflicts on the land use rights. On the other hand, many of them would invest money in other businesses rather than in fruit trees. All believed that the result of the extension activities would be much better if they can make their own decisions. The success of the forestland allocation program will depend on the farmers active participation in the FLA process. As stated in the FLA guide; the people allocate the land themselves and make the decision by themselves and farmers are not forced to plant trees and they can decide for themselves the method of cultivation.
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Changing Agricultural and Forestry Extension Approach Natural Resources Management

Huang Huu Cai
in
THIS POLICY BRIEF asks for a change in the extension approach to cope with the emerging problems in natural resource management in the uplands, based on the findings developed by a group of researchers from the Nong Lam University in Ho Chi Minh City. Research has been conducted in several upland communities that used a participatory technology development process which combines participatory assessment of current situation, onfarm and farmer-based experimentation and extension to explore suitable options for small and forest dependent farmers. The extension approach proposed here is based on the premise that agricultural extension activities need to be more participative than blueprinted, more responsive than prescriptive, and more demand-driven to meet strategic needs of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management. It calls for a better integration of research - extension systems and endusers demands at the community level. The challenges in the promotion of this approach also call for behavioral and institutionalized changes in the extension system so that participatory technology development can become a part of extension agencies regular activities.
The Challenges
Although agricultural and forestry extension represents the oldest and most widespread support for agriculture and natural resource management in many countries, this approach for promoting agricultural production is quite new to Vietnam. It may be worth noting here that Vietnamese agriculture was based on a system of central planning and the national agricultural and forestry extension system was officially established only in 1993 (by the

Decree 13/CP, dated 2 March 1993) seven years after Doi Moi. The system has rapidly been developed into both the district and the commune level into which extension collaborators have been recruited. As extension workers were trained mainly in technical disciplines, dialogical communication skills with farmers have not been adequate. The extension approach has been based on a vertically downward and one-way-technology-transfer that proceeded from and was heavily influenced by the direct and command approach of the centralized agriculture planning systems in the past. Although the nonparticipatory technology transfer approach has been successfully implemented in the lowlands, achievement has been limited in more diversified biophysical and socio-cultural and economic settings of the uplands. Here the small farmers have relied on diminishing resource bases and increasing risks in the market integration period. This situation makes a low rate of technology adaptation, a wide gap between agricultural extension services and demands of the people living in the uplands. As the situation calls for an alternative way of implementing extension activities, a group of researchers from the NLU in Ho Chi Minh City have been involved in a research aiming to improve production and to sustainably manage resource bases of upland farmers. With the lessons learned from a project entitled Community-based Natural Resource Management supported by IDRC and Ford Foundation, the group has developed and tested the participatory technology development (PTD) approach to extension with the support of the Social Forestry Support Program.
The Demands
The uplands occupy three-fourths of the total area of the country and used to be covered with forests which support the livelihoods of thousands of forest-dependent communities, including ethnic minority groups and migrated Kinh people. Although several government projects for upland development have been implemented, upland communities still are the poorest of the poor. Since 1975, the Western Highlands has received a large number of immigrants, both organized and spontaneous. This movement has caused a rapid increase in population, an accelerated resource degradation and a disturbance in the cultural and socio-economic conditions of upland communities. This includes the erosion of traditional common properties management system. This poses an overall threat to the sustainable development of the area.
The Extension System

The major stakeholders are the provincial Department of Agriculture Research and Development (DARD), provincial extension centers and district
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extension stations. Research institutions in agricultural and forestry sectors are also main stakeholders in the development process. Other stakeholders in the sector are state farms, forestry enterprises, and state and private companies working in agribusiness and agricultural input provision. Working in a sectoral way, collaboration among these institutions has been limited. The accessibility to extension support services in the uplands is usually lower than in the lowland areas and among immigrant communities, mainly due to poor physical accessibility, and limited staff, funding and extension workers incentive, as well as language and cultural barriers. Interviews also revealed limitations of the extension workers competencies including dialogical skills with farmers, stereotyping towards upland communities and the cash crop commodity-oriented technology transfer approach without a critical assessment of the real needs of local communities. Interventions have thus been based mainly on the perceived needs from the extensionists perspective. The main problem identified needing policy intervention is the following: in the period of integrating to the market economy, the extension support services to upland communities need to be improved to make them more responsive than prescriptive, to meet strategic needs of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
Goal and Objectives

The main goal of this policy discussion is to assist local communities in the upland with a better extension support service so that they can develop sustainable agriculture and natural resource management system. The specific objectives are: To improve accessibility of highlanders in remote areas to extension and other agricultural support services. To adapt the current extension program, de-emphasize the provision of commodity-oriented technologies and focus more on natural resource management issues to assist local communities in the development of sustainable agriculture and resource management systems which fit with their cultural context and socio-economic situations. To develop competencies of extension workers at provincial and district level to help them change from the teaching-based approach of providing blue-printed technologies, models and packages to a responsive approach which is based on a better understanding of the real needs of local people.
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The Participatory Technology Development (PTD) Components

The selection of actors was a main concern in the initial phase of the PTD process. Local working partners including Extension Stations, local Farmers Associations, Women Union and in some cases, managers of Forest Enterprises were invited to join the interdisciplinary team. As the PTD approach was based on farmers indigenous knowledge, experience, potential problems and needs, its process was designed to ensure the active participation of local farmers. In each research site, key farmers were involved in generating ideas to explore, design experiments, decide variables to be monitored, record events and jointly evaluate the results. Informal trainings were provided for both researchers and farmer participants during the process to make them: (1) aware that in PTD, innovation takes place by combining farmers indigenous knowledge and their local experience, and researchers scientific analytical skills; (2) orient them on the mode of farmers innovation as farmers usually innovate within very complex conditions and options that only the farmers, themselves, fully understand, and compare conventional research where researchers usually handle a limited number of variables; (3) to improve dialogical communication skills as the interaction between villagers and researchers often needs facilitation rather than lecturing; (4) to develop a farmer-based extension system based on interest group participation. By conducting joint experimentation, new ideas have a better chance of being adapted to local conditions, and of being adopted by other villagers in local areas. The group maintained interaction with farmers to explore their ideas, to design experiments on their farms, to jointly discuss and decide variables to be monitored, to assist them in using farmers records, to conduct field workshop and to jointly evaluate the results. Extension centers and stations are responsible for a number of rural communities where they are interested in developing innovations which are potentially relevant to the majority of farmers. The active involvement of these agencies is extremely important for the success of the process, the project exit strategy, as well as the development of a farmer-led extension system. Currently, the NLU group has a strategy to gradually hand over the activities to local extension stations by maintaining the training and coaching role, and by backstopping.
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Policy Recommendations
PTD experiments have been continuous but the lessons from the process so far have led to the following recommendations: To development agencies: The alternative extension approach is best based on experience and lessons learned from case studies in various communities in the uplands. Significant technologies have been developed and monitored by farmers, but more than technology, participatory technology development deals
extensionist
facilitation situation
PTD
science researcher
farmer
with behavioral and institutional change in development agencies. Thus, while technology is being re-engineered, institutional change needs to be carried out through the transformation of organizational norms, beliefs, and values so that the approach can be used as a part of the regular activities of concerned development agencies, and more opportunities for local participation can be realized. To the extension system: Technology adoption is the crucial criterion for the evaluation of an extension program. This criterion has not been adequately monitored and analyzed at the district level. The promotion of the PTD approach can help ensure the idea that generating technologies are fitted with both bio-physical and socio-economic settings. The application of PTD affects the set of competencies and the rewards
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structure of the extension agencies and research institutions as well as the general way individuals behave and interrelate. The institutionalization of PTD, therefore, needs to be based on a human resource development program in research institutions and extension centers. Competencies in both participatory research and farmer-based extension system development need to be emphasized in such trainings. A re-orientation training program for extension workers at district and provincial levels is urgently needed to improve dialogical and facilitation skills as well as participatory need assessment methodology. To the NLU: NLU should capitalize on experiences from the field-based learning of the group so that NLU can take a more meaningful role in the process. NLU should coordinate with the National Agricultural and Forestry Extension Agency to advocate for the above training program. Because competencies can only be improved through real working situation, a pilot site need to be established for the field based training and a local network should be developed.
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Women and Rural Development

Trang Thi Huy Nhat
IN RECENT YEARS, development has been recognized as consisting of economic growth and social equity including gender equity. Women are studied as a solution for sustainable development. This gender issue is very useful for developing countries where the number of rural women working in the farm has reached important proportions. But several questions emerged on this issue: How do rural women live? Does gender inequity exist? What is the role of women in the households in rural areas? What factor affects household decision-making? What improvements could be done on the position of women in the households in the rural areas to hasten up the process of sustainable rural development? In a case study entitled, Womens Role in Rural Area done in Tay Phu commune, Giang province in 1998-2000 sponsored by Vietnam-Netherlands Research Programme, the following data emerged. Tay Phu is a remote area belonging to Long Xuyen Quadrangle, Mekong Delta. It has acid sulfate land and applies the wetland rice cultivation process. As in many countrysides, Tay Phu commune has a slow rate of economic growth that contrasts with the high population growth rate.
How do rural women live?

Rural women in the community live under the following conditions: Poor infrastructureSerious degradation of main roads, primary schools and commune health centers. Therefore, it takes nearly half a day to go back and forth from household to the town (Nui Sap) Lack of entertainmentAround 60 percent of households (HHs) do not have TV, radio, and newspapers. Weak union activitiesthis is due to limited funds for activities and officials level of education and salary. Monoculture productionthis was based only on paddy cultivation.

Other sectors such as livestock and fishery are much less developed. Impacts on gender equity and rural development are characterized by: Low womens educationThe mean level is at the primary level. Early womens marrying agethe mean is 21. Rapid population growthabout 3 percent per year. The mean number of children in the family is three. Wide-spread malnutrition and povertyquality of living of many HHs is very low, about 40 percent of HHs have less than 2000 kcalo/day per person (This is due to low income and to womens lack of knowledge on proper nutrition).
Does Gender Inequity Exist?

Although there was no serious conflicts related to gender, gender inequality are manifested by: Womens burden of housework is hardly shared by men. Womens housework hours are eight hours per day while that of men is one hour. Womens time spent in preparing meals is 3.8 hrs/day. Ninetyfive percent of this is spent in cooking by firewood or paddy-covered oven and for fetching water. Men spend more money for themselves than women. Women rarely go outside the village where opportunities and access to knowledge are found. Twenty percent of them never travel outside. Majority leave their villages to visit their families or to search for means of livelihood but still, women must get permission from their husbands (61.5 percent of cases). Violence against womenMore than 5 percent of women suffers violence from husbands with drinking problems. Drinking is a popular source of entertainment in the village. Women do not receive help from the Womens Association because the existence of gender inequity is acknowledged as a problem. Barriers exist for women to attain progress in the rural areas.
Women suffer from poverty and gender inequity even in the days of their youth (as a young girl takes water from the canal, a young son just stands up on board without helping).
Source: Survey in Tay Phu village, An Giang province, 1998.
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Womens Role in the Family and in Rural Development

Womens role is considered in two aspects, namely; economic contributions and participation in decision making manifesting human power, especially in HH production or business.
ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTIONS. In the rural community, economic contribution is measured by income and is considered as a contribution to social wealth. Womens contribution is income from agriculture, particularly growing crops which is their biggest contribution. In the household it is measured by share of income (role of decision making can be based on comparison of contribution correlation between men and women in family). Womens share of income in the capital market (providing capital in informal credit market) is the highest.
Capital market Commerce Handicraft Husbandry Growing
Womens Income Mens Income
Income (dong/y
Genders Economic Contributions

(Source: Survey in Tay Phu village, An Giang province, 1998)
Womens Role in Decision Making

In family planning and spending, women play important roles but in production or in business, men are mostly the decision-makers. Women do not have any participation in business except in providing capital HHs.
What Factors Influence HH decision making?

Sharing of income and credit acquisition are the major factors in the HH decision making.
Implications
The findings above created the following implications:
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The burden of housework is an important challenge to womens access to knowledge and communication. More knowledge and communication enable women to be more progressive and more able to provide economic contribution. Both factors empower women to better participate in HH production and decision making. Improvement of rural living conditions, expansion of credit to women, and increase of womens participation in development projects will foster gender equity and alleviate poverty in rural areas.
Recommendations
Provide more investments on social welfare, upgrade the main road, put up a commune health center and school, and renew activities of mass organizations in community life; Introduce biogas system aimed at developing animal husbandry Mens new concept of sharing the burden of housework with women; Strengthen on-the-job trainings on nutrition, hygiene, family planning and budget management guides for women; Increase womens role in the credit system through education on how to effectively use capital, and by guaranteeing womens participation in any capital loaning contracts.
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Policy: Speed Up or Go Slow Water Intervention in Bac Province, Mekong Delta

Tran Thi Ut
Lieu
SINCE 1975, VIETNAM has been reunifying and agriculture is a major concern of the development process. Mekong River Delta, rice bowl of the country, occupies around 40 percent of the rice area and produces 45 percent of the total rice products (UT, 2002). However, there is a large unfavorable area for rice production. Its 40 percent acid sulfate soil (Le, M.Q,) and saline water makes it unqualified for rice production. Bac Lieu province, in the southern part of the Delta, is affected by tidal saline sub-ecosystem causing rice production in the area to stagnate due to the salinity and acidity of water and soil. For agricultural development, particularly in rice production, the government has constructed a series of embankments and sluices along the coast of the province to prevent salinity and to get fresh water from Hau river. It is expected that in salinity-protected areas, farmers can intensify their rice cropping and improve their livelihood. Because of this, some farmers in the project area were successful in intensifying rice farming by switching from single cropping to double or triple cropping system. On the other hand, some farmers who grew rice in the presently acid sulfate soil suffered from low rice yield, therefore, they have low returns or crop failure. Shrimp producers can no longer engage in profitable shrimp cultivation which can be done in saline water. Some farmers reacted by attempting to break the embankment or actually drilling wells to get saline water to their fields to raise shrimps. This study aims to assess the impact of embankment and sluices on the livelihood of the farmers in salinity protected area and provide a policy implication for this region.

Scope and Severity of the Problem

Households in the project area can be classified into three groups based on their average monthly per capita income (AMI): extremely poor group with its AMI lower than VND 70,0001; moderate poor group with AMI lower than VND 100,000; and non poor group with its AMI equal to or greater than VND100,000. The first two groups represent 29 percent to 59 percent of households across all hamlets. The livelihood of the poor depends on catching natural fish and selling labor. Rice cultivation on marginal land is for household consumption only. The productivity of the natural fishery was reported to have severely declined following the conversion from saline to fresh-water conditions. Natural fishery as source of income has also declined. Construction of embankments and sluices preventing saline water from getting into the fields and retaining fresh water for rice production in the project area generally aimed to increase income of the beneficiaries. But the project faced many problems. The poor can no longer earn from catching fish that naturally grow and there were problems in getting fresh water for rice production for whole project area in order to increase income of the beneficiaries. The project faced a lot of problems. Poor people were getting poorer due to the loss of income. They could not produce high rice yields because of the acid sulfate soil and could not catch shrimp because of the saline protection.
Statement of the Problem

REGION 1. Soil and water characteristic before 1998 is a combination of alluvial soil and soil that is free from salinity (< 4g l-1 in February). Before 1995, canal water of the project was saline during the dry season which was from December to May, then became fresh from June to November. With the construction of embankment and sluices since 1995, salinity declined. In 1977, salinity substantially increased to a level of about 50 percent more than the previous year. After 1977, fresh water was found in all canals in the system. With the availability of fresh water, rice cropping in the village started to shift from one rice cropping of traditional varieties in the 1980s to double or triple rice cropping of short duration and early seeding varieties. These adopted varieties have an average yield of 4 t/ha per season. REGION 2. Soil and water in this region is characterized by a combination of deep acid sulfate soil and water that is free from salinity (< 4g 1-1 in February). Acidity occurs in the dry season (JanuaryMay). This condition of acidity decreases but remains high in depressed fields. After the closing
1
The exchange rate at the time to conduct this survey US$ 1=VND 15,000
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of the sluice gate in 1977, about 10 percent of the farmers continued to grow shrimp. Forty percent succeeded. Rice production system changed. In 1988, 10 percent of the area was converted to rice production. This proportion increased to 70 percent in 1999, 100 percent in 2000. However, yield was low on the account of the soil having retained sulfateacid properties. Extension centers did not supply enough services in the use of new technology and in developing the skills of farmers for changing their cultivation system. The return in rice production was low and nearly lost. Landless households also lost their source of income from getting hired for labor in shrimps and from fish culture in the canals saline water. The income of the wealthy group was adversely affected because this group could no longer raise shrimps as saline water use shifted to fresh water use. REGION 3. This region falls under soil and water conditions characterized by a combination of shallow acid sulfate soil and water free from salinity (<g 1-1 in February) after 2000. In this area, embankment and sluices could not bring benefits for villagers due to depressed land conditions and acidic soil. On top of these, fresh water brings in destructive pests such as golden snails, rats and mosquitoes, thus decreasing the amount of natural shrimp and fish catch. Acid sulfate soil still remaining after the removal of saline water prevented cultivation for double rice cropping. Shrimp production also declined since it had to wait for saline water to come in January from the nearby province of Kien Giang. Meanwhile, shrimp production during the dry season is rotated with rice production during the rainy season. This rice-shrimp production system holds a promising sustainable production since the practice of depressing acid sulfate into the water, generated good effects to the land. This technology resulted to an increased rice yield from 2 t/ha in 1998 to 4 t/ha in 2000 without the farmers applying chemical or organic fertilizer. In the lowland area with potential acid sulfate soil, the rice-shrimp alternate production system seemed to work best.
Gain and Loss from the Water Intervention Program

Short and Long Term Effects of Water Intervention
The difference in the time of water intervention implementation generated different effects among the villages. The short run effects of water intervention programs can be understood from the study of water intervention applied on the villages of Phong Thanh and Phong Thanh Tay (with recent intervention). The long term effects can be understood from the study of two villages, Ninh Quoi and Minh Dieu. Sluice and embankments were easily built compared with the control village where the program had more effects.
SHORT RUN EFFECTS. In Phong Thanh villages, 67.5 percent of
78


agricultural area was converted into two cropping systems of rice production for high yield varieties. However, the area which was 25.8 percent rice land was devoted to single rice cropping during the rainy season because of the acid sulfate soil which was still remaining. Shrimp production still occupied 3.4 percent of cultivated area where saline water could still be found. The situation in Phong Thanh Tay village was better under two rice crops of 89.3 percent. Only 6.6 percent of the cultivated land area was allotted to one rice cropping during the rainy season. It allowed to fallow during the dry season. The area allotted to two shrimp production scheme was 2.6 percent.
LONG TERM EFFECTS. The villages of Mien Dieu and Ninh Quoi were
selected as the representative area to test the long term impact of the water intervention program because the sluices were constructed in 1992 and completed in 1995. This area got fresh water early in the beginning of this policy implementation. Besides, both villages have alluvial soil, and as rice area increased, rice production intensified. In Minh Dieu village, 99.1 percent of agricultural area was converted to two-rice cropping systems with shortened ripening duration for high yielding varieties. In Ninh Quoi, 95.5 percent of agricultural area was planted to three-rice croppings and 3.7 percent to two-rice croppings. Ninh Thanh Loi village did not apply the cropping pattern extensively and instead used a control unit due to water intervention. Since saline water from Kien Giang province flowed to this area with the closing of the sluice gate, farmers can cultivate two crops of shrimps during the dry season rotated with one rice copping for traditional rice varieties during the rainy season. Some 77.4 percent of lands in this area were allotted to this rice cropping system while 32.6 percent was cultivated to two shrimp harvests throughout the year (Table 3.)
Effect on cost and return from production.

SHORT RUN EFFECT. Ninh Quoi village was considered successful in
the implementation of the water intervention program. Some 95.5 percent of land was converted to three rice cropping system. Comparison of cost and returns per hectare between that of rice production in the area and shrimp production in the control village in autumn-winter season revealed the data of gain and loss from the program in the short run. Shrimp production in the control village was 100 percent higher than that of rice production in Ninh Quoi village, but cost of production was lower in rice reaching 97 percent only. Thus, net income is 200 percent higher for shrimp production. Even if there was a problem of fluctuating shrimp price, declining by 30 percent, the net income from shrimp production will remain 16 percent higher than that of rice production if price of rice would increase by 30 percent. Thus, converting to rice
79
Table 3. Major Cropping Pattern by Villages.

Cropping pattern by village Ninh Thanh Loi: (Control) TV rice-Shrimp-Shrimp Shrimp-Shrimp Phong Thanh: (Recent intervention) MV rice-MV rice MV rice-Fallow Shrimp-Shrimp Phong Thanh Tay: (Recent intervention MV rice-MV rice MV rice-Fallow Shrimp-Shrimp Minh Dieu (Early intervention) MV rice-MV rice Ninh Quoi: (Early intervention) MV rice-MV rice-MV rice MV rice-MV rice Per cent of area 77.4 10.2 67.5 25.8 3.4 89.3 6.6 2.6 99.1 95.5 3.7
production, investors could lose US$540 or at least US$69/ha per year (Table 4).
LONG TERM EFFECT. The income earned by an average household in
the year 2000, was estimated at US $732 for early water intervention and US $ 507 for recent water intervention village. The per capita income was estimated at US $ 151 and US $101 (for an average household size of five persons) for the early intervention and recent intervention, respectively(Table 5).
Table 4. Costs and returns from shrimp versus rice cultivation in Winter-Spring season. Indicator
Shrimp yield (kg/ha) Rice yield (kg/ha) Value of production (US$) Cost of production (US$) Net income (US$) Net income at 30 percent increase in paddy and 30 percent fall in shrimp price
Source: Household survey, April 2001
Ninh Thanh Loi

(no intervention)
Ninh Quoi
(early intervention)
157 1,068 254 814 494
4,510 528 261 267 425
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However, income for an average household in the same period at Ninh Than Loi, the control village, was much higher than that of the two of villages. It was 340 percent and 770 percent higher for the villages with early intervention and with the villages of recent intervention, respectively. Even the income per capita of the control village was also higher at 400 percent and 500 percent of the two villages. Cultivation of rice accounted for 56 percent of the total income in early water intervention villages but it consisted of 17 percent and 6.4 percent of the total income of recent water intervention villages and the control village. Owing to saline water coming from Kien Giang province during the dry season with the sluices gates closed, farmers of the control village can cultivate shrimp with higher returns than that in rice production. This was the main source of household income at the control village (83 percent of total household income). In contrast, hired labor in agricultural production of this control village was the lowest among the three villages. It was 2.7 percent, 12 percent and 25 percent of income share of the control village, the villages of early water intervention, and the villages of recent water intervention respectively. The results above show that household and per capita income were much higher at the control villages and that the ratio of the poor household of this village is lower than the others.
Table 5. Income Sources by Villages.

Share of income from sources Early intervention village Mean ( US$ ) Agricultural income Recent intervention village Income share ( percent ) Control village Mean Income ( 000 share dong ) ( percent )
Income Mean share ( 000 ( percent ) dong )
Rice Non-rice crop Non-crop agriculture Agricultural labor

Non-agricultural income
Trade & business Services Rental sources Remittances Non-agricultural labor

Total household income Per capita income
642 413 33 106 90 90 15 21 18 12 24 732 151
87.8 56.4 4.5 14.5 12.3 12.2 2.0 2.9 2.4 1.7 3.2 100.0
324 88 33 77 127 183 69 21 17 19 57 507 101
63.9 17.3 6.4 15.1 25.0 36.1 13.6 4.1 3.3 3.8 11.3 100.0
2,828 196 11 2,538 83 237 27 27 0 5 177 3,065 605
2.3 6.4 0.2 82.8 2.7 7.7 0.9 0.9 0.0 0.2 5.8 100.0
Source Household survey, April 2001 Note: US$ 1= VN dong 15,100
81
Migration problems
Low income from agriculture production caused villagers to migrate to other places in search of jobs. In year 2000, 163 persons employed at the project site have migrated. Some 72 percent were in search of jobs. A majority of this group (53 percent) migrated to the provinces nearby, Kien Giang and Camau, to seek work as hired labor (Table 6).
Determinant of Household Income

The major determinants of household income were the endowment of land in which increasing one-hectare aquacultural land would contribute US $ 317 to household income (t value: +11.2), medium high land and cultivation. The positive coefficient of low land cultivation was not significant (t value < 2). Non-agricultural capital such as equipment in aquaculture would contribute significantly to household income whereas capital in agriculture contributed lower to household income. A worker in the agricultural field
Table 6. Reasons and Places of Migration.

Early Recent intervention Water villages intervention villages
Higher studies In search of job Setting up a business Marriage Others Total Place for migration Another hamlet from the same village Another village from the same district Another district from the same province Another province Total 1 1.2 1 1.4 0 0 2 1.2 8 59 1 5 10 83 9.6 71.1 1.2 6.0 12.0 100.0 9 56 4 4 73 12.3 76.7 0.0 5.5 5.5 100.0
Control Village
Total
Reason for migration Count percent Count percent Count percent Count percent 1 1 3 2 7 14.3 14.3 42.9 0.0 28.6 100.0 18 116 4 9 16 163 11.0 71.2 2.5 5.5 9.8 100.0
13
15.7
21
28.8
34
23
27.7
18
24.7
41
46 83
55.4 100.0
33 73
45.2 100.0
7 7
100 100
86 163
100.0
82

20.9
25.2
52.8

would contribute much more to the household income than a worker in a non- agricultural field . Land acidity would reduce household income due to resulting low rice productivity. The high negative coefficient of the recent intervention villages variable showed that in this area, household income decreased due to recent water intervention implementation and the early water intervention villages also got negative impact in household income compared to the income at control village (Table 7).
Economic Condition of Households in the Project Site

Self-perceptions of Respondents Regarding Changes in Livelihood Condition
The results from Table 6 show that the highest percentage of household who improved their livelihood situation by more than 60 percent was found in the project area of Ninh Thanh Loi village. However, this area is located in the region that had not been much affected by the water intervention project. The cause of improvement was the increase in shrimp and fish cultivation.
Table 7. Determinant of Household Income.

Factors Unit Mean Marginal value 317 533 465 1,131 126 92 0.6 1.3 43 -295 -185 -513 t-value return (US$) 3.84 5.71 1.74 11.02 2.53 0.91 2.92 4.78 1.43 -1.9 -0.76 -2.2
High land Medium high land Low land Aquaculture land Agricultural worker Non-agricultural workers Agricultural capital Non-agricultural capital Education per worker Acidic land Early intervention village Recent intervention village Household income=Y R2 = 0.51
Ha Ha Ha Ha Person Person US$ US$ Year Ha Dummy percent Dummy percent
0.594 0.586 0.027 0.269 2.52 0.3 221 86 4.67 0.61 38.1 45
US$ 1,486 F-value = 79.02
83
The other villages with high percentage of improvement in livelihood situation were Minh Dieu and Ninh Quoi. These were the villages that were earlier involved in the project. In these parts, increase in rice production was the main positive effect to their livelihood. There was also increase in employment opportunity due to increase in rice intensification. The introduction of fresh water improved the condition for livestock raising. This activity enhanced household employment and improved the livelihood situation. The farmers who stayed in the villages experienced the negative effect of the recent water intervention. Acid sulphate soil remained in the large area where they used to successfully cultivate shrimp and fish with saline water but the water intervention failed in converting the area for rice production. In these areas, the percentage of household heads with improved livelihood was very low. It was only 9.6 percent and 1.9 percent in Phong Thanh village
Table 8. Self Economic Situation Evaluation by Respondents.

Villages Ninh Thanh Loi
(No effected by water intervention village)
No change 23.4
Improved Deteriorated 60.4 16.2
Net change 44.2
Phong Thanh
(Recent water intervention village)
24.9
9.6
65.5
-55.9
Phong Thanh Tay

(Recent water intervention)
26.3
1.9
71.8
-69.5
Minh Dieu
37.7 40.5
50.0 34.6
12.3 24.9
37.7 9.7
Ninh Quoi
Table 9. Stated Reasons for Improvement in Economic Conditions.

Reasons for improvement Increase in shrimp/fish Increase in rice production Increase income from trade Increase in employment opportunity Increase income from livestock No intervention NTL 91 23 2 7 1 Early intervention MD NQ 3 94 6 16 16 75 9 27 23
84


and in Phong Thanh Tay village, respectively. The deterioration of the livelihood situation in these areas was serious. With more than 65 percent of the former and nearly 72 percent of the latter expressing deterioration, the total net changes were 60 percent and -70 percent in these two villages (Table 8). These situations were caused by the reduction in shrimp and fish production in natural fishing, in employment opportunities and in price of rice products (Tables 9 & 10). With the above results, we can see that the saline protection project has brought negative impacts on the livelihood of people, especially of the poor.
Table 10. Stated Reasons for Deterioration (percent of multiple response)

Recent intervention Phong Thanh village Reduction in rice production /price Reduction in Shrimp/fish production Reduction in natural fishing Reduction in employment opportunity Health hazard of earners Increase in family member Reduction in income from trade
Phong Thanh Tay village 63 54 21 16 7 1 2
Early intervention Ninh Quoi village 37 15 26 17 15
61 59 9 12 13 2 5
Conclusion and Policy Implications

Soil areas alloted for tea and coffee occur at low levels. This needs further study considering the set target of production in the future of these crops. In Vietnam, the Doi Moi policy in the late 1980s had positive impacts on agricultural production especially in rice cultivars. From a country that had experienced near famine in 1989, Vietnam has miraculously achieved the position of being the third largest exporter of rice in the world. Since then, rice production, the dominant economic activity in agriculture, has continued to grow at a robust 5.4 percent per year on top of a solid performance of a 5.2 percent growth in the previous decade.
85
The embankments and sluices built in the 1990s in the Bac Lieu province had indeed succeeded in controlling the saline water intrusions inside the areas protected by the embankment. It had induced farmers to grow a second rice crop and in some areas, a third rice crop, depending on soil quality and land elevation protected by the embankments. The increase in rice production, however, comes at the expense of a decrease in production of high value aquatic products from both the breeding of shrimps in the brackish water in the fields to the capture of natural fish in the canals. The present shrimp yield is low at less than 150 kg/ha per crop, but the price of shrimp per kilogram is 100 times higher than the price of unmilled rice, and there is not much difference in the cost of production per hectare between the two. Also, the rapid increase in rice supply in the locality decreased the price of rice. The net effect of the government investment on the construction of embankment and sluices was a substantial reduction in farm income at the transitional stage.
Policy Implications
The main policy implication of the study is for government to go slow in adopting a policy on further investments on coastal embankment and sluices. Furthermore, the brackish water in coastal areas with high value products was a more important natural resource than the rice lands. The low yield of shrimp and traditional cultural practices indicate that the productivity of this resource (brackish water) could be further increased through development and diffusion of improved technologies in the cultural practices for aquatic products. The government should allocate more resources for the development of infrastructure for research and extension on fisheries in the coastal areas, as was done in the past for rice in the deltas.
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References
Department of Science, Technology and Environment of Lam Dong Province. 1998. Apply some intensified farming practices on tea and mulberry planting on slopping land in Lam Dong Province. Espaldon, M. V. and A.O. Magsino. 2000. Participatory LandscapeLifescape Appraisal (PLLA) for Community Resource Management. General Statistical Office. 2000. Statistical Yearbook. Hanoi, Vietnam: Statistical Publishing House. Giang, T.T., H.H. Cai, V.V. Thoan, D.T. Ha, L.Q. Thong, N.D. Binh, and T.V. My. 2001. Coping With Complexity: Managing Water Resource in a Dynamic Upland Environment in Dak Lak. Final Report, WRI/REPSI-UAF Collaborative Research Project, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Ha, D.T., PHD. Phuoc, NN. Thuy, LV. Du, PT Hung, E.O.Espaldon, and A.O. Magsino. 2000. Impacts of changes in policy and market conditions on land use, land management and livelihood among farmers in Central Highlands of Vietnam. Paper presented during SANREM conference entitled Sustaining Upland Development in Southeast Asia: Issues, Tools and Institutions for Local Natural Resource Management held in ACCEED Conference Center, Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines on May 28-30, 2001. 25 pp. Hainsworth, G.B., ed. 1999. Localized Poverty Reduction in Vietnam: Improving the Enabling Environment for Rural Livelihood Enhancement. British Columbia, Canada: Centre for Southeast Asia Research. Hayami, Y. 1994. Strategies for the Reform of Land Policy Relations. In Barker R., ed. Agricultural Policy Analysis for Transition to a Market-Oriented Economy in Vietnam - Selected Issues. FAO Economic and Social Development Paper 123. Rome. Huang Huu Cai. 2000. Community-based natural resource management Report of the Phase 2, submitted to IDRC and Ford Foundation. The UAF-CBNRM Project. Huang Huu Cai, Ruedi Felber and Vo Hung. 2001. PTD in communitybased forest land management and as a contribution to building up a farmer-led extension system in social forestry: Case study from Vietnam. Social Forestry Support Program (SFSP). People Committee of Bao Loc Town. 1998. Land use planning of Bao Loc Town, Lam Dong province. For the period 1998-2010. Thong, L.Q. L.V. Du, and T.A. Hoa. Estimating on-site cost of soil erosion. November, 2000. Case in Bao Loc district-Lam Dong Province. The paper submitted to Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), Vietnam. Ut, T.T and M. Hossain. 2000. Income Distribution and Poverty in Rural Vietnam: Impact of Technology and Infrastructure. Paper presented at the Third Conference of the Asian Society of Agricultural Economists, 18-20 October 2000. Jaipur, India.
AUTHORSPROFILE
DR. MA. VICTORIA O. ESPALDON is Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. She is the principal investigator, SANREM/CRSP/SEA Project based at SEARCA, College, Laguna, 4031 Philippines. Email: voespaldon@yahoo.com DANG THANH HA is Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Economics, Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Project Team Member, SANREM/ CRSP/SEA in Vietnam. Tel: 84 8 8961708, Fax: 84 8 8960713, E-mail: d.thanh.ha@hcm.vnn.vn PHAM HONG DUC PHUOC is the Head, International Relations Office, Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Project Team Member, SANREM/CRSP/SEA in Vietnam. Tel: 84 8 8966946, Fax: 84 8 8960713, E-mail: phducphuoc@hcm.vnn.vn NGUYEN NGOC THUY is a Lecturer, Faculty of Economics, Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Project Team Member, SANREM/ CRSP/SEA in Vietnam. Tel: 84 8 8961708, Fax: 84 8 8960713, E-mail: nnthuy@saigon.vnn.vn LE VAN DU is a Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Agronomy, Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Project Team Member, SANREM/CRSP/ SEA in Vietnam. Tel: 84 8 8961710, Fax: 84 8 8960713, E-mail: uafwatman@fmail.hcm.vnn.vn PHAM TRINH HUNG is a Lecturer, Faculty of Forestry, Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Project Team Member, SANREM/CRSP/ SEA in Vietnam. Tel: 84 8 8974606, Fax: 84 8 8960713, E-mail: lnxh@hcm.vnn.vn. LE QUANG THONG is a Lecturer, Faculty of Economics, Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Project Team Member, SANREM/CRSP/ SEA in Vietnam. Tel: 84 8 8974606, Fax: 84 8 8960713, E-mail: lqhung@fmail.vvn.vn ANNIELYN O. MAGSINO is a Project Management Associate, Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program in Southeast Asia (SANREM CRSP/SEA), SEAMEO Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), College, Los Baos, Laguna, Philippines. Tel. 049-536-2363 to 67, Fax # (049) 536-4105/ 7097, E-mail: aom@agri.searca.org or annie_magsino@yahoo.com HUANG HUU CAI is a Lecturer, Department of Social Forestry, Nong Lam University (NLU) Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. PHAN TRIEU GIANG is a Lecturer of the Faculty of Forestry, Nong Lam University (NLU) Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. TRANG THAI HUY NHAT, Department of Rural Development, Faculty of Economics, Nong Lam University (NLU) Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. TRAN THI UT, Department of Rural Development, Faculty of Economics, Nong Lam University (NLU) Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
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Challenges For Sustainable Agri & Nat Res MGT in Vietnam Uplands

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List of Case Studies

Arsenio M. Balisacan Director

Lifescape refers to the way people live on different agroecological zones.

Land Management Decision

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Process of Land Management.

Location of the Study Area

SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS.

land use allocation was estimated during the field visits.

Driving Forces of Change at the National Level

Case Study: Bao LocLarge Farm

History of the farm:

Total income: 54.84 mill

Figure 2. Coffee Production in Vietnam,1985-1997

Case Study: Medium Farm

Driving Force at the Local Level

Policy for Mulberry Development

Shift from State Farm to Individual Management System

Forest Resource as Open Access Resource

Changes in Market Conditions

Case Study: Large Farm

Nature of Land Use Change

Changes in the Production Area of Major Agricultural Crops

Tea Coffee Mulberry

Current Trend in Commune Farming System

Case Study: New Migrants to the Area

History of the farm

Soil erosion evident along contours of coffee.

Impacts and Implications of Land Use Changes

Impacts on the Environment

A sloping agricultural land technology model.

Source: Farmers group discussion and estimation from key informants.

Case Study: Diversified Farming

Case Study: Tea-Mulberry Farming

Case Study: Mulberry-Black Pepper Farming

Extension and Credit System

Case Study: Black Pepper-Banana-Livestock Farming

Selected Research Notes

How to Assist Farmers in Coping with Changes in Market Prices

The Study Area

Results and Discussion

Farmers Adaptive Strategies under Changing Market Conditions

Some Research Issues

Soil Erosion: A Cause or A Consequence?

Cropping Patterns and Soil Erosion Rates in Dai Lao Commune

Soil Erosion and Land Management Decisions among Farmers

Why Forestland Allocation?

True People Participation is a Critical Factor for Success

Changing Agricultural and Forestry Extension Approach Natural Resources Management

The Extension System

Goal and Objectives

The Participatory Technology Development (PTD) Components

Women and Rural Development

How do rural women live?

Does Gender Inequity Exist?

Womens Role in the Family and in Rural Development

Capital market Commerce Handicraft Husbandry Growing

Womens Income Mens Income

Genders Economic Contributions

Womens Role in Decision Making