Occasional Papers of the East-West Agroecosystems Environment and Policy of the Midlands Institute

1990 of Northern Paper No. 12 Vietnam

edited by Le Trong Cue Kathleen Gillogly A. Terry Rambo

(X) East-West Center

Agroecosystems of the Midlands of Northern Vietnam A Report on a Preliminary Human Ecology Field Study of Three Districts in Vinh Phu Province

edited by Le Trong Cue Kathleen Gillogly A. Terry Rambo

A joint research activity of the Southeast Asian Universities Agroecosystem Network (SUAN), the Environment and Policy Institute (EAPI), East-West Center, and the Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies (CRES), Hanoi University

Environment and Policy Institute East-West Center Occasional Paper No. 12 1990 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Agroecosystems of the Midlands of Northern Vietnam : a report on a preliminary human ecology field study of the three districts in Vinh Phu province / edited by Le Trong Cue, Kathleen Gillogly, A. Terry Rambo. p. cm. — (Occasional paper ; no. 12) ISBN 0-86638-134-1 1. Agricultural ecology—Vietnam-Vihh Phu (Province) 2. Agriculture«Vietnam--Vinh Phu (Province) I. Le, Trong Cue, 1940- . II. Gillogly, Kathleen. III. Rambo, A. Terry. IV. Series: Occasional paper (East-West Environment and Policy Institute (Honolulu, Hawaii) ; no. 12. S471.V48V563 1990 306.3'49-dc20 90-48417 CIP

Le Trong Cue is Vice-Chairman of the Resources and Environment Research Programme of Vietnam and also Deputy Director of the Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies, Hanoi University, Vietnam.

Kathleen Gillogly is a doctoral student in the University of Michigan Department of Anthropology. She has participated in the Southeast Asian University Agroecosystem Network (SUAN)-Env iron men t and Policy Institute workshops in Laos and Vietnam.

A. Terry Rambo is a Research Associate with the Environment and Policy Institute. He has worked with colleagues in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand to develop the Southeast Asian Universities Agroecosystem Network (SUAN), a regional association of scientists concerned with research on the human ecology of tropical agriculture. He is currently assisting SUAN to extend its activities to Laos and Vietnam.

©1990 by the East-West Center All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES, MAPS, AND TABLES v

PREFACE vii

1. CONCEPTS AND METHODS FOR AGROECOSYSTEM RESEARCH 1

The Human Ecology Perspective 2 Incorporating Indigenous Knowledge into Scientific Research 16 The Agroecosystems Concept 18 Rapid Rural Appraisal 36

2. THE MIDLANDS REGION OF NORTHERN VIETNAM . . 45

Physical Environment 45 Human Settlement of the Midlands 50 Social Organization and Institutions for Resource Management 52 The Rural Landscape of the Midlands 62 Cropping Systems in the Midlands 65 The Three Districts 71

3. SOIL MANAGEMENT IN THE MIDLANDS 79

Overview of Soils of the Midlands Region 79 Nutrient and Material Flows 81 Soil Fertility Management 84 Soil Erosion Control 90 Conclusions 94 Key Questions 96

4. WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT 102

Comparative Hydrology of Three Districts of Vinh Phu Province 102 Human Actions and the Hydrological Cycle 109 Key Questions 112

iii 5. HOMEGARDENS AND LIVESTOCK 118

The VAC in Dong Xuan Cooperative, Thanh Hoa District . . 120 The VAC in Tay Coc Cooperative, Doan Hung District .... 127 The VAC in Dong Xuan Cooperative, Lap Thach District . . . 134 Conclusions and Key Questions 138

6. LAND USE IN THE MIDLANDS 152

The Rural Landscape of the Midlands 152 Comparison of the Patterns of Land Use in the Three Districts 158 Factors Influencing Land Use of the Midlands 171 Key Questions 177

7. AGROECOSYSTEMS OF THE MIDLANDS 187

Systems Properties 187 Systems Complexity and Diversity 191 Disconformities Between Ecosystems and Social Systems . . . 197 Human Ecology Research in the Midlands 200

APPENDIX A: LIST OF SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS 203

APPENDIX B: TEAM MEMBERSHIP 207

APPENDIX C: SEMINAR SCHEDULE 208

REFERENCES 211

PLATES 215

iv FIGURES, MAPS, AND TABLES

Figures

1.1 Systemic Relations Between Social and Natural Systems . . 3 1.2 Ecosystem and Social System Components 4 1.3 Traditional Montagnard Interaction with the Upland Ecosystem 11 1.4 Traditional Vietnamese Interaction with the Upland Ecosystem 13 1.5 Post-Independence Vietnamese Transformation of Upland Ecosystem 15 1.6 Examples of Systems 19 1.7 Hierarchical Arrangements of Natural and Agricultural Ecosystems 21 1.8 Social and Natural Hierarchies of Vietnam 22 1.9 Properties of Agroecosystems 24 1.10 An Example of Annual Rice Production, Duy Tien District, Ha Nam Ninh Province, Red River Delta 33 1.11 Full Steps of Agroecosystem Analysis 35

2.1 Cooperative Organization 53 2.2 Transect of Midlands Agroecosystem 64

3.1 Material flows in a typical household agroecosystem in the Midlands 83

4.1 Water Sources 103 4.2 Schematic Diagram of Water Supply, Thanh Hoa District . 106 4.3 Scheme of Hydrological System, Lap Thach District .... 108 4.4 Medium-Scale Hydrological System Ill 4.5 Small-Scale Hydrological System Ill

5.1 Diagram of a Model (R)VAC 129 5.2 Energy and Material Flows Within the VAC System .... 139 5.3 Energy and Material Flows Between the VAC and the Agroecosystem 140 5.4 The Place of the (R)VAC in the Agroecosystem 141 5.5 Energy and Material Flows Between the VAC and Outside the Agroecosystem 142

v 5.6 Energy and Material Flows Between the Fishpond and the Rest of the VAC 147

6.1 Cross-section of Landscape of Dong Xuan Cooperative, Thanh Hoa District 160 6.2 Cross-section of Landscape of Tay Coc Cooperative, Doan Hung District 166 6.3 Cross-section of Landscape of Dong Xuan Cooperative, Lap Thach District 170 6.4 Factors Influencing Land Use in the Midlands 173 6.5 Interactions Between Subsystems of Land Use System ... 175 6.6 Farmers* Decision Flows 176

Maps

2.1 Administrative Map of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 46 2.2 Map of Vinh Phu Province 72

Tables

2.1 Crop Calendar 68 2.2 Physical Characteristics of the Three Districts 75 2.3 Population Figures 76 2.4 Land-Use Distribution 76

6.1 Key Characteristics of Land Use in the Three Districts 172 6.2 Summary of Agroforestry Systems, Vinh Phu Province . . 178

7.1 Some Key Relationships and Variables Determining the System Properties of Agroecosystem in the Midlands .... 188 7.2 Assessment of Agroecosystem Properties in the Midlands . 189 7.3 Land Use by Seven Households in Vinh Phu Province ... 194 7.4 Livestock Holdings of Seven Households in Vinh Phu Province 194

vi PREFACE

This report is the product of a seminar organized by the Center for

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies (CRES), of Hanoi

University, in cooperation with the Southeast Asian Universities Agroecosystem

Network (SUAN) and the Environment and Policy Institute (EAPI) of the East-

West Center. The seminar was held in Hanoi and Vinh Phu Province between

5 and 19 August 1989.

The seminar had three main objectives:

1. To introduce CRES staff and students to concepts and methods of human ecology and agroecosystems research employed by SUAN;

2. To make a preliminary analysis of agroecosy stems in the Midlands

Region of northern Vietnam; and

3. To identify key questions for possible future joint research by CRES,

SUAN, and EAPI.

Taking part in the seminar were 5 CRES staff, 24 students from the

CRES post-graduate course on environmental science, and 10 scientists from the

Philippines, Thailand, and the United States associated with SUAN and EAPI.

A list of seminar participants is provided in Appendix A.

The seminar was held in three parts (see Appendix C for a detailed schedule). Part I was devoted to formal lectures and discussion of concepts and

VI 1 methods for human ecology and agroecosystem research, Part II to field data collection in Vinh Phu Province, and Part 111 to analysis of data and presentation of findings.

Lectures on Research Concepts and Methods

The first two days of the seminar were devoted to lectures and discussions on concepts and methods of human ecology and agroecosystem analysis. Following an introduction to the work of CRES by Le Trong Cue,

SUAN scientists presented lectures on a variety of topics. These included a description of the organization and activities of SUAN (Terd Charoenwatana); case studies of agroecosystems in Northern Thailand (Kanok Rerkasem), the

Cordillera in the Philippines (June Prill-Brett), and Philippine uplands (Percy

Sajise); the human ecological approach to research on rural resource systems

(Percy Sajise); concepts of agroecosystem analysis (Kanok Rerkasem); the policy aspects of resource management (Jeff Romm); the collection of data from farmers (Harold McArthur); and the design of research on agroecosystems in the

Midlands (Terry Rambo).

Field Research

The seminar was based on the idea that the most efficient way to adapt existing SUAN research approaches to the specific conditions found in Vietnam,

v i i i and to make these approaches known to Vietnamese researchers, was to actually employ them in joint fieldwork in the countryside. Therefore, we spent seven days observing agroecosystems in the Thanh Hoa, Doan Hung, and Lap Thach districts of Vinh Phu Province, in the Midlands.

Rather than attempting to do a holistic study in the limited time available, we decided to focus on a limited number of specific topics. This enabled us to gather more specific information, which we believed to be necessary given the limited availability of current village-level data on agroecosystems in the Midlands. This also allowed the seminar participants to focus on their individual interests. The group was divided into five teams with each team assigned to study a separate topic. Teams were formed of both CRES and SUAN participants from different disciplines (see Appendix B). The topics covered by the teams were homegardens, soil management, water resources, landscape ecology, and agroforestry systems. Each team formulated its own goals and detailed list of questions to ask during field interviews with farmers.

All groups performed research by field observation and semistructured interviewing of household heads and key informants. In addition, all teams obtained secondary information from official briefings and reports. Generally, the teams visited the farmers in their homes, often but not always accompanied by one of the officials from the village cooperative. Sometimes the officials stayed for the entire interview, sometimes not. Through one of the team

i X members who spoke both Vietnamese and English, the team members were introduced to the farmer. The purpose of the visit was explained and if the farmer indicated willingness to answer questions, the team members took turns interviewing. Usually, one person asked the greater part of the questions, with other team members asking follow-up questions in turn. The farmers usually made us tea, and we passed around cigarettes and chewing gum. No monetary compensation was given to the informants. After interviewing in the house, we often asked the farmers to accompany us to their farms where we asked further questions regarding farm practices and other topics such as the household, labor, production, tenurial arrangements, and other socioeconomic information. The farmers were very hospitable and generous in giving us so much of their time.

Data Analysis and Presentation of Findings

After completing collection of data in Vinh Phu, we spent three days at Nui Tarn Dao and Hanoi preparing and presenting preliminary reports on the major findings of the field work. All seminar participants were involved in this.

At the final seminar session in Hanoi, summaries of the findings of each team were presented in Vietnamese to interested scientists and government officials.

Most of the SUAN scientists left Hanoi on 19 August, but Kathleen Gillogly and

Terry Rambo remained until 26 August to work together with Le Trong Cue and other CRES staff and students to compile a preliminary report. That report

X consisted of summaries of the field findings of each of the six teams. These had been written in English by SUAN members and in Vietnamese by CRES participants. Due to lack of time, we were unable to fully integrate these different versions. The current report, prepared by the editors in January-April

1990 at the East-West Center, integrates the work of both CRES and SUAN participants and has been revised and expanded to reflect new information gathered by CRES researchers since August 1989.

Report Organization

This report is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 summarizes the concepts of human ecology, use of indigenous knowledge, agroecosystems analysis, and rapid.rural appraisal. It is included to provide the reader with an orientation to the concepts and methods employed in doing detailed research reported in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 offers an overview of the human ecology of the Midlands and a survey of the three districts visited in Vinh Phu

Province. Chapters 3-6 present the detailed topical studies conducted by the five research teams: Chapter 3, soil management; Chapter 4, water resources management; Chapter 5, homegardens and livestock; and Chapter 6, land use.

Chapter 6 presents the combined findings of the teams on landscape ecology and agroforestry systems. Chapters 3-6 conclude with lists of key questions for further investigation. Chapter 7 presents our major conclusions about

xi agroecosystems of the Midlands. References to existing literature are provided

where necessary and appropriate, but a comprehensive review of the voluminous

literature on the human ecology of Vietnam has not been attempted.

Acknowledgments

Carrying out of this activity was only possible because of the

enthusiastic support provided by officials at all levels of the Vietnamese

government. Mr. Truong Trung, Chairman of the Vinh Phu Provincial Science

and Technology Committee, and his staff were particularly helpful in arranging

access to the field sites. The Chairmen of the People's Committees and the

Party Secretaries in the Thanh Hoa, Doan Hung, and Lap Thach districts, made

great efforts to ensure that we were able to do our work successfully in their jurisdictions.

The chairmen, party secretaries, and other officials of the village

cooperatives where we interviewed farmers were also most helpful. Above all,

the farmers themselves deserve our thanks for the good humor and patience with which they answered our questions. They certainly provided much additional evidence to support our belief in the value of collaboration between scientists and local people in doing research on rural ecology.

xi i Financial support for travel to Vietnam by individual SUAN-EAPI scientists was provided by grants to EAPI from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Office in

Bangkok. Local costs of the seminar were covered by an International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) grant to CRES to support the post-graduate training course on environmental studies. Support for

Le Trong Cue's stay at the East-West Center to help revise this report was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund through a grant to EAPI. The Ford

Foundation also provided a grant to support five of the CRES graduate students who had participated in the seminar to work at EAPI for three months.

The SUAN Secretariat based at Khon Kaen University handled all financial and administrative arrangements for SUAN-EAPI participants. Special acknowledgment is owed to the SUAN Chairman, Dr. Terd Charoenwatana, and the Secretariat staff, including Roger Attwater and especially Keith Fahrney, for the skill and patience with which they handled these often complex tasks.

This report has been extensively revised and greatly expanded from the original English language version of the preliminary workshop report. Materials from the Vietnamese language team reports have been incorporated and additional Vietnamese sources tapped for detailed information that was not available at the time of the field study. Chapter 1 is largely based on seminar presentations by Terry Rambo and Kanok Rerkasem; Chapter 2 was originally

xi i i written by Le Trong Cue and Terry Rambo; Chapter 3 was written by Keith

Fahrney; Chapter 4 by Harold McArthur; Chapter 5 by Yvonne Everett, Kate

Gillogly, and Charmaine Rambo; Chapter 6 is a new synthesis of materials for a report on agroforestry systems compiled by June Prill-Brett, Kanok Rerkasem, and Percy Sajise, and a paper on landscape analysis written by Jeff Romm; and

Chapter 7 was written by Le Trong Cue and Terry Rambo. All photographs are by Terry Rambo with the exception of Plate 1 which is by Le Trong Cue.

In preparing this report, we have received useful assistance from

Attachai J intra wet and Marilyn Li. Helen Takeuchi has done her usual excellent job of copyediting. The editors are grateful to all who contributed ideas and information used in the report. Only we are responsible for the present document.

Le Trong Cue Kathleen Gillogly A. Terry Rambo

1990 CHAPTER 1

CONCEPTS AND METHODS FOR AGROECOSYSTEM RESEARCH

Degradation of the environment of the Midlands by past agricultural development is currently a matter of great and grave concern in Vietnam. It is now realized that future agricultural development must take a long-term perspective and combine production of crops with natural resource conservation in order to ensure that agriculture is truly sustainable. The Center for Natural

Resources Management and Environmental Studies (CRES) of Hanoi University has been given lead responsibility by the Vietnamese government to carry-out a program of research aimed at developing more sustainable agroecosystems for the Midlands. This is. a new field of scientific research in Vietnam, and

Vietnamese scientists are only beginning to develop the concepts and methods needed to carry out this task. Because agroecosystems in Vietnam are in many ways similar to those found in a number of Southeast Asian countries that have been described and analyzed by SUAN researchers, many of the research concepts and methodologies already developed by SUAN researchers are likely to be applicable in large part to the conditions of Vietnam.

The present chapter is intended as a brief introduction to the concepts and methods employed in the field research in Vinh Phu Province. These include (1) the human ecology perspective, (2) the incorporation of indigenous

1 knowledge into agroecological research, (3) the analysis of agroecosystems, and

(4) rapid rural appraisal.

The Human Ecology Perspective

The research performed in this seminar was designed using the human ecology perspective. Human ecology, which is the scientific study of relationships between people and their environment, provides a powerful conceptual framework for rural resource systems analysis (Rambo and Sajise

1984). It is based on the assumption that there are systemic relations between human society (the social system) and the natural environment (the ecosystem)

(see Figure 1.1). These relations affect the ability of humans to obtain needed resources as well as the environmental impacts produced by human activities.

A social system is composed of a human population, technology, knowledge, beliefs, values, and social structures and institutions. An ecosystem is composed of physical components (soil and water) and biotic components

(plants, animals, and microorganisms) (see Figure 1.2). The goal of human ecology research is to identify and understand the character of the interactions that occur between these systems and the way that these interactions shape the specific forms taken by both social and ecological systems. Human ecology, therefore, focuses attention on three related questions:

1. What are the flows of energy, materials, and information from the ecosystem to the social system and from the social system to the ecosystem? Figure 1.1 Systemic Relations Between Social and Natural Systems Figure 1.2 Ecosystem and Social System Components (Rambo and Sajise 1984) 2. How does the social system respond to changes in the ecosystem

(adaptation)?

3. What impacts do human activities have on the ecosystem?

Interactions between social and ecological systems

Interactions occur in the form of flows of energy, materials, and information between the social and ecological systems. These flows influence the structure and the functioning of each system. The social system, for example, requires a steady flow of energy from the ecosystem in the form of

food for people and fuel for cooking and manufacturing activities. The

magnitude of these flows influences the size and settlement pattern of the human

population. The social system in turn releases materials into the ecosystem in

the form of wastes and pollutants. These inputs influence the biotic composition of the ecosystem, which in turn affects the availability of energy and materials

to the social system. The relationship between social system and ecosystem,

therefore, is a dialectical one in which change in each system continuously affects the structure and functioning of the other system.

Population size and composition are extremely important factors determining the impact of the social system on the ecosystem. Large, very dense populations have greater impact on the environment than do small, dispersed populations. In the Red River Delta, where rural populations can exceed 1,000 persons per square kilometer, all available land must be used for

5 production of food, that is, to produce calories to provide energy for people.

No space can be spared for forests or wildlife. In the Midlands, on the other hand, populations are considerably less dense so that only part of the area must be used to produce food. Hill tops and other less fertile or cultivable areas can be used for forestry and agroforestry purposes, and for husbanding of larger herds of livestock.

The composition of the population, particularly the ratio of dependent children and the elderly to workers, is also a very important factor influencing human relationships with the environment. Rapidly growing populations, such as that of rural Vietnam, have an extremely high ratio of dependent children to productive workers. Even in situations of high density, such dependency ratios can result in labor shortages at peak times in the annual cycle. Insufficient labor may be available to permit use of soil conservation measures, such as terracing, which are very labor intensive.

Technology is another important influence on human interactions with the environment. Vietnamese farmers, like other Southeast Asian farmers, employ many ingenious technologies to maintain soil fertility and recycle nutrients. Their ability to manage their ecosystem is constrained, however, by almost exclusive reliance on human and animal power. Construction of terraces to check soil erosion, for example, is extremely labor intensive when done using

6 hand tools only. Matching technologies to the labor capacity of specific social

systems is a major problem in designing rural development projects.

Knowledge, beliefs, and values are ideological aspects of the social system that regulate human behavior toward the environment. Lowland

Vietnamese farmers have many centuries of experience of managing wet rice

fields. Consequently, they have a rich and well-developed body of knowledge

about how best to sustain production in the paddies. But they are much less

familiar with upland ecosystems, such as the Midlands, to which they have

recently migrated. Furthermore, they place a very high cultural value on

consumption of rice as their staple food. This leads them to focus attention on

maximizing the productivity of their paddy fields. Cassava, the main upland

food crop, has a much lower cultural value and is eaten only in times when

there is insufficient rice. Therefore, much less attention is paid to management

of the cassava fields. The ideas of lowland Vietnamese farmers about proper

use of resources thus may not be appropriate for the different environmental conditions of the Midlands, resulting in low productivity in the short term and

severe environmental degradation in the long run.

Social structure and institutions (e.g., political and administrative organizations and the rules that govern land tenure and labor allocation) play an extremely important role in regulating interactions between people and their environment. The same human population will have different impacts on its

7 ecosystem depending on the specific social institutions that regulate its activities.

The current attempt in Vietnam to shift responsibility for management of many

natural resources from village cooperatives into the hands of individual farm

households is based upon recognition of this fact.

Different environmental conditions may require very different forms of

social organization for efficient management, however. Water control in the

Thanh Hoa District of Vinh Phu Province, for example, can be achieved at the

level of village cooperative because the nature of the topography facilitates

construction of small-scale impoundments and use of gravity flow irrigation.

The situation in the Lap Thach District is very different. There, the threat of

flooding by large rivers and the need to pump irrigation water over long

distances require a large-scale system of dams and reservoirs that can only be

constructed and managed at the district or provincial level.

An example that illustrates the utility of the human ecology perspective

is that of the problem of why Vietnamese peasants (nguoi kinh) from the

overpopulated Red River Delta failed to colonize the almost empty highlands

although aboriginal "Montagnard" (nguoi dan toe) populations have survived

there for centuries.1

1 The discussion in this section is based on a number of sources of information: differences in cultural practices between the Vietnamese and the Montagnards which contribute to their different malarial infection rates are described in two articles by Jacques May (1954; 1960). The contrast between

8 For at least the last five hundred years the low-lying alluvial lands of the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam have supported population densities of several hundred persons per square kilometer. Land was so scarce and natural calamities such as floods, droughts, and typhoons so common that famines were an almost annual occurrence and the life of the average peasant one of continuous toil and hardship. Despite their frequent misery, however, few

Vietnamese peasants were willing to migrate into the sparsely populated frontier areas in the surrounding mountains where land was available for settlement.

Attempts by French colonial authorities to promote such colonization uniformly met with failure. Inquiries by geographers and ethnographers revealed the

Vietnamese believed that the mountains were the home of evil spirits who would cause them to sicken and die with fever.

In fact, those Vietnamese who did try to settle in the uplands suffered an extremely high mortality rate, caused not by ghosts but by mosquito- transmitted malaria plasmodia. Epidemiological investigations revealed that the malaria vector in the Vietnamese uplands was the Anopheles minimus, a

upland and lowland environments in Indochina is a major theme in the work of the French geographer Pierre Gourou (1975). Rambo (1973) provides a general description of the ecological adaptation of Vietnamese peasants to the Red River Delta. The role of abnormal hemoglobins in the resistance of human populations to malaria is discussed in Livingstone (1971). The same author (1967, Chapter 6; 1973) describes the distribution of abnormal hemoglobin E in Southeast Asia.

9 mosquito that can successfully breed only in the clear, moving, sun-lit water of the mountain streams. Establishment of small agricultural colonies in the uplands actually improved the breeding conditions for the malaria vector as a result of felling the natural forest cover and exposing longer lengths of the streams to sunlight. Despite this, however, Montagnard communities practicing shifting cultivation had managed to survive under precisely these unfavorable conditions for centuries with relatively low malarial mortality rates.

Studies by medical ecologists of Montagnard patterns of life revealed that they followed a number of special cultural practices which served to minimize their likelihood of contracting malaria. In particular, they constructed their houses on stilts, tethered their livestock underneath their houses, and built their cooking fires inside their houses (Figure 1.3).

By building their houses 2 meters or more above the surface of the ground, they were able to escape frequent contact with the malaria-bearing mosquitoes that normally fly within 1 meter of ground level. Keeping buffalo, pigs, and horses underneath the houses provided tempting alternative targets for the mosquitoes so that they were not lured to higher levels by the presence of warm human bodies there. Mosquitoes that did chance to fly up to the living level were likely to be repelled by the acrid smoke of the cooking and heating fires which generally filled the living quarters of the Montagnard houses. Of

10

course, the people probably suffered from a high level of eye irritation and respiratory ailments from the smoke.

In contrast to the Montagnards, the Vietnamese built their houses directly on the ground, tethered their livestock in separate stables, and cooked in separate kitchens located some distance away from their living and sleeping quarters, thus greatly increasing the frequency with which they were exposed to being bitten by the Anopheles minimus (Figure 1.4). The Vietnamese suffered

far higher rates of infection from malaria than the Montagnards occupying the same highland habitat.

Once infected with the plasmodia, the Vietnamese also suffered more severe attacks of fever than the Montagnards because they lacked the genetic protection against the disease that abnormal hemoglobin E provided the latter population. A mutant blood type that reaches frequencies of 50 to 60 percent

in indigenous mountain-dwelling populations in malarial areas in Indochina, hemoglobin E provides some protection against the worst malarial attacks in a

manner analogous to the better-known sickle-cell blood trait in Africa. Lowland

Vietnamese populations show only very low hemoglobin E frequencies, presumably because the mutant gene enjoys no selective advantage in the

malaria-free lowlands where they have traditionally lived. After winning independence from France in 1954, the Vietnamese government successfully carried out a major program to resettle people from the overcrowded lowlands

12

Figure 1.4 Traditional Vietnamese Interaction with the Upland Ecosystem into the Midlands. Malaria remains endemic in the region, but new cultural practices have increased the ability of the Vietnamese to survive there at acceptable levels of mortality. Particularly important in this regard has been the spread of scientifically based thinking about disease with the consequent recognition that fever is carried by mosquitoes rather than evil spirits. Correct identification of natural causal factors has permitted the taking of effective countermeasures against malaria such as the use of mosquito nets when sleeping and the taking of prophylactic drugs such as chloroquine that lower infection rates and lessen the severity of attacks when they occur.

As the death rate from malaria has fallen, Vietnamese fear of moving to the highlands has also declined and consequently population densities there have continued to increase dramatically, leading to major modification of the environment. The increased labor force has made it possible to terrace the hillslopes and divert streams into irrigated rice paddies, destroying in the process the breeding grounds for Anopheles minimus and thus ultimately removing malaria as a component of the upland ecosystem. Through their own activities, the Vietnamese have thus transformed the highland ecosystem into a more favorable habitat for human settlement (Figure 1.5). In the process, however, they have also caused deforestation and degradation of many upland areas, especially in the Midlands region. Vinh Phu Province is a typical case.

14

Fieure 1.5 Post-IndcDendence Vietnamese Transformation nfl Inland Frn«v«»»m Incorporating Indigenous Knowledge into Scientific Research

The study of indigenous knowledge has an important role in human ecology research. Local or indigenous people who have lived in intimate contact with their environment for many years are a valuable source of information on

the structure and dynamics of rural ecosystems. Unlike most scientists who are only able to spend relatively short periods of time observing any particular local

system, farmers spend their entire lives interacting with that system. Also unlike scientists who receive salaries regardless of whether or not their ideas work in practice or not, farmers must successfully manage their local ecosystem

in order to survive. Viewed from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective,

therefore, the knowledge of farmers is under continuous, intense selection pressure. Farmers who fail to understand their environment will be much less successful than those with a more accurate perception of its potentials and constraints. Such selective pressure will, over time, produce a body of extremely valuable environmental knowledge.

Indigenous knowledge is not the same as scientific knowledge, however.

It is based on ad hoc trial-and-error learning rather than systematic experimental testing of comprehensive theories. It is most useful for identifying problems and constraints affecting management of the agroecosystem. It is also very valuable as a source of information about long-term trends and rare and unusual events that may not occur during the short periods the scientist can spend in the area.

16 Farmer knowledge of causality, however, is often difficult to assimilate to a scientific perspective. Supernatural causes, such as evil spirits, are often invoked to explain occurrence of disease, for example. Many aspects of ecology are impossible for farmers to understand because they lack appropriate

technology to perceive them. No farmer can be expected to know about microorganisms and rhizobia, since they lack microscopes. But farmers may

still recognize that legumes improve soil fertility without necessarily understanding why this happens. It is the task of the researcher to learn as

much as possible about indigenous knowledge, to use it as a source of ideas and

hypotheses about agroecosystems, and to test its assumptions within the

framework of modern science.

Collection of indigenous knowledge is difficult because it requires

scientists to set aside their belief that they are all-knowing experts. They must

shift from the role of teacher to that of student, listening carefully to what the

farmers say. Often, the initial reaction will be that the farmers are ignorant and doing everything wrong. The scientist will want to interrupt them to correct

their "mistaken" ideas. If, however, scientists have the patience to listen fully to what the fanners have to say, they will often discover that there are logical

reasons for farmers to act as they do. Even when the beliefs of farmers are not empirically supported, as in the case of the traditional Vietnamese belief that

17 malaria is caused by evil spirits, knowing about the beliefs can still help scientists to understand the reasons people act as they do.

By learning to take advantage of indigenous knowledge, it is possible to vastly increase the data collection capabilities of Vietnamese agricultural and forestry researchers. There are only a few researchers, but there are hundreds of thousands of farmers. If researchers can make the farmers their partners in studying rural resource systems, they can greatly increase their ability to collect data on Vietnamese agroecosystems.

The Agroecosystems Concept2

Within the overall perspective offered by human ecology, and using the farmers as our principal source of information, we employed a more detailed research approach called agroecosystem analysis. This approach views agricultural systems in terms of their output of certain critical properties desired by their human managers.

The concept of the agroecosystem is derived from theoretical work on community ecology and systems ecology. A system is an assemblage of interacting components within a boundary (von Bertalanffy 1978; Conway 1984,

1987). Examples are shown in Figure 1.6. These components act together so

This section is modified and expanded from Rerkasem 1989.

18 1a Solar system 1b Mechanical system OjA

A o o A O A 1c Circulatory system 1 d Kinship system

Figure 1.6 Examples of Systems (Rambo and Sajise 1984) that the system responds to stimuli as a whole, even if the stimulus is applied

to only a part of the system. As such, a bounded system produces a distinctive

set or configuration of results. Although all the parts of a system may be

connected to each other, that does not mean that researchers need to understand every single aspect of the system. Rather, the essential features are determined by a limited number of processes, and the researcher can focus on these key processes and interactions.

System hierarchies

Complex systems (e.g., the natural living world) can be seen as an arrangement of nested hierarchies, starting from the smallest unit of the chromosome up to the higher levels of organization with ecosystems at the top of the hierarchy (see Figure 1.7). In agricultural ecosystems, the hierarchical

relationships may extend from the crop at the population level, through the cropping system at the community level, to the agroecosystem at the highest

level. Social systems are also hierarchically organized, with the household as the lowest level and the global community or "world-system" as the highest

level. For Vietnam, the social and natural systems hierarchies are displayed in

Figure 1.8.

It is a notable feature of systems levels that the behavior of higher systems in the hierarchy is not readily discerned simply from the study of the behavior of lower systems. Each system level has unique processes and

20 ECOSYSTEM AGROECOSYSTEM i i COMMUNITY CROPPING SYSTEM i i POPULATION CROP

ORGANISM

TISSUE

CELL

GENE

Figure 1.7 Hierarchical Arrangements of Natural and Agricultural Ecosystems (Adapted from Conway 1985a)

21 Watershed Rung dau nguon Nation (Nuoc Viet-Nam) Regional ecosystem (Midlands)

He sinh thai vung (Trung du) Province / / (Tinh) A'

i i

Landscape district system (Huyen) He canh quan

/ Village / (Lang xa) //\/ Cooperative Local ecosystem (Hop tac xa) •>V-^ / / (Paddy fields; Hamlet hill slopes) (Xom) He sinh Thai dia phu ong Household (Gia dinh)

Held Dong mong

Figure 1.8 Social and Natural Hierarchies of Vietnam

22 interactions (called "emergent properties"). Hence, the yield of a rice crop is not simply a function of the individual rice plant but of competition between plants in a plot. Each level in the hierarchy has to be analyzed in its own right.

System properties

Agroecosystem analysis as done within SUAN emphasizes the study of six systems properties (see Figure 1.9 for an illustration). Of these, productivity and sustainability have received the most attention; stability, autonomy, equitability, and solidarity are also of interest (Marten and Rambo

1988). Two other properties often indirectly discussed are diversity and adaptability.

Productivity is the system's net output of goods and services, such as kilograms of rice per hectare annually. A more formal definition of productivity is net increment in valued product per unit of input. It is commonly measured as annual yield, net income, or gross margin. Traditional agricultural development theory has narrowly focused on. increase of this value in the agricultural system (Conway 1987; Marten and Rambol988). An important distinction from the standpoint of the farmer is between productivity per unit land versus productivity per unit labor. Generally speaking, there is a necessary trade-off between obtaining a high yield per hectare and a high yield per hour worked.

23 HIGH LOW

PRODUCTIVITY 1

Time Time

STABILrTY

Time Time

Perturbation Perturbation 1/

Time Time SUSTAINABILITY . Stress Stress Jill,

Time Time

EQUtT ABILITY II Income Income

AUTONOMY

Proportion of resource controlled by community

Resources

SOLIDARITY

Proportion of management decisions made by community

Resources

Figure 1.9 Properties of Agroecosystems (The first four graphs are from KEPAS 1983.)

24 Stability is the degree to which productivity remains constant despite normal, small-scale fluctuations in environmental variables (e.g. climate or economic conditions). It may be conveniently measured by the reciprocal of the coefficient of variation in productivity. That is, a level of production is maintained by the system despite small-scale fluctuations; a small degree of variability indicates a high level of stability, and a high degree of variability indicates a low level of stability (Conway 1987; Marten and Rambo 1988).

Sustainability is the ability of a system to maintain its productivity when subjected to stress and shock. A stress is defined as a regular, sometimes continuous and cumulative, relatively small and predictable disturbance.

Examples are increasing soil salinity, declining soil fertility, failure of a resistant variety, and farmer indebtedness. A shock, by contrast, is an irregular, infrequent, relatively large and unpredictable disturbance. Examples are relatively infrequent drought or flood, a new pest, or a major political upheaval.

Sustainability is also viewed as the ability of the system to maintain a given level of productivity over an extended period of time. Unfortunately, measurement is difficult and can often only be done retrospectively. Lack of sustainability may be indicated by declining productivity, but equally, as experience has shown, collapse can come suddenly and without warning (Conway 1987; Marten and Rambo 1988).

25 Autonomy is a measure of the extent to which a system's survival is dependent on other systems outside its control.3 It is defined as the extent to which a system is able to function at a normal level using only resources over which it exercises effective management control. An isolated swidden farming community living almost entirely off resources produced within its tribal territory has high autonomy. A modern city-state such as Singapore, which is almost 100 percent dependent on resources imported from beyond its political boundaries, displays very low autonomy. Certain key resources, however, may exert a disproportionate degree of influence on a group's autonomy. In precolonial Southeast Asia, for example, lowland states were able to exert control over otherwise independent hill tribes by threatening to cut off the trade in salt. While autonomy, as compared to dependency, may be desirable, this is not necessarily so. In a natural disaster, a completely autonomous group may face extinction without access to outside resources. These factors make autonomy difficult to assess (Marten and Rambo 1988).

3 Autonomy was initially proposed (Marten and Rambo 1988) as a social system property. The concept, however, may be usefully extended to ecosystems. A mature tropical rain forest, with its virtually closed nutrient cycle, is a highly autonomous ecosystem; an estuary or tidal swamp is highly dependent on the continuous inflow of nutrients from outside its system boundaries. Consequently, it is a system with low autonomy. Most agroecosystems resemble estuaries in that they can only function with a continuous supply of outside inputs.

26 Equitability is a measure of how evenly the products of the agroecosystem are distributed among its human beneficiaries. The more equitable the system, the more evenly food, income, resources, or agricultural products are shared among the population of the farm, village, region, or nation.

It can be measured by a statistical distribution or by a measure such as the Gini

Coefficient or a Lorenz Curve; but these are more effective with large samples

(e.g., a national statistical survey) than with the village-level data SUAN researchers generally use (Conway 1987; Marten and Rambo 1988).

Solidarity is defined as the ability of the social system to make and implement decisions about management of its agroecosystem. A community that requires all farmers to plant their crops by a certain date would exemplify high solidarity; one in which individuals use land or other resources wholly as .they please without regard to the consequences of such use to their neighbors would exemplify low solidarity. Solidarity is multidimensional in that most communities display high solidarity in regard to some activities (e.g., management of water for irrigation) and low solidarity with regard to other components (e.g., uplands use). Until recently, Vietnamese cooperatives may be said to have shown a high degree of solidarity toward a wide range of activities. In general, solidarity is maintained through formal institutions such as a cooperative or through religious rules and local customs. Such institutions, rules, and customs often represent idealized rather than real patterns of

27 behavior; people do not always adhere to these in practice. This makes solidarity especially difficult to measure (Marten and Rambo 1988).

Two other properties receiving increasing attention are those of diversity and adaptability (Rambo 1989). Diversity is a measure of the number of different kinds or types of components (e.g., species) within a system. At one time, ecologists thought that high species diversity contributed to high levels of stability in ecosystems. This assumption has now been discredited. From the standpoint of resource management policy, however, diversity is an important objective; it may allow rural people to spread their risks and maintain a minimum level of subsistence when some of their activities (e.g., rice cultivation) fail (see Thomas 1988). Adaptability as a system property was first proposed by Gerald Marten (1988). Adaptability refers to the ability of the system to respond to change in its environment to ensure its continuing survival.

It is obviously closely related to the concepts of stability and sustainability. It is adaptability that gives an agroecosystem the capacity to respond to perturbations in ways that keep the system functioning at an acceptable level of productivity. Adaptability is not identical with sustainability, however. A system can be highly sustainable in a constant environment but lack the capability to change. This makes diversity an extremely important factor in adaptability; diversity provides a greater range of options for change, when necessary.

28 These properties are the main criteria used to assess and evaluate agroecosystem performance. When properly used, they are powerful tools for agroecosystem analysis. They do not, in themselves, represent intrinsically desirable goals or outcomes. High productivity is not always better than low productivity (e.g., a bumper crop of Anopheles mosquitoes is rarely considered positive); high autonomy is not necessarily better than low autonomy. Goals for agroecosystem performance are set by humans in terms of cultural values and perceptions of individual, class, and national interests.

Agroecosystem analysis

Agroecosystem analysis procedure rests on the concepts previously described and on the following four basic assumptions that allow us to carry out more rapid and effective analyses and interventions by focusing on key relationships:

1. It is not necessary to know everything about an agroecosystem in order to produce a realistic and useful analysis.

2. Understanding the behavior and important properties of an agroecosystem requires knowledge of only a few key functional relationships.

3. Producing significant improvements in the performance of an agroecosystem usually requires changes in only a few key management decisions.

29 4. Identification and understanding of these key relationships and decisions requires that a limited number of appropriate key questions be .defined and answered.

To carry out a full agroecosystem analysis, one must take three basic steps:

1. Systems definition—delineation of the agroecosystem and its key components and description of important interactions and flows among these components as they affect the overall properties of the system;

2. Pattern analysis—identification of constraints and opportunities

for management of the system;

3. Research design and implementation—identification of key questions about the functioning of the system, especially with regard to possible ways to overcome constraints to enhance productivity and sustainability. These key questions are the most important product of this activity. They are intended to suggest promising directions for future in-depth research on the human ecology of the Midlands.

Boundary definition is an aid to analysis. The quality of the final research results depends on having a definition of the objectives at the outset that is couched in simple, precise, and unambiguous language. A system is not an object; so, in practice, the system boundaries are often difficult to define empirically. Given the difficulties in defining system boundaries, the setting of

30 team objectives allows the team to define the system boundaries in a way appropriate to their needs. System definition involves the identification of systems, system boundaries, and system hierarchies. As an example, northern

Vietnam can be seen as a regional level agroecosystem within a well-defined political boundary (the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). According to land form and topography, the landscape of northern Vietnam can be further divided into the lowlands, midlands, and highlands. The Midlands can then be divided in terms of provinces (e.g., Vinh Phu) and districts (e.g., Thanh Hoa).

Such a model of systems and boundaries must be further refined as the workshop proceeds. In this workshop, we were concerned with the foothills, known in Vietnamese as the Midlands (Vung Trung Du). More information on this land.form is presented in Chapter 2. Our goal was to more precisely delineate the key functional relationships that determine system properties.

Four elements can be used to reveal the key relationships that determine systems properties. These are space, time, flow, and decision-making. Spatial patterns are readily shown by simple maps and transects. Transects are particularly useful in defining systems boundaries and identifying problem or target areas for research and development. Patterns of time fall into three categories: seasonal change, longer term change, and the response of important variables to stress and shock. Seasonal change can be analyzed by crop calendars in which cropping sequences, labor profiles, credit or prices are

31 graphed on various agroclimatological and physical parameters such as rainfall, evapotranspiration, temperature, humidity, water availability, and soon. Longer term changes in prices, production, climate, population, etc., can be graphed in a conventional manner (i.e., annual production of minimum requirement of the staple rice crop) (see Figure 1.10). This reveals trends in productivity and provides a measure of stability.

There are three broad classes of flows in an agroecosystem: energy, materials, and information. An example of energy is human or animal labor.

An example of material flow is use of green leaves collected from the forest for green manure in the paddy field. Material flows might include capital input, although it might also be analytically useful to separate out money due to its close connection with external market forces. An example of information flow is technology transfer, such as adoption of new plant varieties or animal husbandry techniques. The level of detail used in describing these flows depends on the purposes of the research; nutrient flows or organic cycling are examples of material flows that might be the focus of delineation in and of themselves. Patterns of flow should be analyzed for major causes and effects, and for the presence of stabilizing and destabilizing feedback loops (Levin

1974). In the analysis, the flow diagrams should be kept simple. Figure 3.1 is a diagram of nutrient flows within a typical local agroecosystem in the

Midlands.

32 -1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ( 1 1 1 « \ 1 1 1 1 1 1 \—^ 1 To IX TH T6 t8 do 61 6* 0fo 8fc 1°

Figure 1.10 An Example of Annual Rice Production, Duy Tien District; Ha Nam Ninh Province, Red River Delia (Source: Nguyen 1990)

33 Decisions range from those made on the level of national policy to individual farmers' day-to-day choices. Thus, decisions occur at all levels in the hierarchy of agroecosystems. Two patterns are relevant: the choices made in a given agroecosystem under differing conditions, which can be best described in the form of a decision tree; and the spheres of influence of decision-makers, showing points of contact or overlapping decisions.

Key Questions

Analysis of these patterns should be focused on system properties to identify critical processes and decisions. These are the keys to understanding the system and possible interventions. Once tentatively identified, these key processes must be researched further in order to refine the analysis (see

Figure 1.11).

When we identify possible key processes, variables, decisions, and relationships, what we know is put into questions. Good key questions are normally multidisciplinary, but highly focused, because they aim to delineate and test specific key flows or relationships. Field visits to the target agroecosystems help to refine the key questions. Some questions may be quickly answered; whereas others may be found to be poorly conceptualized or inappropriate. The surviving key questions may then be turned into testable hypotheses. The final phase of agroecosystem analysis is to test these hypotheses by intensive field research. The results feedback and modify what has gone before, so new key

34 OBJECTIVES

SYSTEM BOUNDARIES DEFINITION HIERARCHY

SPACE TIME X INDICATORS PATTERN OF ANALYSIS PERFORMANCE S X FLOW DECISION

KEY QUESTIONS OR GUIDELINES

HYPOTHESES

LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS RESEARCH FIELD EXPERIMENTS DESIGN AND FIELD SURVEYS IMPLEMENTATION EXTENSION TRIALS DEVELOPMENT EXPERIMENTS

figure 1.11 Full Steps of Agroecosystem Analysis (Adapted from Conway et al. 1985)

35 questions emerge and the process repeats itself. In keeping with the agroecosystem analysis method, each of the topical chapters in this report concludes with a set of key questions for further research.

Rapid Rural Appraisal4

Realizing that scientific resources, particularly trained personnel, are

scarce in Southeast Asia, SUAN has tried to find ways to collect data on agroecosystems and rural resource management in quick and economical ways.

Decision-makers need information that is relevant, timely, accurate, and usable

for the design, implementation, and monitoring of development projects. Rapid rural appraisal is a research method developed to allow researchers, government officials, and development workers to gather qualitative data in a timely and cost-efficient way.

Rapid rural appraisal, or .RRA as it is commonly called, attempts to find a middle way between short-term and long-term research. It is essentially a process of learning about rural conditions in an intensive manner. Rapid rural appraisal relies on small multidisciplinary teams, ideally including representatives from both the social and natural sciences. These teams use a variety of data collection techniques specifically selected to enhance

4 This section is primarily based on Khon Kaen University 1987.

36 understanding of rural conditions. Particular emphasis is placed on tapping the knowledge of local people and combining that knowledge with modern scientific expertise. Rapid rural appraisal allows a direct learning experience for senior level researchers and officials to go out and leam from and with farmers.

Reliance on small, intensively engaged interdisciplinary teams allows the exploration of subjects that do not fit neatly within disciplinary boundaries. A basic assumption of rapid rural appraisal is that social and economic conditions can be best understood as systems in conditions of rapid, continual change with a great deal of uncertainty. These factors mean that constant communication and cooperation is required to monitor rural development. When done correctly, rapid rural appraisal works not just because of the power of its tools and techniques, but because of the underlying worldview and values of the people who practice it.

RRA methodology

In rapid rural appraisal, an interdisciplinary approach is important. The context of farmers is complex, including as it does the total rural resource system, not just crops. Given the overall complexity of local systems, it is seldom possible for a professional specializing in any single discipline to adequately understand all of the factors with which the farmer must contend or to provide recommendations for improvement that are entirely appropriate and viable within the local context.

37 Rapid rural appraisal can focus on general or village systems appraisal, or on specific or topical appraisal. Both consider the relations between the levels of hierarchy in the system: both start with analysis of existing secondary data and the postulation of hypotheses. However, general rapid rural appraisal seeks to look at the overall village system, whereas specific appraisal looks at particular issues or topics within that system. In our work in Vinh Phu, we employed the topical approach.

What methods are best depends on the purpose and circumstances of research. However, rapid rural appraisal is informed by some general precepts regardless of the precise tools used. In rapid rural appraisal, researchers take the time to follow through on whatever questions arise in interviews, avoiding the tyranny of the formal questionnaire. Researchers think about potential sources of bias and attempt to avoid or mi mi mi ze th em-avoiding the dry season, visiting villages farther off the good roads, having mixed male/female and multidisciplinary research teams. It is best to avoid being treated as an important visitor, subject to speeches and special treatment that may hinder open discussion of rural problems.3 Researchers must listen to rural people, treating them as teachers with special valid knowledge about rural conditions that

5 Given the novelty of foreign researchers in the Vietnamese countryside, it was obviously impossible for us to avoid being treated, especially by local officials, as "important visitors." outsiders do not have. Finally, teams must use multiple approaches, investigating the same questions with different methods, both to cross-check and to fill out the picture.

Rapid rural appraisal combines information from several different sources or points of view. We call this triangulation. This is one of the reasons multidisciplinary teams are important to rapid rural appraisal. Similarly, rapid rural appraisal uses different units of research and analysis. Thus, teams will interview households about their own practices, also ask about general village practices, and look at regional data. This allows researchers to both understand how these different levels are integrated and the constraints and opportunities faced by farmers. Rapid rural appraisal also depends on different research methods, such as visual observation, semi structured interviews, and use of previously collected (or secondary) data. The most commonly used methods are observation and semi structured interviewing. A knowledgeable and sensitive team can learn a great deal simply from visiting a site and looking at the landscape and the nature of the activities being carried out by the farmers. Such observations can suggest questions for inclusion in the semi structured interviews.

It can also provide a check on the accuracy of replies that the farmers give to questions. For example, farmers in one village told us in interviews that they used many different methods to control soil erosion in their upland cassava fields. When we accompanied them to their fields, however, we discovered that

39 in fact they did not use these methods very much. Further questioning then revealed that the farmers knew about the techniques and had been advised to use them by the officials of the village cooperative. They did not use these techniques because sufficient labor was not available to actually employ them effectively.

Observation gives a more complete understanding of what people do.

In part this is because it allows researchers to get at information that people take

for granted and do not necessarily talk about. In addition, it helps researchers to avoid being misled by myth. Both outside researchers and rural people often have beliefs about local values and activities that do not correspond with

reality.6 It is common to be told about a custom which probing reveals has either lapsed or was only an ideal behavior that few, if any, ever practiced.

Techniques for eliciting, learning, and using farmer knowledge are simple. They depend most on establishing rapport with local informants, on asking them what their problems and opinions are, and really listening to how

6 Overcoming erroneous preconceptions of outside researchers about rural life is particularly difficult. On one occasion, a SUAN researcher asked a Vietnamese scientist who was not a native of Vinh Phu if farmers used bracken ferns for cooking fuel. The Vietnamese confidently assured the SUAN visitor that farmers rarely used the ferns. Yet we had observed large stacks of ferns drying beside several houses and had been told by farmers that they relied on them for most of their cooking fuel. Further inquiry revealed that in the native village of the Vietnamese scientist, fems were only used once a year to cook a special holiday meal. He had simply assumed that this was true in all villages _ in the country.

40 they respond. Either informal or semistructured interviews are perhaps the most widespread method of rapid rural appraisal. Asking questions in this manner is an art, needing a sensitive balance between directed inquiry and willingness to be led by the interviewees to the issues most important to them. The best information comes from the primary source—the farmer.

Semistructured interviewing is a very flexible means of collecting information in a short period of time. Interviewing is carried out by the team members after first agreeing on a set of topics about which they want to collect information. Only one team member at a time should ask questions, but all team members must listen carefully to the farmer's response to the questions.

If these suggest additional questions about the topic, they can then follow-up by asking the farmer about these. Each interview is likely to suggest supplemental questions for addition to subsequent interviews. For example, the team doing research on soil fertility and management asked all of the farmers it interviewed about soil problems in their upland cassava fields. One farmer mentioned that he added salt to the soil to improve yields. This led the team to ask him additional questions about his reasons for applying salt and how he got the idea of using it.

Rapid rural appraisal depends on substantial use of indigenous knowledge. Farmers* perceptions and understanding of resource situations and problems are important to comprehend because solutions must be .viable and

41 acceptable in the local context, and because local inhabitants possess extensive knowledge about their resource settings. Many activities we now associate with innovative rural development, such as agroforestry to ensure a continuous supply of fuelwood and food, and integrated paddy management to strike an optimal balance among rice, fish, shellfish, wild vegetables, insects, and even small game, have been practiced by some indigenous groups for many generations.

This emphasis on indigenous knowledge is in keeping with the precepts of human ecology.

Applications of rapid rural appraisal

Rapid rural appraisal is potentially useful in a wide range of research and development situations—wherever there is a need for timely, cost-effective, and focused information. Because it is highly flexible, it can be used in a wide range of situations in response to whatever problems arise. It provides information quickly so that, used for monitoring of projects, it can identify and diagnose problems in time to intervene. Some of the more important applications and uses of rapid rural appraisal are to:

1. explore, identify, and diagnose rural issues;

2. design, implement, monitor, and evaluate programs and projects;

3. help develop, extend, and transfer technology;

4. assist in policy formulation and decision making;

5. respond to emergencies and disasters;

42 6, improve, supplement, or complement other types of research.

Rapid rural appraisal, although an extremely productive and valuable research tool when used by the right researchers in appropriate circumstances, is not a magic solution to the problems of understanding rural resource systems.

The technique appraisal is most valuable as a.way to identify new key questions for more in-depth investigation. For example, the team investigating soil management discovered through rapid rural appraisal that farmers believed that soils and run-off water washed down from the hills increased acidity in the paddies, with consequent reduction in yields. A soil scientist suggested, however, that the problem may not actually be acidity but aluminum or iron toxicity. This represents one problem for further in-depth research by soil scientists.

Human ecology, agroecosystem analysis, and rapid rural appraisal are often used in conjunction. Human ecology provides researchers with a variety of concepts with which to link their research in the natural and social systems.

Agroecosystem analysis helps researchers to bring up issues for discussion and identify the problems which will be topics for research, through analysis of key interactions and processes in the systems.

Agroecosystem analysis and human ecology, however, are methods of analysis rather than of data collection. Rapid rural appraisal is a method, for

43 collection of primary data using the concepts described earlier in this chapter.

Rapid rural appraisal is used for testing of the hypotheses derived from the analysis; similarly, rapid rural appraisal depends on agroecosystem analysis and human ecology for models and hypotheses. If agroecosystem analysis and human ecology relied entirely on secondary data, the gaps and inaccuracies in these data would lead to formation of an incorrect model. Furthermore, much of the secondary data available tend to be on physical characteristics; rapid rural appraisal is uniquely suited to getting social and cultural data about the farmers themselves. However, rapid rural appraisal is limited to small-scale research; it covers a limited village or area. Agroecosystem analysis allows the analysis of a wider level or system; human ecology facilitates the analysis of cultural traditions and social practices in regard to the environment. Rapid rural appraisal can provide detailed information on the lower levels of the hierarchy, but less on general conditions, on the higher levels that have an impact on the lower levels (e.g., households). Therefore, human ecology, agroecosystem analysis, and rapid rural appraisal are best used together: human ecology and agroecosystem analysis as the basis of analysis and model generation at the beginning and end of research; and rapid rural appraisal as a source of primary data on the local population or households. How much researchers rely on one or the other depends on the goals of the research.

44 CHAPTER 2

THE MIDLANDS REGION OF NORTHERN VIETNAM

The Midlands make up approximately one-third of the land area of the northern region of Vietnam, consisting of some parts of the provinces of Hoang

Lien Son, Vinh Phu, Ha Bac, Ha Son Binh, Bac Thai, and Quang Ninh (see

Map 2.1). Made up of low, rounded hills and narrow river valleys, the

Midlands form an arc around the Red River Delta, separating that alluvial plain

from the high mountains to the north and west. They are a transitional zone,

both ecologically and culturally. Hillslopes are the dominant land form but the

sinuous alluvial valleys represent an extension of the deltaic plain into the

mountains. This physical fact is of great cultural significance because it has

permitted the extension of Vietnamese settlement into an otherwise alien

environment.

Physical Environment

The relief of the Midlands varies from densely packed hills to plains

with isolated knolls. The hills are rounded with level tops and convex slopes

between 5° and 40° (Plates 1 & 2). Most are 20°-25° with an average height of

45 Map 2.1 Administrative Map of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

46 150-200 meters above sea level. Between the hills, there are narrow valleys with alluvial soils. The valleys are used for irrigated rice cultivation

(Plates 3, 4, 5).

The climate is monsoonal with hot wet summers (April-August) and cool, cloudy, moist winters (November-February). The average temperature is

25° C with an average maximum of about 35° C and an average minimum of

12° C. The total rainfall is 1500-2000 millimeters per year. The northwestern monsoon occurs from May to October, bringing high temperatures and heavy rainfall. The amount of rainfall from June to October is 80-85 percent of the total annual rainfall. The highest monthly rainfall is in August, with 15-20 percent of the total annual rainfall. During the winter months, December to

February, cool winds blow out of China, commencing from the northwest and later from the northeast. These winds acquire moisture over the Gulf of Tonkin, bringing a period of prolonged cloudiness, high humidity, and light rain.

Generally, however, November to May is the dry season. Although it lasts 6 months, the amount of rainfall is only 15-20 percent of the total annual rainfall.

The lowest monthly rainfall is in March.

Soils in the Midlands are complex and varied. The basic process of soil formation is feralitic, through weathering of the parent material, leading to accumulation of rather high amounts of iron and aluminum, with leaching out

47 of most base cations. Before human disturbance, soils are rather thick (4-10 meters).

Based on the different kinds of parent materials on which they are formed, the soils of the Midlands can be classified into four types:

1. Red-yellow soil formed on shale and metamorphic rocks;

2. Yellow-red soil formed on acidic magma rocks;

3. Light yellow soil formed on sandstone; and

4. Yellow-brown soil formed on ancient alluvium.

The red-yellow feralitic soils all accumulate absolute Fe and Al to form

laterite. Mineralization is rapid, and organic substances quickly break down

making the content of humus low. Intensive surface and deep leaching processes make the soil very acid (pH + 4-4.5) and poor in nutrients.

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and cation phosphate are easily dissolved and carried away to such an extent that these soils cannot be cultivated for very long before

they suffer serious degradation. In extreme cases of erosion, a hard-pan of

laterite nodules is exposed.

Originally, the Midlands were almost completely covered by forest

(Plate 32). Most of the forest types in the Midlands fall into the closed seasonal

tropical evergreen category. It is dominated mostly by species of the

Dipterocarpaceae, Moraceae, Meliaceae, Lauraceae, Fagaceae, Burcetaceae,

48 and Sapindaceae. But now, under pressure from clearing, burning, cultivation, grazing,, and erosion, these forests have been destroyed (Plate 5). Most commonly, the remaining forest is characterized by bamboo thickets, normally nua (Neohouzeana) or giang (Dendrocalamus). Some areas, where the soil retains more moisture and where there is good protection from fire and grazing, are capable of rapidly regenerating into secondary forests with fast-growing species such as Macaranga denticulata, Trema orientalis, T. angustifolia,

Mallotus apelata, M. Cochinchinensis, Rhus ch'metisis, and Mangletia glauca.

At first these forests have a low species diversity and a simple structure, but succession may in time, if uninterrupted, restore them to their original state.

Continued agricultural use with burning eventually degrades the vegetation type into grasslands (Plate 6). In areas with a well-marked dry season, grasses are highly inflammable in the dry season. If burned repeatedly, the land becomes more or less permanently degraded, precluding reestablishment of trees, and the grassy areas are likely to expand. The dominant grass species

are co tranh (Imperata cylindrica)y iau (Saccharum spontaneum), lach

(Miscanthus chinensis), and chit (Thysanoleana maxima). The annual weed

Chromolaena odoratum (Eupatorium odoratum) is most commonly the first pioneer species after fire on these sites. In areas which have been heavily used for agriculture, the grasslands are eventually degraded further into scrublands

49 containing low scrub species such as Sim {Rhodomyrtus tomentosa), mua

(Melastoma candidum), Aporosa microcalic, Helicteris angustifolia, and grass species such as Imperata cylindrical Chrisopogon aciculatus, Eriachne sp.,

Digitaria sp., Pasp alum scrobiculatum, and Panicum repens. Heavily degraded areas are characterized by a cover of Dicranopteris fern. Land that has been completely abandoned for agriculture and grazing is partially covered with either

low mat grass such as Chrysopogon aciculatus, Eriachne, Digitaria violasens, and Eragrostis geneculata, or the plant Elephantopus scaher.

On the hillslopes of the Midlands, deforestation has led to serious environmental degradation, including deep gully erosion, loss of top soil, humus, and soil fertility, and drying up of water sources during the dry season

(Plate 7). Not only does degradation result in almost total loss of local productivity, but it has disastrous consequences in downstream agricultural areas. This is due to destructive flash floods and siltation of dams, reservoirs,

and irrigation canals.

Human Settlement of the Midlands

Until the late 1950s, the Midlands were sparsely populated by non-

Vietnamese tribal groups, known collectively as Nguoi Dan Toe (ethnic

minorities, a term used in contrast to the ethnic Vietnamese or Nguoi Kinh—

50 People of the Capital). The 15 meter contour line around the edge of the Red

River Delta marked the effective limit of Vietnamese settlement. Expansion into the mountains, despite the overwhelming demographic pressures in the delta, where densities averaging 650 persons per km2 had been achieved by 1936, was checked by a well-founded fear of malaria (see discussion in Chapter 1).

Following the defeat of the French colonial forces in 1954, the

Vietnamese government began a program to resettle people from the delta into the less crowded uplands. The forest was cut to make upland fields, and the rivers and streams were dammed to provide irrigation water for the paddy fields that were constructed in the valley bottoms. These environmental changes greatly reduced the habitat available to the malaria mosquitoes, making the

Midlands a, relatively safe area for Vietnamese settlement. The Vietnamese population rapidly increased, and the whole of the Midlands became incorporated into their cultural domain.

The ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh) now constitute the majority population of the Midlands. To the lowland Kinh, by age-long tradition skilled paddy farmers, the Midlands environment has presented new problems. Dryland cultivation on sloping terrain is unfamiliar to them, and they are not very skilled in this kind of cultivation for which there is really no precedent, even in the hills. Adoption of the traditional shifting cultivation employed on hill land by

51 the ethnic minorities is out of the question; apart from natural and legal constraints, this is a technique that requires much traditional knowledge to be successful, and which is in addition interlinked with a certain type of society: dispersed, small-scale, mobile, with a yearly rhythm and social and ritual institutions that are entirely foreign to Kinh society. The Kinh people have, therefore, simply brought their lowland production technology to the uplands, which has exacerbated soil loss and destruction of the natural habitat.

Social Organization and Institutions for Resource Management

Vietnam is a highly centralized unitary state. Administratively it is divided into provinces, each of which is subdivided into several districts.

Districts include a large number of villages, the fundamental politico- administrative unit. Resource management at the local level is the responsibility of the village cooperatives, the production brigades, and the households (see

Figure 2.1).

The village and village cooperative

The village (la/ig, xa) in northern Vietnam consists of a large number of hamlets or neighborhoods (xom), interspersed among paddy Fields. Each hamlet is populated by some tens of mostly unrelated households. All those over 18 years of age residing in the village are considered village members; this

52 Figure 2.1 Cooperative Organization

Government

Province

District

Village

Village Cooperative(3) (Political Secretory of Village) I . Shop | Medical (Chai rman of Survey I Account ing Nursery People's Committee of Village) of Planning School (Chairman of Cooperative) I Production Brigades

Specialized Rice Brigades Brigades (Work Teams)

(leaders) (leaders)

Animal Forest Lime Irrigation. Plowing Husbandry Plantation Processing Sowing Cash Brick- Agro- Crops Making forestry

53 includes in-marrying women. The village cooperative (hop tac xa) is the fundamental administrative unit in modern rural Vietnam. This organization is regarded as modern transformation of the traditional form of the Vietnamese village.

The village has a parallel leadership by leaders of three organizations: the political secretary of the Communist Party; the chairman of the People*s

Committee of the village, and the chairman or director of the cooperative.

The political secretary is elected by the Party members of the village

for a 2-year term. Not all village members are members of the Party; degree

of overlap varies among villages. The duty of the political secretary is to see

that national policy is implemented on the local level. He is consulted on and

has veto power over all village and cooperative decisions, and reports to the

district secretary of the Party.

The chairman of the People's Committee is elected by the village

members for a 2-year term. His duties are concerned with the daily logistics of

the village, focusing on the general well-being of the villagers. For instance,

he manages social services such as education, medical care, information

dissemination, and cultural activities; and maintains social order in the village.

He also oversees production to ensure that targets are fulfilled or surpassed.

54 The chairman of the cooperative is its executive director, elected for a

2-year term by cooperative members. The cooperative is both a production unit and an organization responsible for the welfare of its members. As such, the cooperative management has important economic and social functions. It considers applications from new members or new households, grants land for houses and homegardens, distributes paddy land, and organizes the work tasks of the production brigades. The cooperative also distributes rice and necessities to those households whose members are sick, disabled, or too old to work. Rice is distributed to other households according to points for work done and the number of dependents in the household. The cooperative has a number of other duties, such as provision of schools, day nurseries, and medical services; provision of information and advice; arrangement of loans for special needs

(such as house construction); maintenance of the social order; and planning for development.

As a production unit, the cooperative is responsible to the district and province authorities, as well as directly to the national government. Each cooperative makes its own 5-year plan, and a more detailed 1-year plan. This plan is included in the Grand National Plan, which regulates how much of production should be delivered as tax, and how much each cooperative should receive of necessities such as equipment, fertilizers, and cloth at state prices.

55 If the cooperative produces a surplus, the cooperative is allowed to sell the balance on the free market. This income is then used to buy necessities at free market rates, kept in a bank reserve for future use, or used in other ways directly for the benefit of cooperative members. In fact, nowadays each cooperative is a relatively independent economic organization, provided it delivers its quota of taxes and follows the general policies of the state. District and province authorities provide guidance, technical advice, and funding for large-scale undertakings, but do not appear to directly interfere with the internal organization and work of the cooperative.

There are generally five professional associations under the People's

Committee. These are the Elders' (literally "Old Men's") Association, the

Women's Association, the Farmers' Association, the Youth's Association, and the Children's Association. These associations have a vertical structure from the national level right through the province and district to the local village. The associations have important social and educational functions, and carry out community service projects. The Elders' Association attempts to set a good example for their children and grandchildren. The old men give advice to young people and have some influence on cooperative policy.

The Women's Association has the special task of visiting families with marital problems and act as the "peacemakers." A divorce is possible only with

56 the consent of this group. Encouraging family planning and spreading information about birth control methods, overseeing the education of the children, running the cooperative day nursery, and giving advice to women in matters such as cooking and work in the fields are also supposed to be part of the duties of the Women's Association.

The Farmers' Association has the task of increasing the general standard of living among farmers. It is focused on increasing food production and checking to see that cooperative policy is followed.

The Youth's Association has a mainly ideological task-to "spread Ho

Chi Minh's message to the people." The Youth Association has also been called

"the right arm of the party." This association also pays attention to children's education and performs community works.

The production brigades

Production brigades are work teams composed of the working members of between 20 and 40 households. There are two types of production brigades:

1. Rice brigades are commonly made up of people from one or a few adjoining neighborhoods. They are thus localized to a certain area. Among the rice brigades, only some work is real team work (irrigation work, plowing, sowing). Other tasks are performed on individual plots, but under the supervision of the brigade.

57 2. Specialized brigades work on specific activities such as animal husbandry, forest plantations, brickmaking, lime-processing, or growing of tea or other cash crops. Seasonal work in different production brigades is also possible.

The production brigades organize all work that is done for the cooperative but not that done on private land. A production brigade leader is appointed by the cooperative chairman for a 2-year term. His duties are to lead daily work, to see that households lacking labor get help, and to convene the production brigade members to weekly meetings in order to plan the work. Rice brigades have no production targets of their own, but those families who attain good results are given prominence as models for their neighbors. An able brigade leader knows his people intimately and will take care of their needs and problems.

The household

Historically, the household constituted the fundamental unit of farm management. With economic liberalization in Vietnam, control is once again being returned to the household. A common household group consists of an extended family of two or three generations with a large number of children.

Traditionally, both sons and daughters lived neolocally after marriage, but inheritance of the estate was not equal. Females are regarded as kin by

58 blood (ho), but like matnlateral relatives they are classified as "outer kin" (ho

ngoat)\ customarily, daughters did not inherit. "Inner kin" (ho noiy which also refers to the patrilineage) are patrilateral kin with the right of inheritance. The estate customarily was divided between the sons, with the eldest son generally inheriting the house and homegarden on condition that he care for his elderly parents. In the past, the division of land between sons led to increasing fragmentation of plots. However, the need for large-scale cooperation in maintaining the irrigation systems also made it necessary to establish neighborhood work teams (xom).

In time, the eldest son becomes the oldest male in his generation; in accordance with Confucian tradition, this male is head of the patrilineage, its record-keeper, and in charge of honoring the death anniversaries of lineage ancestors. Thus, it is very important to have at least one son to ensure lineage continuity through time. Before the August Revolution (1945), if a man had no male heirs, he might adopt a son from another household or take a second wife or mistress to bear his lineage a son. Now polygamy and unequal inheritance are prohibited by law, although the eldest son still tends to inherit the family homestead and lineage duties.

Kinship relations between households play only a minor part in production as kinsmen often live quite far from one another. Persons in

59 economic difficulty might turn to a wealthier kinsman for a loan, and kin should be invited to weddings, funerals, and ancestral ceremonies.

The number of children per household is currently rather high; we noted 3-5 children per household. There is already severe overpopulation (with the population growth rate still in excess of 2 percent per year), and the government is now pursuing a birth control program. The program is showing good results in urban areas, but difficulties remain in the Midlands and mountain areas. Only a few young families explicitly stated they would have no more than two children. In part, this is because population growth is still possible at the expense of the forests through the practice of shifting cultivation.

Division of labor

Tasks throughout the year vary with the agricultural cycle. For the paddy fields, the men do most of the plowing and carrying of fertilizer from the house area to the field (Plate 9); if available, draft animals are used to transport fertilizer. Everyone helps with sowing rice. The women cultivate and transplant rice (Plate 10). Women also do much of the laborious work of irrigation using scoop baskets (Plate 11). They collect and apply green manure to the paddies (Plates 13, 14, 15). Application of pesticides is usually done by young men (Plate 12). Everyone helps in the harvest. For tea production, men hoe and apply pesticides. Women pick the tea leaves (Plate 26). Boys tend the

60 cattle and buffalo (Plate 16). Women and older girls prepare the household food and feed the livestock. Fuelwood gathering is usually the responsibility of men and boys, which includes gathering ferns for fuel (Plate 21, 22, 23). For instance, while the boys attend the livestock foraging on the grassy or barren hills, they gather fuelwood as well.

At peak labor periods, the farmers exchange labor with neighbors and relatives. The family that calls for labor provides lunch and supper for the workers. Sometimes labor is exchanged for cash, although this is not officially encouraged.

Changing systems of land tenure and natural resource management

During the colonial period, most land was privately owned, although some villages retained communal land which was periodically redistributed to their citizens. Many peasants were landless laborers or worked as sharecroppers or tenant farmers on fields belonging to landlords. After the land reform of

1955-1956, estate land was expropriated by the state and redistributed to small local farmers.

In 1960, two types of land management were established in the north.

Most land was put under the management of the cooperatives and, except for homegardens, was collectively worked by production brigades. State enterprises for large-scale production of cash crops were also established.

61 In 1980, another change of land tenure was implemented within the cooperatives. Most of the paddy land that had been worked in common was

divided so that each household became responsible for a given area. Each household has an annual production target, a certain proportion of which must

be given to the cooperative. The duties of production brigades, earlier the only

work units, have been reduced to aid, advice, and scheduling (see earlier discussion of production brigades).

The Rural Landscape or the Midlands

The landscape of a typical village cooperative in the Midlands is

composed of smoothly rounded hills, sometimes covered by forest, more often

grass or bare soil and rock, separated by narrow valleys. Before the recent

expansion of Vietnamese settlement, primary forest and well-grown secondary

forest were the dominant vegetation communities; these now survive only in a

few small protected areas such as the forest reserve at Nui Tarn Dao (Plate 32).

Elsewhere, forested areas are mostly either secondary growth (often degraded)

or artificial plantations. Winding between the steep, lower slopes of the hills are

narrow terraced valleys where cultivation of wet rice is dominant (Plate 4).

House sites and associated homegardens are strung like beads on a curving

62 string lying along the higher ground between the paddies and the hillslopes where cassava and tea are planted (Plate 2).

The village landscape can be classified into a number of components or subsystems. These are natural forest, plantation forest (including Eucalyptus and fuelwood reforestation plots), grassland, bare hills, tea plantations, caryota palm groves, upland cassava fields, house plots and homegardens, fishponds, wet rice fields, ponds and reservoirs, and roadside border areas. Usually tea

(sometimes intercropped with Tephrosia) and cassava are planted on slopes of less than 35°; plantation forest is planted in slopes of more than 35°. Figure 2.2 is a transect of a typical Midlands agroecosystem.

The Midlands environment has been deeply altered since Liberation.

For instance, one farmer told us that when he arrived in his village 9 years ago, the hills were already bare and there were many paddy fields. We met others who came to this area in the 1940s, who cut their house plots and built their homegardens out of the jungle. Still another farmer lived in a house that was

105 years old, with 18-inch wide wooden panels and thick beams, indicating old forest that has long since been destroyed.

Depending on topographic conditions, people build pools and reservoirs to retain rain and underground water. These sources can provide a steady source of water to the fields. Forest areas on hills supply materials for

63 Figure 2.2 Transect of Midlands Agroecosystem

A. Paddy fields B. House plot, homegarden, and fish pond C. Slopes - cassava, tea, Tephrosia, Eucalyptus D. Steep slopes, hill tops - forest (natural, reforested), palms, pasture, grass and scrubland, bare hill E. Reservoir (with fish raising) handicraft production and also supply grass and leaves to make green manure.

Watersheds also help to maintain a sufficient level of moisture.

Homegardens are usually located on the hills near roads and adjoining houses. Homegardens include a range of tea, vegetables, wood and fruit trees, and domestic livestock (Plate 17). The homegarden supplies diverse supplementary subsistence for the household. Fishponds, where they exist, provide extra food and income (Plate 18). Manure from the livestock, which may forage or be penned in the homegarden, is mixed with green manure and rice straw for fertilizer used in the fields and the homegarden (Plate 19).

Cropping systems are discussed in the next section.

Road transportation is currently being developed from larger population centers to the farther hill areas, via the valleys. Much transport is still by buffalo or oxen, carts, bicycles, and shoulder poles. There is some river transport. The price of products in the region is low because of the time and cost involved in transporting products to population centers where prices are better, or to factory locations. This has a great influence on production, through pricing.

Cropping Systems in the Midlands

Rice, cassava, tea, and peanuts are the most important crops in the

65 production system of the Midlands. The strategy of cultivation is mixed intensive lowland cultivation, including hill rice, cassava, peanut, soya bean, and mung bean, so that land is covered by vegetation all year round.

Production systems have a more or less fixed topographic location. The lowland and terrace irrigated agricultural system are used to grow rice; sometimes it is possible to produce vegetables in the time period between the two rice crops. Crops such as manioc, peanut, mung bean, and soya bean are found on the gentler upland slopes. Plantations for cash crops are located on the upper and medium slopes. These include tea, lacquer trees, and other forest plantations. The homegardens are usually situated on foothills, sometimes on the slopes above the house.

Animal production is also important for the whole agricultural production system. It provides draft animals for the farm, manure for fertilizer, and animal protein for human nutrition.

Rice production. Rice is the most important food crop. It is the main source of nutrition for people and constitutes the basis of the daily diet. In addition, it is the most frequent form of payment of taxes. The goal at both the district and household levels is to be self-sufficient in rice. The paddy fields are where people prefer to concentrate their labor in preference to work on other crops.

Cultivation is very intensive and employs advanced technology, including

66 pesticides, improved seed varieties, and fertilizer (both chemical and organic).

All the products of the paddy fields are used. For instance, rice straw is used in the household as fuel (25 percent), for livestock as fodder (25 percent), or it is recycled into the fields as mulch (50 percent). When fields are fallowed for part of the year, livestock are grazed there, thereby recycling rice straw and depositing more manure in the fields.

Two crops are grown—one winter and one summer. The first crop is sown in November and transplanted in January. Harvest is in late May and

June. The second cropping season starts in May to early June with preparation of the seedbed and sowing. Transplanting is performed in July. During

October and early November, the crop is harvested (see Table 2.1).

Both cropping periods have problems. In the winter there is a shortage of water, and in the summer there is often a surplus so that flooding is a hazard.

There is more land with sufficient water during the summer, which makes the summer crop production higher than the winter crop production. Insect attack is a major problem. Losses caused by insects and other pests during storage are negligible.

Cassava production. Cassava or manioc is the second most important crop because it substitutes for rice as a staple food when rice production is low.

Cassava is also a very important means of payment of taxes. People prefer to

67 Table 2.1 Crop Calendar

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec RICE Nursery ...... Soil prep. --- Plant Fert. Weeding *• *• Harvest ...**••• —

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec TEA Fert. Pest. Weed — Harvest - +++++++

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec MANIOC Soil prep. Plant Fert. Harvest

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec PEANUT Soil prep. --- Plant Fen. * * - - Weed ...... Harvest *"

•*** Winter crop Summer crop + + + + Harvest, high labor season

68 pay their taxes with cassava and save their limited supply of rice to eat themselves (8-10 kg of cassava equals 1 kg rice for purposes of tax payment).

Soil conservation is seldom practiced in the planting of the cassava crop. The soils are or will be degraded and eroded as a consequence. Due to low soil fertility, cassava production is quite low, about 8-10 tons/ha/year. Higher yields of 15-18 tons/ha/year were found on recently opened land.

Peanut production. Peanut or groundnut is a relatively new crop in the

Midlands but is becoming more important each year. Peanut is grown in many of the homegardens and is a highly valued food. It is rich in energy and protein and could be an excellent complement to the low protein diet of today. Peanut is good for crop rotation because it is a nitrogen-fixing plant. The peanut also provides leafy greens, which are a good source of animal fodder and a nitrogen- rich green manure. When interplanted with cassava, peanut aids in soil conservation.

Tea production. Tea is an important cash crop for the cooperatives. The yield of monocultural tea plantations is not sustainable, however. The CRES Project has experimented with a very promising agroforestry system of tea mixed with widely scattered wood trees (e.g., Cassia siamea, Vernicia montana)

(Plates 25, 30). This establishes an upper story and also provides appropriate shade for tea as well as for the farmers tending their fields. Between the rows

69 of tea, the leguminous shrub species Tephrosia Candida is planted. This increases soil cover, which prevents erosion, retains moisture, and fixes nitrogen.

Tea is harvested starting in March, with the peak season in May and

June (see Table 2.1). Harvesting goes on every 10 days until the middle of

August. Weeding is done once a year on the cooperative farm while on the family farm it may be done as many as three or four times a year. During spring or December, the tea plants are pruned. ,

Unprocessed tea is sold to the cooperative, from which the farmer receives either cash or the equivalent value in rice, as the farmer chooses. Tea may be processed by the households, but this is labor intensive. Now, farmers have the option of selling wet tea.

Lacquer production. Rhus sucsedaceae is planted as a cash crop. Lacquer production per ha is 100-150 kg. Harvesting is done throughout the year.

Palm trees. Caryota palms (Livistonea sp.) were planted some decades ago on some of the hillslopes (Plate 1). They provide leaves for thatching and leaf stalks for woven curtains and mats. Each palm tree produces up to 12 big leaves a year.

Forestry production. Some plantations of Styrax tonkinensis and Mangletia glauca intended for pulpwood, construction, and carpentry wood are being

70 planted. Styrax and Mangletia are the tree species indigenous to the Midlands region of northern Vietnam, and they are the pioneers in areas where the forest has been cut and burned. They grow mostly in deep soil where there is sufficient moisture. In such conditions, they can yield about 16 to 18 m3/ha/year. Eucalyptus is a common plantation species, grown for pulpwood.

The Three Districts'

Three districts in Vinh Phu Province were selected for study as representing the diverse range of ecological and social conditions encountered in the Midlands (Map 2.2). The Thanh Hoa, Doan Hung, and Lap Thach districts are located about 40-60 kilometers northwest of Hanoi. They lie between north latitudes 2T18* and 24°42\

Thanh Hoa and Doan Hung Districts are located in the northwest of

Vinh Phu Province, between the Lo and the Thao rivers. The Thao River is in the west of Thanh Hoa District; the Lo River is in the north of Doan Hung.

The two districts border on Ha Tuyen Province in the north and on Phong Chan

District in the south. Lap Thach District is near the center of Vinh Phu

Province. The Lo River forms its western border and the Pho Day River flows

1 Information on the physical characteristics and water resources of the three districts has been drawn from an unpublished manuscript by Nguyen Van Tuan (Tuan n.d).

71 Map 2.2 Map of Vinh Phu Province Ban Do Tinh Vinh Phu

72 through the district near its eastern border. Lap Thach District borders on Ha

Tuyen Province in the north, Vinh Yen District in the south, Tarn Dao District in the east, and Phong Chan District in the west.

The elevation of the three districts ranges from 15 to 1,000 meters above sea level. Close to 90 percent of the total area of the three districts has an elevation between 15 and 100 meters. Territory with an elevation greater than 15 meters is considered Midlands and mountains; by this standard, the greater part of these districts is classified as Midlands. In the north of the three districts there are mountain ranges with ek/ations ranging, from 500-1,000 meters. A few such mountains are on the northeast edge of Lap Thach District.

Due to the many mountains, hills, springs, and rivers, the topography of these three districts is highly divided. The slope generally exceeds 10 percent.

The main characteristics of the river system of Vinh Phu Province in general and of the three districts in particular are that: (1) The rivers are part of the Red River system; the study area lies downstream on two major rivers- the Thao and the Lo-that are tributaries of the Red River system, and the third major river, the Pho Day, is a tributary of the Lo River. (2) The tributary rivers have high slope, in keeping with the topography; there are many waterfalls and rapids on these rivers and their tributaries, and drainage is rapid.

(3) The density of rivers is low and irregular among the three districts; this is

73 because of the differing precipitation levels and geological structures in these areas.

Rainfall in Thanh Hoa District averages 1800-2000 mm/year. The hiIIslopes in the district are highly eroded with acid soils with low fertility, almost no natural forest and very little artificial forest, but very favorable topography for construction of small-scale water impoundments and a highly developed system of irrigated rice terraces. About 65 percent of its surface area is hills (see Table 2.2 for a summary of the physiogeographical characteristics of all three districts). Thanh Hoa District also has some larger reservoirs; one of them, Ao Trau, is also being developed as a tourist area due to its beautiful ( setting. The district is an area of old settlement with a relatively dense population. It has a population of 164,000 living in 49 villages (see Table 2.3).

The total land area is approximately 39,420 ha (Table 2.4 presents data on land use in the three districts). The main crops are, in order of importance, rice, cassava and tea, and peanuts.

Doan Hung District is a much more recently settled area with a lower population density. The population is 85,000 living in 31 villages. The cooperative we visited, Tay Coc, was occupied in part by people resettled from an area chosen for dam construction in 1966. The government compensated

74 Table 2.2 Physical Characteristics of the Three Districts

Characteristic Thanh Hoa Doan Hung Lap Thach

Rainfall/year 1800-2000 mm 1800-2000 mm 2000 mm

Soil Acid, low relatively shallow, rocky, characteristics fertility deeper; more infertile fertile and highly eroded higher organic matter

Slopes highly eroded fewer signs highly of erosion erodible

Water control Good; favor• fair; poor; difficult able for small- conditions due to uneven- scale water poor ness of impoundments topography

Vegetation very little extensive some forest at forest (natural forest higher elevations or replanted) (replanted or natural secondary) Table 2.3 Population Figures

Thanh Hoa Doan Hung Lap Thach

Population 164,057 86,700 189,660

Number of villages 49 31 56

Settlement age Old Much more Most recent recent

Population density 416/km2 285/km2 469/km2

Nutritional density* 1,076/km2 1,044/km2 1,026/km2

This is a measure of population density per unit of cultivated land.

Table 2.4 Land-Use Distribution*

Thanh Hoa Doan Hung Lap Thach

Land Area (in ha.) 39,420 30,372 40.400

Total Cultivated Area (in ha.) 15,241 8,303 18,478

Rice (both crops) (in ha.) 12,383 6,892 13,139

Forest (in ha.) 26,290 20,280 13,390

Average paddy per person 0.08 0.08 0.07 (in ha/person)

% of total land area that is 37% 27% 46% cultivated

% of total cultivated area 81% 83% 71% devoted to rice

These figures are based on official sources, which we were unable to verify independently.

76 these people for the trees they had planted, transported them to the new site, and gave them new houses.

The surface area of Doan Hung is 30,000 hectares, of which only 8,300 are cultivated; about 6,890 hectares are wet rice fields. It has the same rainfall

(1800-2000 mm/year) as Thanh Hoa District, but deeper, more fertile soils with more organic matter and fewer signs of erosion, and relatively extensive areas of forest, both secondary growth natural forest and artificial plantations.

Conditions for control of water in the valleys are unfavorable, however, with rice cultivation carried out under constant threat of flood and drought. The most important crops are rice, cassava, tea, and peanuts, in that order.

Lap Thach District is the poorest of the three sites. Although it is the most recently settled area, it has the highest population density, with 190,000 living in 56 villages on a total surface area of 40,000 hectares. It receives about

2000 millimeters of rain per year. Of the three districts, it has the worst soil conditions with thin rocky soils of very low fertility and high erosion potential.

Some forest survives at higher elevations, but many hill tops are barren rocky wastelands displaying deep erosion gullies. The narrow valleys provide only a small area suitable for cultivation of wet rice. Water control is made difficult by the unevenness of the topography and the consequent variation in elevation

77 of the steeply terraced paddies. The main crops are rice, corn, cassava, peanut, sweet potato, and vegetables.

Compared to the other two districts, Lap Thach has a diverse cropping regime. Relatively less of its cultivated land is devoted to rice. Although the nutritional density of Lap Thach is about the same as that of Thanh Hoa and

Doan Hung (1026-1076 persons/km2), a greater percentage of its total land area is cultivated (46 percent, as compared to 37 percent for Thanh Hoa and 27 percent for Doan Hung). Significantly, rice yields per hectare in Lap Thach are said to be half again more than yields in the other two districts. Finally, Doan

Hung, with by far the lowest population density, uses a lower percentage of its total cultivated land as well. It has relatively better soils, more extensive forests, and fewer signs of erosion. These characteristics should be kept in mind in the following discussions of specific topics.

78 CHAPTER 3

SOIL MANAGEMENT IN THE MIDLANDS

This chapter focuses on the soil component of the agroecosystems of the Midlands. It describes farmer knowledge and beliefs about soils and their management. It also includes our observations about their actual management practices, which are sometimes at variance with what the farmers say they do.

It concludes with several key questions for further investigation. The chapter is based primarily on observations and interviews with 14 farmers in three districts of Vinh Phu Province: eight farmers in Thanh Hoa District, two farmers in Doan Hung District, and four farmers in Lap Thach District. The data were collected by two subteams employing a common set of information collection guidelines. Because soil problems and soil management practices showed only minor variation from among the three" districts, we have combined findings into a single general discussion. Where appropriate, specific local variations are noted.

Overview of Soils of the Midlands Region

Most upland soils in the Midlands region are highly weathered, red to reddish yellow, high in oxides of iron and aluminum, presumably low in base

79 saturation, and are reportedly highly acidic (pH 4.5 to 5.7). These soils are classified as Oxisols (soil taxonomy) or Fe real sols (FAO) (Cue 1988). Soil texture is silty to sandy loam, well aggregated, with very strong structure.

Erodibility is probably low provided that soils are until led, maintaining natural aggregation. Soils were observed to seal at the surface when cleared and exposed to direct raindrop impact, thus decreasing infiltration and increasing the volume of runoff water resulting in Considerable sheet and rill erosion. Some of the barren hills in Vinh Phu display gullies cut to bedrock and almost total loss of soil (Plate 7).

Parent material is from both sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.

Mineralogy appears to be siliceous and low activity clays, predominantly kaolinite. Cation exchange capacity is thus low and highly dependent on the organic matter fraction which, in general, appears quite low. The high content of oxides indicates probable variable charge (pH dependence) and a high capacity for fixation (adsorption) of applied phosphorus fertilizers.

Paddy soils in the Midlands are derived from ancient alluvial deposits and the more recent deposition of sediment from accelerated erosion in the adjacent uplands. In some areas, upland soils have been terraced, bunded, and leveled to form paddies. Flooding these soils reduces the iron oxides (ferric to ferrous iron), changing the soil color from red to a dark grayish-brown. Under certain conditions, high contents of ferrous iron can be toxic to rice.

80 Maintaining soils in the reduced (anaerobic) condition by flooding also usually increases the availability of phosphorus to plants and results in an equilibrium pH of around 6.3, thus alleviating aluminum toxicity, the predominant cause of adverse reaction of plants to soil acidity.

Nutrient and Material Flows

Nutrient flows in a typical village cooperative level agroecosystem in the Midlands approximate a closed system. Small quantities of nutrients enter the local system in the form of chemical fertilizers, primarily used for the rice crop. Somewhat larger quantities leave in the form of nutrients contained in the tea, livestock, and timber sold to external markets and, probably most important, in soil eroded from the hills into the rivers that flow into the Red

River Delta. Most food, however, is locally produced and locally consumed.

Use of night soil as fertilizer ensures that most nutrients are recycled back to the soil. In recent years, the flow of nutrients into the local system has increased somewhat, and the outflow has grown even more. Production of crops for export from the. system (primarily tea and pulpwood trees for the paper mill) now represents a substantial loss of nutrients from the system that threatens its long-term sustainability. This should be quantified and compensated for by adding imported nutrients.

81 Although the village cooperative level agroecosystem is relatively closed, several of its subsystems are quite open, and considerable redistribution of materials and nutrients occurs among them. Figure 3.1 presents some of the key nutrient flows among subsystems. Quantification of these flows was not attempted but would be useful in future studies. It is clear, however, that the direction of the flows generally follows the force of gravity with soil and nutrients moving from the hills down to the paddies and the settlement area.

Soil erosion is the major factor in this movement. Rates of soil loss are not known but from the many visible signs of erosion it can be inferred that they are

quite high. Collecting of firewood and ferns for cooking fuel on the hill lands

(the ashes of which are then used to fertilize the paddies), grazing of cattle, and

gathering of leaves for green manure in the paddy fields also contribute to the

downhill movement of nutrients within the system. Counter flows are very

limited: some farmers report that they dig the eroded sediments out of silt traps

around their paddies and carry the soil in baskets back to the hillside cassava

fields. One woman in the Thanh Hoa District reported using straw from her

rice field to mulch tea growing on the hillslope. Another woman farmer, also

in Thanh Hoa, reported applying 300 kilograms of manure per sao of cassava.

This is unusual with most farmers saying that they do not manure or fertilize

their cassava. Some do intercrop legumes such as peanuts and soybeans but the

leaves of these are taken down to the homesite to use as animal fodder.

82 sediments,

tee

pulp wood

cassava External rioo market

meat a

frull government

cnomlcal

fertilizer

pesUddoa

Figure 3.1 Material flows in a typical household agroecosystem in the Midlands Soil Fertility Management

Farmers in the Midlands are very adept at recycling nutrients and organic materials. Consequently, soil fertility management of the strategic rice fields and homegardens in the valleys exhibits many features of traditional East

Asian practices of sustainable land use that will already be familiar to readers of F. H. King's classic 1911 monograph Farmers of Forty Centuries.

Management of the hillslopes is much less careful and, in fact, is often highly exploitative. All available resources are concentrated on the valley lands.

Manure from buffalo, cows, and pigs and human night soil are carefully collected. Manure is allocated first to the rice field and homegarden, with any available surplus added to upland fields. Rice fields receive 2.7 to 5.4 t/ha/crop

(100-200 kgArao/crop) of manure. If sufficient supplies of manure are available, cassava and tea receive 5.4 to 13.5 t/ha/crop (200-500 kg/sao/crop). One farmer in the Doan Hung District stated that he reserved his small supply of human night soil to fertilize his vegetable plot because it gave the best results there.

Manure supply depends on the number of livestock raised (Plate 19).

Households with insufficient livestock to meet manure demands either buy manure from other farmers or send children around to collect manure from roadsides and common grazing areas. Each of the farmers interviewed expressed a desire for greater supply of manure to increase crop productivity.

84 They recognize that their ability to maintain sufficient herds of livestock is the primary limiting factor on the manure supply. Livestock production often seems to be limited by the amount of feed which can be supplied to the animals by the household. Planting forage legumes and grasses in the understory of cooperative tree plantations (Brachiaria may be a possible grass species under Eucalyptus) could increase the capacity for livestock production while increasing productivity from the uplands and decreasing erosion, if managed to avoid overgrazing.

Ashes from cooking fires are added to livestock and human manure or compost to control flies and odors. This probably adds significant amounts of base cations (particularly potassium) to organic manures and raises pH.

Rice straw and other vegetative wastes are mixed with animal manure in compost pits adjacent to livestock pens in order to rapidly decompose wastes and maximize supplies of organic fertilizers (Plate 20). Compost piles are covered with mud from the paddies to prevent leaching of nutrients by rain.

Compost is used in much the same way as manure and is preferentially applied to the rice fields and homegardens. Some farmers report using residues from bottoms of fishponds as fertilizer for fruit trees in their homegardens. One farmer in the Thanh Hoa District stated that she did not use the sediment because it was too acid. Use of vegetable wastes, crop residues, and green manures is widespread. Rice stubble is plowed under and allowed to rot in the

85 Melds. Leafy green manures are directly applied to the rice crop, either topdressed into the flood water or inserted below the root zone by hand

(Plate 15). Green leaf manure is also applied to the paddies prior to plowing.

Farmers recognize the value of Chromolaena odorata (a nitrogen accumulator) as a green manure and consider it to be a good substitute for farmyard manure.

Some farmers collect understory vegetation from the forest reserve at Nui Tarn

Dao and carry it on shoulder poles or push it on bicycles as far as 12 kilometers to apply to their paddies (Plates 13 & 14). One farmer in Thanh Hoa District reported that using too much green manure makes the rice vulnerable to insects.

In the uplands, green leaf manure from weeds and nitrogen-fixing trees

(Tephrosia Candida, etc.) is applied to crops, primarily to tea. Some farmers plant C. odorata on the borders of their cassava fields as a source of green manure.

Chemical fertilizers are used regularly but in relatively small amounts.

Urea is applied to the rice crop by some farmers at rates ranging from 50 to

135 kg/ha (2-5 kg/sao). Some farmers avoid the use of urea because they believe that it increases soil acidity or that lush vegetative growth of the rice crop causes insect problems. Phosphorus fertilizer is applied to the paddies at the rate of 50 to 270 kg/ha (2-10 kg/sao). Similar rates of N and P fertilizers are applied to upland crops (tea and cassava) by a few farmers. One farmer in

Lap Thach District stated that he had enough chemical fertilizer but insufficient

86 green manure. He said that organic fertilizer makes the soil "light." Soil that receives only chemical fertilizer becomes gray, perhaps a sign of depletion of organic content.

Farmers apply lime to their paddy fields, apparently to alleviate soil acidity. Limestone rock is baked in pits dug in the ground adjacent to paddy fields, fired by coal. The resulting CaO is then hydrated by adding water for several days before applying to fields at a rate of approximately 0.5 to 2.7 t/ha

(20-100 kg/sao). One farmer reported that he applied lime to the flooded paddy, plowed it in, then waited several days before draining the field and reflooding to plant. Use of lime and chemical fertilizers is restricted by cost, unreliable supply, and difficulties of transporting heavy materials to remoter areas.

One farmer in the Thanh Hoa District reported putting one spoon of salt in the soil with each cassava stalk that he planted. He said that this increases the yield and produces roots with a better odor. He had heard that farmers living some distance from his village applied salt to their rice crop and got higher yields, so he tried it on his cassava. He is the only farmer we met who uses this practice. The salt may raise the pH and may also provide some micro nutrients. More important, the Na in the salt displaces base nutrient cations (K, Ca, Mg) from the soil cation exchange complex, causing a flush of

87 nutrients to become available for crop growth. Although use of salt raises yields

in the short term, it is a very exploitative soil management practice in the long

run. Nutrients are probably made available in quantities greater than can be

taken up by the crops and are thus subject to loss through leaching. Na

eventually displaces all nutrient cations in the exchange complex, leaving the soil

infertile. The soil may also become toxic to plant growth due to increased

salinity until rainfall leaches soluble sodium out of the root zone.

The primary soil heterogeneity recognized by farmers pertains to soil

acidity. One farmer reported no acidity problems except for an isolated spot

close to the hillside which he limed. Other farmers reported widespread acidity.

Acid areas were recognized by the presence of fresh sediment or "yellow

water." This "yellow water" looked like a thin shiny film of oil or hydrocarbon

leaching from the paddy bund. This "soil acidity" phenomenon in the paddies

is rather puzzling. It is likely that some other toxicity factor is involved instead

since flooded soils generally approach neutral pH (as mentioned previously).

The upland soils are generally quite acid and support only acid-tolerant

crops (tea, cassava, etc.) without heavy additions of organic matter or liming to

alleviate aluminum toxicity associated with soil acidity. Farmers associate the

acidity of their paddy fields with run-off water as well as sediment. It is

possible that constant additions of acidic run-off water and groundwater seepage

from the nil I si opes could maintain the paddies in an acidic condition. One

88 possible explanation is that what the farmers call "acidity" is actually iron toxicity in flooded soils; the shiny, oil film on the flood water surface could be an iron film. If this is the case, then many of the actions now being taken by farmers to alleviate "acidity" would be effective for iron toxicity as well (see

Key Question 1).

In addition to liming, farmers control paddy soil acidity in some cases by diverting run-off water from the hillslopes in contoured canals or by constructing silt traps at the foot of slopes (Plate 8). The accumulated sediments are dug out and carried back uphill in shoulder baskets to spread on the cassava fields. This is done, despite the heavy human labor involved, because the mud adds fertility to the depleted hill soils. In narrow valleys, the uppermost paddy was sometimes left fallow to impound runoff and sediments. Taking measures to control erosion from the hill plots would be a more efficient way to protect the paddies. When plots were assigned to individual households, however, households did not necessarily receive the hillslopes adjacent to their rice fields.

There is thus no direct incentive for the operators of the hill plots to minimize flows from their fields into the paddies below which are usually assigned to unrelated households. This is a classic example of how a specific attribute of a social system can influence ecosystem functioning. It also suggests that privatization of resource management will be most successful when institutions

89 are also put in place to control the problem of environmentally undesirable off- site impacts ("externalities") produced by the actions of individual operators.

Farmers believe that the addition of organic materials (particularly compost and green leaf manures) helped to alleviate soil acidity. Not all organic additives were seen as beneficial. Several farmers complained that "oils" in run• off water from cooperative Eucalyptus plantations were stunting their cassava and rice crops and causing fish in their ponds to grow very slowly. Some basic research into possible allelopathic properties and management to control the effects of Eucalyptus seems justified if plantations continue to be promoted (see

Key Question 2). If allelopathy is indeed a significant problem, it may be minimized by increasing infiltration of surface runoff (contour ridging in plantations, maintenance of a tolerant forage groundcover), burning or composting leaf litter, diluting the monoculture by interplanting with another fast-growing (preferably nitrogen-fixing) pulpwood tree species, and maintaining buffer strips upslope of sensitive crops.

Soil Erosion Control

Farmers in the Midlands are aware of the problem of soil erosion from the steep slopes and the need for effective control measures. However, their primary concern is to minimize the deleterious effects of sediment and runoff on paddy lands downs!ope, rather than to maintain the fertility and productivity of upland soils. For this reason, it is desirable that individual farm households

(rather than cooperatives or several different households) manage land along a contiguous toposequence as much as possible. In some villages, the cooperative seems to have recognized this in allocating land. In these cases, sloping areas have been managed using a variety of erosion control measures with varying degrees of success.

Labor is scarce in most households, so erosion control measures are generally not very labor intensive. Tea bushes are planted along contours and slightly terraced; in some cases this resembles contour ridging more than terracing (Plates 25 & 31). Where adequate grass and weed cover is maintained between rows of tea bushes, erosion appears to be minimal. However, the inter- row areas are often heavily grazed, and gully erosion is severe where soils are left bare.

Cassava is generally contour ridged, which both controls erosion and facilitates root harvest. Soils are disturbed at harvest, however, increasing erodibility. Ground cover from the cassava canopy is sparse, even though farmers plant at higher densities on hillslopes than on flat lands to try to increase coverage. Farmers commonly interplant legumes before the cassava canopy develops if soil fertility allows.

91 Rice straw is used as mulch between rows of both cassava and tea if any surplus is available after meeting needs for fodder. Strip crops of pineapple and nitrogen fixing trees (Tephrosia Candida) are sometimes planted at intervals along the contour to intercept sediment.

Although reforestation and agro fores try are often advocated as measures to control soil erosion, planting of trees alone will not necessarily achieve this goal. In some circumstances, tree-covered slopes can have higher erosion rates than grass- or bush-covered ones. This reflects the fact that leaf drip from tall trees has higher erosive potential than free-falling raindrops. If the soil surface underneath the trees is bare, as is the case in many monoculrural timber plantations observed on hillslopes in Vinh Phu, soil erosion may be worsened by successful reforestation efforts. If, however, there is even a thin layer of dead leaves and other mulch covering the surface, or if there is an understory of shrubs and ferns beneath the trees, these will absorb the force of the drops so that the soil is not dislodged by their impact.

Most of the Eucalyptus plantations observed in Vinh Phu had bare soil with virtually no shrubs or other understory vegetation growing beneath the trees

(Plate 28). There is a considerable controversy regarding the environmental impacts of using Eucalyptus for reforestation elsewhere in Southeast Asia, notably in Thailand. Some opponents of the species claim that Eucalyptus leaf litter contains allelopathic chemicals that inhibit the growth of understory plants.

92 The condition of the soil surface in the Vinh Phu plantations might seem to provide evidence to support this claim, and analysis of the soil chemistry effects of intensive growing of Eucalypts in the Midlands agroecosystems should be undertaken. Some observations, however, suggest that the lack of surface litter and understory vegetation may be a consequence of management practices rather than an intrinsic consequence of a particular species of tree. In several areas planted with Eucalypt stands, rural people were observed collecting fallen leaves from beneath the trees. The dead leaves are used for household cooking fuel.

Cattle are also permitted to graze freely in many plantations. It may be, although we did not observe this happening, that any understory plants that do become established are also cut for fuel since these are not protected by forestry regulations. That this may be the case is strongly suggested by the very dense understory of bushes and fems that totally covered the surface beneath a plantation of approximately 10 year-old Eucalyptus trees that we observed growing within the well-protected boundaries of the Phu Khanh state forest farm in the Thanh Hoa District (Plate 29).

The condition of the soil surface in tea plantations varied widely. In some poorly maintained plantations, there were wide gaps between the bushes and much of the surface was bare soil. Overgrazing by free-wandering cattle may prevent the establishment of grass cover on the surface. Other plantations

93 had an almost unbroken leaf surface with thick growth of grass and ferns beneath the bushes. Soil erosion in such plantations should be very low. Some experimental agroforestry plots in Dong Xuan Village Cooperative in the Thanh

Hoa District, in which tea was interplanted with Tephrosia Candida, displayed bare soil in the rows between the lea bushes. Incorporation of low-growing ground cover species into this system might help to better protect the soil surface while further increasing biomass productivity within the system.

Conclusions

Within existing constraints of knowledge, technology, and supply of needed inputs, farmers do a remarkably good job of soil management in their rice fields and homegardens. It is difficult to identify economically feasible measures that might produce significant improvement. Controlling the "acidity" problem in rice fields is one area that certainly deserves further attention.

Increasing production of biomass within homegardens and paddy fields for use as fuel, fodder, and green manure is another area meriting further research.

Soil management in the hills is a completely different and much less happy story, however. The ethnic Vietnamese farmers from the Red River

Delta who have settled in the Midlands since 1954 did not bring with them into their new habitat a tested body of traditional knowledge about how to use sloping lands. Within a few years of settlement, they had destroyed all of the

94 native forest in doing short rotation swiddening (Plates S & 6). Cassava and maize, crops with high erosion potential, were planted on steep slopes with no measures taken to retain the soil. Cattle overgrazed the now "barren" hilltops.

Any regeneration of trees that might have occurred was prevented by intensive collection of firewood and vegetation for green manure. Wholesale environmental degradation of the hills was the inevitable consequence of such mismanagement.

The possibilities for improving soil management in the hills are manifold. There is a pressing need to find low input techniques for controlling erosion and increasing the organic matter content of hill soils. Design of such new measures must go beyond ecological and agronomic feasibility to incorporate social considerations. Because of the trend toward assignment of long-term management responsibility to individual households, developing measures that require minimal labor is especially critical. These measures should also provide immediate economic and social benefits in addition to achieving longer term goals of rehabilitation of upland ecosystems. Households cannot always afford to employ soil conservation technologies (e.g., afforestation with slow-growing timber trees) that take many years to give an economic return. Afforestation using a mixture of multiple use species providing fruit, fodder, firewood, as well as commercial timber, is one possible

95 strategy. Incorporation of nitrogen-fixing species into such mixtures can also pay benefits in helping to restore soil quality. There is some promising research

on some of these topics already underway in the CRES project to rehabilitate ecosystems in the Midlands (Plates 25 & 30). SUAN projects in other Southeast

Asian countries have already investigated some other useful techniques for

rehabilitating degraded upland ecosystems. Much of this work should be

relevant to Vietnamese conditions. Management of upland soils is an area

offering great potential for continuing mutually profitable scientific exchange between CRES and SUAN.

Key Questions

1. Farmer: What measures can I use to control the negative effects of "yellow water" in my paddy fields?

Agroecosystem analyst: Is soil acidity the real problem on flooded paddy land?

Policymaker: What technological and institutional mechanisms can be used to alleviate this problem?

Farmers in the Midlands cite soil acidity as a problem on upland soils and attribute rice yield reductions to runoff and sedimentation from the hills.

However, upland soils are also high in iron oxides. It is possible that iron toxicity (rather than soil acidity) is the major constraint to rice yields under

96 flooded conditions. Iron toxicity often occurs on acid soils with pH lower than

5.0 when air dry (but soils are usually not acid after flooding) and on sediments derived from Ultisols. Iron toxicity problems in flooded rice can be aggravated by interflow from adjacent highlands and low K and P. P deficiency and low base status are accessory problems.

A thorough laboratory analysis of upland and "acidic" soils vs. nonproblem paddy soils should help to determine the nature of the problem.

Analyses of paddy soils, floodwater, surface run-off water, and interflow

leachate should include pH, extractable aluminum, and ex tractable iron.

Measurements from flooded paddies should be made over a range of times

following flooding to determine if acidity or iron toxicity is persistent.

Determination of the primary cause of rice yield declines associated

with runoff and sedimentation (acidity or iron toxicity) is important as this

dictates management options. Liming was the standard management practice

that farmers mentioned for controlling soil acidity. Liming is also effective in

reducing iron toxicity problems. Several other low-cost management practices

could help to alleviate iron toxicity problems in rice:

* Delay transplanting to affected soils until the peak water-soluble

iron phase has passed.

97 * Late flooding (in areas with good water control) to avoid excess iron in the early rice growth stages while providing sufficient iron in the reproductive stages of rice development.

* Incorporate organic matter.

* Intercept the interflow and sediment.

* Plant rice varieties with a greater tolerance for water-soluble Fe.

Midlands farmers already practice incorporation of organic matter and interception of the interflow to control acidity, in addition to liming. It would be interesting to know how Midlands farmers came to use these practices on their Fields. Note that incorporating organic matter entails a very tricky balance; iron toxicity can be aggravated by excessive amounts of organic matter.

2. Farmer: Will planting Eucalypts on my upland fields damage my cassava, tea, and rice production?

Agroecosystem analyst: Is there allelopathy of Eucalyptus plantation run-off? What effect does this have on the soil?

Policymaker: Does allelopathy from Eucalyptus decrease yields of the prevailing subsistence or cash crops or stunt the growth of fish? What are the economic and environmental trade• offs between promotion of Eucalyptus planting to meet the need for pulp wood and agricultural activities in Vinh Phu?

Without using sophisticated laboratory equipment, simple controlled experiments using various concentrations of water extracts of Eucalyptus (fresh

98 or dried leaf litter, soil leachate from various depths beneath a plantation stand, etc.), seed germination, and pot trials may establish if allelopathy occurs or determine sensitive and/or tolerant species or varieties. Addition of extracts to small fish tanks can determine effects on fish growth. If allelopathy is determined to occur at extract concentrations common under plantation conditions, various land use management treatments (distance from plantation, residue litter removal or burning, diversion of surface runoff, etc.) can be tested in field experiments to determine their effectiveness in alleviating allelopathic effects to agronomic crops.

3. Agroecosystem analyst & Policymaker: What are the limits of effectiveness of the various erosion control measures practiced by farmers in the Midlands?

An answer to this question is important to both short-term productivity and Long-term sustainability of agriculture in the Midlands. Unfortunately, actual field measurement of erosion is both expensive and long term. Predictive methods (the Universal Soil Loss Equation [USLE], for example) which were developed for environmental and agronomic conditions of temperate regions are generally not valid for much of the range of land use and environmental conditions encountered in the Midlands. Soil erodibility and rainfall erosivity parameters for the tropics are poorly quantified. The USLE was not designed

99 to predict soil losses from slope gradients commonly farmed in the Midlands.

Actual field measurements of soil losses from land use and environmental conditions of the Midlands may or may not exist at present. If such data are available, both the seventy of erosion and the effectiveness of management practices to reduce erosion can be quantified. A detailed survey of the range of slope gradient and length conditions and land use/cropping systems currently practiced would be required for effective management. Until detailed soil loss data are available for each of the land use systems common in the Midlands, assessments based on visual observations (gullying, root exposure, etc.) and interviews with farmers (number of seasons cropped, yield declines, etc.) can be correlated with slope conditions to roughly estimate the effectiveness and limits of erosion control measures.

4. Farmer: Why are yields declining in my cash crop upland fields? What measures can I take to sustain production?

Agroecosystem analyst: What is the flow of nutrients out of the system?

Policymaker: How can this loss be compensated for, in order to maintain sustainable production?

A large proportion of the upland crops are cash crops that are exported out of the system. Tea probably leaves the system to a greater extent than does cassava, which is primarily used for food internally, but even much of the

100 cassava is exported. Cutting of trees and bamboo as pulp wood for the mill at

Bai Bang also represents a major outflow of nutrients from the hilltops. What effects do these nutrient exports have on the soil, especially when few inputs are made into the upland soil?

101 CHAPTER 4

WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

The water resources team addressed three major questions:

1. What are the primary sources of water?

2. How is water managed and distributed?

3. What are the various complementary and competing uses of water?

Each of the three districts visited displayed distinctive characteristics in terms of water resources and their management. This chapter, therefore, is organized to highlight contrasts and comparisons among the districts.

Comparative Hydrology of Three Districts of Vinh Phu Province

The primary sources of water are rainfall and available ground water.

These basic natural sources feed into natural rivers, streams, and catchments, and into human-made ponds, wells, and reservoirs. The key sources of water and their interrelations are summarized in Figure 4.1. From these intermediate sources, the water is distributed, as needed, to a range of activities and enterprises including irrigated rice production, fish production, homegarden irrigation, household, commercial, and light industrial use.

In comparing the patterns of water distribution and use across the three districts, landscape emerged as the dominant factor influencing water

102 Figure 4.1 Water Sources

Rainfall

Rivers / Streams / Catchments

Reservoirs

Ponds

Wells

Landscape Ground Water

Forestry Practices

103 management. Landscape conditions, including district-wide variations in slope, altitude, ground cover, and micro-level topography, present a range of opportunities and constraints for water management.

Dong Xuan Cooperative. Thanh Hoa District

In Thanh Hoa District, the area surrounding Dong Xuan Cooperative was originally fed by a series of natural year-round streams. As the forest cover was progressively removed from the upper slopes of the hilly landscape, the water volume in the natural streams decreased significantly.1 Thus, a human-

made alteration in the landscape directly affected the amount of water available

for paddy irrigation and household use.

The same landscape, however, also provided an opportunity for a solution to the problem of decreasing water levels in the streams. The rolling hills, which are the dominant feature of the landscape, are positioned in such a way as to facilitate the construction of small reservoirs capable of supplying

1 Clearing of forest and its replacement with grassland, contrary to conventional wisdom, usually increases dry season water yields, unless, as is the case in parts of Thanh Hoa, it is accompanied by severe erosion and degradation of the watershed to bare subsoil and rocks. In areas with frequent fogs and low- lying clouds, trees also physically harvest moisture from the air. In these circumstances, which probably existed in much of Vinh Phu, cutting of forest can dramatically reduce groundwater supplies. For a careful review of the scientific evidence on the relationship between tropical forests and water supply, see Hamilton (1985).

104 water to several rice field areas (see Figure 4.2). Each of these areas is

managed by rice production groups composed of 70-80 households.

A key point is that the existence of natural catchment areas and narrow

stream paths between the hills has made it possible for small groups of farmers

to construct small earthem check dams. Farmers noted that because the clay soil has good water-holding characteristics these dams require very little

maintenance. In addition to providing irrigation water to specific field areas, the

various reservoirs are connected to each other by a series of channels so that a

reservoir at a lower level can be refilled with water from a similar catchment

situated at a slightly higher elevation.

This set of physical characteristics has made it possible for water collection and distribution to be effectively managed at the cooperative and rice brigade levels. The Dong Xuan Cooperative operates a total of 19 dams, some of which have been in use for more than 30 years. The cooperative employs a water manager who is in charge of inspecting, opening, and closing the gates on one or more of the small check dams. The cooperative water committee establishes a timetable for distribution of water to each brigade area.

Members of the brigade, or rice farming groups, are then responsible

for seeing that the water flows from one paddy to another according to the established timetable. Each brigade is responsible for maintaining the subsidiary

105

channels that serve the fields fanned by its members. The cooperative maintains the dams and the primary channels.

The water tax is low at this cooperative because water is readily available and does not require lifting. Each farmer pays a water use tax to the cooperative of 10 kilograms of rice per sao (286 kg/ha) per harvest. This money is then used by the water committee to pay the salary of the dam managers and to hire laborers to clean the primary channels. Anyone can be hired for this work at a rate of 2 kilograms of rice per day for cleaning 120 meters of channel.

Tav Coc Cooperative. Doan Hung District

The physical situation in Doan Hung district is similar to that in Thanh

Hoa. However, the reservoir system is spread out over a larger land area, making construction of the connections between the reservoirs more difficult.

Doan Xung Cooperative. Lap Thach District

The greatest contrast to the Thanh Hoa system was found in the Lap

Thach District. The landscape of this district presents numerous constraints to effective water management. Reservoirs in the northern part of the district are much larger than in the other two districts (see Figure 4.3). These were built by state and provincial level authorities primarily for flood control, rather than for providing irrigation water as in Thanh Hoa District. In the north, village- level cooperatives receive water from a district-level water corporation that

107

108 manages the system and provides water to each village on a contract basis. The cooperative pays 5 percent of its rice yield to the district corporation.

In the south, much government effort goes into maintaining a series of dikes to prevent seasonal flooding from the Lo and Day rivers. Even with the well-established system of dikes, we observed many flooded field areas.

However, the problem is not just flooding but very rapid rise and fall in water levels. Of the 1,700 hectares of irrigated rice land in the district, 1,500 hectares are also drought-prone. In essence, there is either too much or too little water, so farmers regularly experience both flood and drought. Therefore, it is impossible for floating rice varieties to be grown here. Instead, farmers are trying to plant earlier maturing varieties so that the crop can be harvested before the annual flooding during the rainy season.

Human Actions and the Hydrological Cycle

This brief survey of three districts in Vinh Phu Province demonstrates the importance of understanding the interrelationships between land form, land use, and water management. The availability of water and how people use it are greatly influenced by the nature of the landscape.

The cutting of forest and degradation of Hillslopes has reduced the amount of water available in streams and rivers and has forced people to construct reservoirs for capturing and distributing remaining surface water.

109 Cutting has also led to increased erosion in some areas, resulting in siltation behind the dams and in the lower-lying rice fields.

The uses to which this deforested land has been put, such as tea production and the growing of bamboo and trees for pulp, have placed increasing demands on the existing water supply. Where water was previously needed mainly for rice irrigation and home consumption, tea and pulpwood processing plants now compete with farm production for water. As district governments continue to look to various processing and commercial enterprises as a key aspect of their economic development plans, this competition for water is likely to increase. Increased competition for access to a decreasing resource will require more complex and more costly management systems to ensure equitable distribution of water. Where the landscape presents greater constraints on reservoir construction and the demands placed on the system are more open in nature, as was observed in Lap Thach, more complex management schemes are required to protect against flooding, to maintain large scale dams and reservoirs, and to ensure delivery of water to village cooperatives and commercial users (see Figure 4.4). In contrast, the relatively small-scale closed systems in Thanh Hoa and Doan Hung districts serving household needs and rice production can probably continue to be managed with a relatively low cost at the cooperative, production group, and household levels (see Figure 4.5).

110 Flfiirt 4.4 McdhuD-ScBk Hrdratoekal System

HE THQNJC THUy Uj\ \SU/K

HE THONG S^/ DUMP QUAM u.y SySTEM use MAMAGEMGNT

- h3 €>AP L.O"N - TUtJl T IEU t C HOUft LUUJT^ KAN MAN BIG KesERvoir - CUNGCAP Kll/dC C HO CONIC M&MlS»»|

• NUOl OCCAI TAO

PUMP STATION . J RRi&A'rioN j

FLOOOjoROUtMTj HO OAP NJMO TNDUSTRv, FISH IMTfOVEMENT SMALL- ^eseevoiw OF ENVIRONMeNT

AO FISH BREEDING' POND GAROEN

SINH HOAT CENG- Tl/Ol Vl/ON DRINKING WATER WELL GARDEN

Rture4J Small-Scale Hjdrolockal System

HE THONG THUY LC/i MHO*

T>IO*J& Su* DUNG. & (JAN L-V s y a TEM USE MAl4A&> MENT

•Tl/df "T"ieu, wuoi CA" H5 CAP MHO HdP TAG XA •CAI TAO MOl _

SMALL RBSEWVOiR 2R«ri&A-rioM, F=ISM , COOPe RATIVE IMPHOVBMEWT OP BMviltONMBNT

- NUOijCA" AO . Tu'di" vi/cJw ©pi SA'KJ XUAT

' FISH BREEOIN& POND - CA«OCN PttOOUCTlON esiGAoe

- fiiNH MOAT

- ORIMKiMCVATCIt HOU6EHOUD - SARDEN

111 At the cooperative and household levels, there is also evidence of increased competition between farm and household enterprises. With the government promotion of the VAC (garden, pond, and livestock) system, farmers must decide how best to use their limited supply of water. In some cases the pond is used primarily for fish production. In other instances, the main product of the pond is vegetable food for pigs. At still other households, the pond served primarily as a source of water for irrigation of the homegarden.

The trade-offs associated with allocation of water to these various enterprises need to be better understood, particularly in light of those instances in which the homegarden is moving from subsistence to cash production.

Key Questions

As was anticipated, the team's brief appraisal of the hydrology systems identified more questions than it answered. The diagrams on the levels of water management summarize the system. How people use water is directly related to the different kinds of landscape. Both natural and human elements are of significance. The most striking differences are between Thanh Hoa and Lap

Thach districts. In Thanh Hoa, the topography allowed construction of small catchments, managed locally, to gravity feed three to four paddy fields. This is an example of the environment creating favorable opportunities for farmers to address their problems. In Lap Thach, the landscape presents a constraint.

112 It requires a very different management structure: a higher level of organization and labor to maintain larger dams and catchments. In all districts, we could see farmers using water for competing purposes—for wells, paddies, and fishponds.

We need to understand more about how farmers allocate water among various demands.

In the following key questions, we have tried to consider the major issues from the point of view of farmers, agroecosystems researchers, and policymakers. This not only reflects the varying interests of the groups involved in agroecosystems development; it also indicates the differences in perspective due to these groups* different positions in relation to the systems hierarchy and highlights the need to consider the ultimate purpose of one's research so that the most appropriate and useful questions can be chosen.

1. Farmer: Given land use patterns, how can farmers be ensured of sufficient uplands for their uses and enough forest for fuel and construction, without destroying watershed that helps to maintain essential water resources?

Agroecosystem analyst: What type of reforestation above the catchment is needed to ensure maximum ground water and to reduce erosion and siltation in reservoirs?

Policymaker: How can this reforestation be fit in with the provincial and household goals of wood and tea production?

113 Recent research elsewhere in the tropical uplands indicates that in areas with heavy atmospheric moisture (fog, mist), trees serve an important role in the hydrological system by capturing or condensing water from the atmosphere

(Hamilton 1985). We noticed some heavy fogs in the mornings at Thanh Hoa

District. We need to find out if these fogs are important in these hydrological

systems, and if they are, what kinds of vegetation most efficiently capture

moisture from the atmosphere. The goal must be to preserve watersheds and

maintain sufficient water within the limits set by the fact that upland farmers will

continue in the future to use the uplands heavily. Given population growth in

the Midlands, plans for maintenance of water supplies must anticipate increased

use of the uplands.

2. Agroecosystem analyst, Policymaker: What is the impact of chemicals (fertilizer and pesticides) on water quality?

The technological package of high yielding rice with chemical inputs

has been uniformly adapted in all study areas in Vinh Phu Province. Demand

for pesticides has been increasing at a rapid rate, due to the severity of pest

problems (e.g., the brown plant hopper). Alternative means to control these

pests have yet to be found. In the meanwhile, increasing doses of pesticides are

inevitably contaminating other components of the farming systems, in particular

domestic water from the house wells and fishponds in the VAC system. We

114 need to estimate quantitative measures of these chemicals to establish their impact. We also need to consider the effect of pesticide use on the health of rural people.

3. Agroecosystem analyst: What is the amount of water loss as water moves through the irrigation system? How does this vary in different systems?

Policymaker: If necessary, is there any way to prevent this? If so, what method would be most cost and labor efficient?

Given the need to control and reserve water for irrigation, there are various strategies to do this. One is to improve irrigation systems so that as much runoff as possible is reserved. Another is to increase the amount of water coming into the system; for this, watershed preservation is primary. Finally, it is necessary to make use of all water that goes through the system in as efficient and thorough a way as possible. A side-effect to this is ensuring that those at the bottom of the system receive as much water as those at the top of the system (where water scarcity is a problem, as in winter).

4. Farmer: How can farmers allocate water among the various needs for it?

Agroecosystem analyst: What are the different demands made on water? Are they competing demands or can they be made complementary? How do changes in water regime affect biophysical possibilities

115 for different land uses?

Policymaker: What patterns of land use are likely to be associated with different water regimes? What are the consequences of each type of water control system for different cropping patterns?

Climate, topography, and human choices determine the water regime of a landscape. Water that is captured or applied in one part of the landscape

may or may not be available in other parts. Thus, if water is captured at the top of a hill by infiltration channels, it increases groundwater flows to crops at the base of the hill. But if the water is captured in forest plantations rather than in channels, it may reduce water sources at the base. Crop choices in one part may reduce or enhance water availability in others. Changes in water regime generally can modify these conditions throughout the landscape as a whole. For instance, the increasing numbers of small reservoirs may have an impact on the microclimate in tea production areas. We are particularly interested in the effects of human choices made within the environmental constraints of the landscape.

5. Farmer: What crops can farmers raise to take advantage of existing water conditions?

Agroecosystem analyst: What is the role of water conditions in cropping patterns?

Policymaker: To what extent should crops that need more water replace those that need less?

116 Some of the most substantial current policy questions are about the desirability of raising the dams and sacrificing some paddy land to bring moisture higher on the hills for cash crops. The policy debate, which has not yet begun, is about the extent to which ecosystems requiring more water should continue to replace ecosystems that require less. The limited water supply cannot be drawn upon more heavily for some systems without balancing reductions elsewhere and in other activities.

6. Policymaker: Given limited capital, how can government officials ensure sufficient water for people's needs?

It may be possible to organize water use so that it circulates among various uses before flowing downstream and out of the system. However, to do this may require considerable labor or capital inputs. Vietnam has little of the latter and the farmers are already heavily worked. They themselves say that labor constraints are what keep them from practicing erosion control techniques, among other things. Recirculation of water would also require that there be no toxic effects; for instance, Eucalyptus may secrete chemicals that are allelopathic to other plants, and irrigation water may contain high levels of pesticides and other chemicals. These factors, as" well as the possibilities of improving cropping patterns to take best advantage of the existing water conditions, may be more cost efficient in the long term.

117 CHAPTER 5

HOMEGARDENS AND LIVESTOCK:

THE VAC IN THE MIDLANDS PROVINCE OF VINH PHU

This chapter focuses on the Vietnamese household production system commonly referred to as the VAC. Its components are the garden (vuon),

fishpond (ao)f and livestock pen (chuong) (Plates 17, 18, 19). In addition, in upland areas, a forest (rung) component is being promoted by village cooperatives. National policy has promoted the VAC since 1981, primarily due to recognition of its importance to household nutrition. In Vinh Phu Province, families are allocated an average of 300 square meters for a garden, with the option to extend it by paying taxes on additional acreage. Lifetime tenure is granted.

Our major concern was to identify significant flows of energy (in the form of labor) and materials among the VAC components, and between the

VAC and the surrounding environment. This environment consisted of the landscape and of the social, economic, and political institutions. Within the

VAC, our team emphasized the garden and livestock components. Although this was a preliminary study, we were able to identify key flows, problem areas, and key questions for future research. The most critical point we noted was that cooperative land use policy significantly influenced flows of labor and materials

118 both within the VAC and across the VAC-environment interface. Therefore, the costs and benefits of land use policy must be evaluated not only at national, regional, district, and/or cooperative levels of organization, but also in terms of individual household survival and well-being.

In all, 12 households were interviewed. In eight of those households, we conducted in-depth informal interviews, generally lasting 1 to 1.5-hours. In each household in which we conducted in-depth interviews, we questioned one or two adult members. Children were sometimes asked questions as well. Our whole team inquired about household size, composition, occupations, and amount and type of land tenure. We then split into "homegarden" and

"livestock" groups. The first gathered information on garden species composition, structure, management, and production through both interview and examination of the garden. The second gathered information on livestock species, numbers, sex, management, and production through interview and occasional observation. In households in which limited interviews were conducted, we all asked focused questions on aspects of the VAC that seemed critical or unusual. The informal structure of the interviews allowed the team(s) and the interviewee(s) to discuss what was important to them.

In Vinh Phu, the term "VAC" is somewhat misleading. Half of the households interviewed did not have a fishpond. The existence of a fishpond depended on whether a farmer had sufficient land of the proper soil and

119 topography for one. However, at least two farmers had recently rented extra land from the cooperative to build fishponds. It would be interesting to know if this is related to the recent official encouragement of fishponds. Another variant in the VAC was the existence of the forest above the household land.

This combined forest-homegarden system is referred to as the (R)VAC.

The VAC in Dong Xuan Cooperative, Thanh Hoa District

We visited six households in this district, five of them in Dong Xuan, and we interviewed four in depth. Three of the six had fishponds. According to the chairman of the village committee, the gardens in this village ranged in size from .25 to 2.0 hectares. Rice was the major income earning crop in this comparatively flat district. Garden produce was primarily for subsistence, although surplus tea and wood were sold by three of the four households interviewed in depth. Buffalo were kept by all households, an indication of the importance of buffalo for plowing the irrigated rice that dominates this district.

Gardens

Garden perennial composition was very diverse here, with a variable proportion of area allocated toward annual vegetable production. This may have been due to the differing availability of labor in each household. The most prevalent species were jackfruit (Artocurpus nobilis), valued for its fruit and high quality timber; Melia sp. and bamboo, used for construction; bananas

120 (Musa sp.), citrus (including oranges, lemon, pomelo, and grapefruit), papayas, sapote, longan, and starfruit. The most common vegetables were cassava or manioc, sweet potatoes, taro, squash, and various greens. Ginger and sugarcane and two species of medicinal plants were also commonly grown. One exception to this configuration was a homegarden kept by two cooperative factory laborers. Their garden was beautifully kept, with swept walks and many ornamental and medicinal plants. They also kept a fishpond about 5 meters below the house where it received household runoff. The gardens in Dong Xuan were largely planted in 1983 and 1984, except for one presumably existing since the house was built 70 years ago. Consequently, many of these gardens were not yet fully developed, and many fruit trees were just beginning to yield. Yet the future multi-tiered structure can be envisaged. The ground was largely covered by an organic matter mix of leaves and other composting material, well protected from erosion.

When trees were initially planted in the garden, manure might have been placed around the young tree. But once planted and surviving, garden perennials needed little attention. Tea and annual vegetable production were an exception to the rule. Existence of annuals seemed to vary in intensity with the availability of labor.

In general, the first species planted were vegetables and jackfruit. Seed and seedlings from family and neighbors' gardens were used. Other fruit trees,

121 timber trees, and tea soon followed. Some families interviewed grew their own

fuelwood, but most in this area relied on ferns gathered in the surrounding hills and dried before use. Some rice husks and bamboo were also used.

The gardens in Dong Xuan cooperative are primarily oriented to

subsistence production. Some bananas are sold to supplement other income

earning activities. The proportion of the households* overall diet drawn directly

from garden fruits and vegetables was high.

Livestock

A wide range of livestock was kept by the households interviewed in

this district. All kept livestock, except the family that worked as full-time cooperative laborers who appeared to keep only pigeons. In fact, livestock activities were thriving; in particular, pig raising and some cattle raising provided significant household income. This is all the more interesting in that animal husbandry received no official assistance or encouragement from the cooperative, unlike tea and rice cultivation. Of the five Dong Xuan farming households, four kept buffalo; the fifth farmer shared a buffalo with his brother.

Two households kept and bred cattle for sale. Households kept from one to eight pigs (although six of those eight were piglets); two to three pigs seemed most common. They were kept specifically for sale. All households kept chickens, in numbers ranging up to 50. When there were fewer, it was often due to recent disease. Most households reported two dogs for guarding the

122 house; however, dogs were also kept to be eaten at the lunar New Year holiday

and ancestor rituals.

Each of the types of livestock kept presented different management constraints and opportunities. These appeared to vary with the intensity of cultivation of the landscape and the kind of cultivation undertaken. The three major types of livestock in Dong Xuan were cattle and buffalo, pigs, and chickens.

Cattle and buffalo have similar management requirements. Both are

large ruminants, requiring considerable amounts of forage or fodder. Buffalo

were more common than cattle in Dong Xuan because of the emphasis on rice

production. They were essential to carry out plowing, often two times a year,

on the paddy fields. However, the constraints on keeping buffalo were

considerable. Labor and feeding constraints were most important; the high

capital input requirement was next; and environmental constraints were also

significant.

The major problem in caring for cattle and buffalo was provision of adequate food. In the monsoon season, there was often enough grass for the

buffalo to graze. They were taken to the bunds of paddies, to roadsides, and into the tea plantations, forests, or grass-covered hills to graze. Cooperative

lands (a sort of "commons") were a significant source of livestock forage.

Ruminants were also seen eating leaves from bamboo and bushes in the

123 homegarden. The households depended on young boys to herd the family's animal. If possible, one boy herded the animal from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and another from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. In this way, they could alternate going to school. In addition, fodder had to be cut for the animals to eat at night. Rice straw was commonly used as fodder. In the winter season, they were fed rice straw and cassava. In all, care of cattle and buffalo required a considerable labor input. In Dong Xuan, this seemed to be exacerbated by the existence of extensive rice fields; this both increased the need for a buffalo and decreased the grazing land. In addition, care had to be taken that the animals did not get into the paddy.

Buffalo were very expensive, valued at about 500,000 dong. The one farm household that did not own a buffalo had inadequate funds to buy one. In this respect, the cooperative played a very important role. Until recently, the cooperative provided buffalo to work teams. At this time, they were selling buffalo to individual households at 20 percent of cost, but did not have enough for everyone. Thus, capital input was a constraint which was partially alleviated by cooperative policy.

The third constraint was environmental. In this area, winter temperatures dropped as low as 8° C. This placed the buffalo under considerable stress, and this was the time when disease occurred. Farmers

124 reported covering their buffalo with blankets and feeding them salt "to keep

them warm." Veterinarian care was available for a fee.

Pigs presented a very different management configuration. They were

almost always penned, although we also saw some tethered. The woman of the

house was responsible for feeding them. The pigs were primarily fed cassava,

sweet potato leaves, and a little maize from the homegarden, and in a few cases,

water hyacinth as well. In this sense, they competed directly with humans for

nutrients from the homegarden. This is significant because pigs were all raised

for sale; no household reported killing and eating their own pigs. Some of this

income was used to buy meat and other food, but most was expended to

purchase household goods. One woman had bought a television set with the

proceeds from the previous year's pig sales.

Chickens were the least labor intensive of the animals kept. They were

given some seeds and broken rice, but mostly they simply foraged in the

homegarden. Almost all of the meat went to the household. Sometimes eggs were given to sick children. The biggest constraint to chicken-raising was the

prevalence of epidemic disease. Disease seemed to destroy flocks at least twice a year, and sometimes as often as three to four times. The only response was

to kill and eat the chickens as soon as they showed any sign of disease. One

interviewee also trapped about 100 wild chickens annually in a forest 2

kilometers distant for sale.

125 Manure was an extremely important part of the farming system in Dong

Xuan. Most manure was collected for use (the roads and settlements were noticeably clear of dung). Buffalo, cattle, and pig manure were used to feed

fish in fishponds (along with cassava leaves). Buffalo, cattle, chicken, and pig

manure were all mixed with straw to form a compost used both in the homegarden and in the paddy fields. Since buffalo and cattle frequently graze on public lands, it could be said that such land makes a significant contribution

to the VAC and paddy fields in the form of forage transformed into manure.

The only distinction made was between chicken manure and the other

types. One man fertilized his chili plants with chicken manure to make them

very hot. One woman said that chicken manure would rid rice plants of one particular insect. Further research into this organic form of pest control could be very helpful to farmers.

One household in the Thanh Hoa District was of special interest because

it was involved in buffalo trade. This household was located in a very hilly area. It kept animals in sufficient numbers for breeding. These cattle were grazed on the hills surrounding the house. Two young men in the household shared trading responsibilities. One would take short (less than one day) buying/selling trips. He would sell a young buffalo, apparently receiving the old buffalo in partial payment. He would then sell this old buffalo to slaughter in

126 Hanoi. They had some problems with disease but had a good veterinary system.

The herd received vaccinations twice a year, in May and October.

This household also raised ducks. The constraint was that ducks could not be kept in the rice-growing season, or they would destroy the rice. About a month or two before harvest, the family would buy ducklings to raise a post- harvest flock.

The VAC in Tay Coc Cooperative, Doan Hung District

Rice cultivation is not the primary focus of agricultural production in this district due to difficulties with irrigation. Tea was the major income earning crop here, both for the cooperatives and for individual households. The district had a program to promote VACs but found fishpond development difficult. Gardens were promoted both for fruit trees and wood trees for timber.

There was an active program underway to improve access to fuelwood without deforestation. The District Chairman reported 8,000 head of cattle and buffalo.

Livestock production was encouraged; fifty to seventy tons of beef were exported out of the district annually. However, buffalo were a constraint in plowing. Parasites and disease are said to be a constraint on livestock production. This is a point that must be further researched.

Two households were interviewed in this district, only one of them in depth. The other household was briefly interviewed during a tour of its model (R)VAC. In addition, tours of two reforestation sites were made, in which we were able to make field observations of gardens and livestock.

Gardens

The emphasis on tea production changed the constellation of landholding somewhat. It seemed that a proportion of total household land was shifted away from paddy toward garden, and a greater amount of labor was focused on the household plot. This was indicated both by interviews and by observation of roadside gardens but needs to be verified by further research.

The tea gardens visible from the road were very well maintained.

Despite the emphasis on cash crop production of tea from the VAC, the gardens here remained very species diverse. As tea tolerates and even thrives under some shade, edge planting and some overstory planting of fruit and timber trees were the rule. Species composition was very similar to that found in Dong

Xuan District.

In this district, we visited one household with a forest component. It was an (R)VAC system now being promoted as a model in the province, particularly for hill lands (for the lay-out, see Figure 5.1). This was part of the district policy to slow erosion, increase forest cover in watersheds, and provide sufficient wood for fuel, paper mills, and construction. The farmer managing this plot had gained and maintained control of a few hectares of an old palm plantation on the slope above his house. The forest consisted of a managed and

128 Figure 5.1 Diagram of a Model (R)VAC

129 protected natural forest consisting of Caryota palms, bamboo, rattan, and natural forest tree species. Due to his status in the community, he was able to forbid people to cut wood on this land and resist cooperative pressures to plant cassava or tea there. A combined strategy of keeping cattle out, enrichment planting with several native tree species, and encouragement of natural regeneration had led to a dense, young secondary forest within 10 years. Management consisted primarily of selective cutting and release cutting (weeding) to encourage the economically important species such as bamboo, rattan, and the palm. The forest provided considerable household income; the farmer thought it was more profitable than tea or cassava cultivation would have been. Specific benefits included wood, medicinal herbs, protection of the watershed, and a foraging area for a flock of domestic and wild chickens.

In the area between the forest and his garden proper, the farmer was experimenting with tea intercropped with Tephrosia sp., a leguminous tree which fixes N and may help to counteract nutrient loss from the system when tea is exported. The farmer's garden was again a species diverse mixture of fruit trees and vegetable crops. The farmer's rationale for maintaining this system was that it was the most appropriate cover and hill management to sustain his water supply for the paddy field and the two ponds. Hills adjacent to the rice fields, which also form part of the watershed, were either barren

130 hills, natural regrowth, or planted to forest plantation species such as

Eucalyptus, Mangletia, or Styrax.

This type of system is very promising for upland areas in which reforestation for watershed protection is desirable. It is a complex uneven-aged and multispecies forest which is ecologically and hydrologically best suited for watershed management. This is in striking contrast to the even-aged Eucalyptus monoculture currently being used for reforestation in this province. Household level management of such "plantations" is particularly suited to the combination of minimal labor input, but constant surveillance and monitoring are required to establish and protect such a complex forest.

The homegarden of a second household was dominated by tea which covered 1,500 square meters out of a total area of 3,600 nr of houseplot/homegarden land. From this and other tea plantings, the household harvested 10 kg/month (dry weight). This brought them an income of 40,000 dongfmonlh, which was the major source of income for the family. The garden also had fruit trees and vegetables; bananas and jack fruit were sold from the garden. They used chemical fertilizer on their tea plants once a year. They used pesticide on the tea six times a year. This was all bought from the cooperative, which had sufficient quantities for its members, at 10 percent of the household's total income.

131 Livestock

Field observations indicated a less cultivated landscape than was found in Dong Xuan. There were fewer paddy fields and more grassy hills. In general, this district was marked by less fencing of livestock. In contrast, vegetable gardens appeared to be more tightly fenced than had been the case in

Dong Xuan. This implies a more open landscape in which animals can be allowed more mobility. When there is sufficient grazing land, a less intensively cultivated landscape, and a larger number of animals, animal mobility becomes more efficient than the Dong Xuan method of tight control of animals in the paddy-dominated landscape. Also in contrast to Dong Xuan, we saw more overgrown roadsides and paddy bunds in the parts of Doang Hung District that we visited. This also implies the availability of other sources for grazing.

The second site we visited was a reforestation site. These were grasslands that had been overgrazed and are now being reforested. The path we took continued up into the rolling hills. The process of deforestation here began in the 1940s, when people from the delta came to get wood. Besides grasslands, we saw extensive, poorly weeded cassava and sugarcane plantings. There was a great deal of dung on the road, indicating the presence of cattle or buffalo; but the roadsides had high grass and bushes, indicating that grazing occurred elsewhere. Around 11 a.m., we saw a young boy bringing in seven cattle from behind a hill. Later that day, at a third site, we saw a mixed herd of 14 cattle

132 and six buffalo grazing in a tea plantation. It was not unusual to see cattle grazing in the tea on the hillsides along the road.

At the model (R)VAC, the farmer informed our team that he received more of his income from livestock than from the forest and garden. This farmer kept two cattle but did not graze them in his forest. He did not appear to keep a buffalo, having decided to concentrate on the VAC. He had two ponds. One, directly below the cattle and pig pens, was for fish. The second (fed by the first) was planted with rice for the duck flock there. In that way, he prevented his ducks from destroying his rice (there was a paddy field directly below the duck pond).

An interesting point is that the farmer kept a mixed flock of domestic and wild (or feral) chickens in his forest. He did not report a problem with disease. The interaction between a wide foraging area and mix of "wild" and

"domestic" chickens deserves further study to understand its management.

As mentioned previously, the final interviewee did not keep a buffalo.

He said he had too little money to buy one, but it was also clear that it was not as necessary given the household's dependence on tea rather than rice production. His mother-in-law raised and sold two pigs a year, and the money was used to buy things for the house. They fed the pigs cassava in the cold weather and maize and broken rice when they could. They sometimes bought maize for this purpose. As elsewhere, chickens were kept for household meat.

133 They kept dogs, and these were sometimes killed for celebrations. This farmer commented that this land was much less fertile than that of his natal home in the delta. The livestock were better there too, he said, because they were fed exclusively on broken rice and maize.

The VAC in Dong Xuan Cooperative, Lap Thach District

This was the poorest of the districts we visited. Lap Thac was closer to the mountains than the other two districts. The landscape here was broken up with low hills. The slopes and flooding from the two rivers (the Lo and the

Day) caused rapid fluctuations in water levels. At times, the farmers suffered from flood, and at others from drought. Rice pests were also a problem. Tea was not a major source of income here (there was no tea processing factory) nor did rice provide surplus income for the district. In response, the district government was planning a new system of agricultural development trying to link forestry, agriculture, and industry. One result was an emphasis on fruit production (such as pineapple, to which more land is devoted than tea, jack fruit, and bananas). Eucalyptus was being planted, but the district was looking for alternatives because price fluctuations were a constraint. They were experimenting with a Dipterocarp plantation left from French times. Seedlings may have been taken from temple complexes, where Dipterocarps (associated with local spirits) are often found.

134 The three households interviewed in the Lap Thach District provided several important contrasts to the other districts. They were notable for the variation in livestock husbandry and for the less species diverse nature of their homegardens.

Gardens

The farmers we interviewed had devised several alternative income strategies to cope with their marginally productive resource base, in the garden, the fishpond, and the livestock pen (see following section). One household supplemented household income with handicrafts produced and sold by the children. Another gained its primary income of 70,000 dong from basketry.

They used bamboo from the homegarden, but one family had to buy bamboo in the market to keep up with their level of basketry production. *

The existence of a fruit processing factory and the lack of a tea processing factory were significant determinants in cooperative and primary household production. Fruit, particularly banana and citrus production in the homegarden, was a significant source of income in the Dong Xuan cooperative.

Bananas were sold to the cooperative in exchange for fertilizer, which was applied to the bananas and to subsistence rice plots. The proportion of garden land allotted to bananas seemed higher in this area than in the other districts.

At the same time, the number and quantity of other fruit trees in the gardens appeared to decrease. Unlike tea, banana production reduces the structural complexity of tiers of overlapping vegetation because bananas produce best without a shading overstory. The export of fruits for cash income may have significantly affected household nutrition as rice and the few vegetables bought

in the market could not replace constant supplies of vitamins from the great variety of sources found in complex gardens.

Two of the farmers were experimenting with coffee. The first harvest

(after three years) was expected in 1990. The farmers brought the Cqffea

robusta plants from another village for trials. When the local cooperative saw

their success, it instituted a coffee growing program for other farmers in the

village. This shift to coffee production may soon provide a good income to the

farmers in this cooperative. Coffee, in addition, would allow (indeed, calls for)

shading and thus would not hinder simultaneous species-diverse, multiple-tiered

cropping of fruit trees for household nutrition. Still, the shift to producing

another cash crop from the garden plot should be monitored carefully to account

for changes in nutrient flows among the VAC system components. This shift

to coffee also illustrates another key point, that economic conditions and

government policy directly affected the VAC. These farmers chose to

experiment with coffee in part because there was no tea processing factory in the district and transportation to distant markets was a problem.

136 Livestock

The diversity in strategies was further illustrated by the configuration of livestock in the VACs of Dong Xuan. One household had a 40-year-old fishpond, another had just started one. Both households had recently made considerable investments in fingerlings for their fishponds (one had bought them in the market, the other from the cooperative). One farmer was expecting to supplement family diet; the other planned to harvest the fish for sale in the local market. Cassava leaves and manure (especially pig manure) provided the main source of food for the fishpond.

None of the farmers interviewed kept buffalo. Two had too little paddy land to warrant the expense. The third kept cattle, both for draft and for sale.

He had insufficient labor to keep both buffalo and cattle. He decided on cattle because his children were too small to handle buffalo. In addition, the breeding fee for buffalo was much higher than for cattle. Cattle-breeding provided his main income. These households either rented or exchanged labor for buffalo when needed.

All of the households kept a few pigs, which were an important source of income for the household. As in the other districts, the pigs were mainly fed out of the homegarden. There were fewer chickens here than in Thanh Hoa or

Doan Hung. AH three households reported a high rate of disease. Chickens were used for household consumption.

137 In addition to its use in the fishpond, animal manure was used in the gardens and paddy fields. It was notable that manure (as well as chemical fertilizer) was used for bananas, unlike households interviewed in other districts.

This may reflect the market role of bananas. Despite the varied uses of manure, no farmer reported a problem with too little manure for all possible uses. They did, however, report a need for chemical fertilizer.

Conclusions and Key Questions

The key flows within the VAC, between the VAC and other subsystems of the VAC, and between the VAC and the surrounding environment are summarized in diagram (see Figures 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4). It can be seen from these that there are several key relationships that can be expected to have important effects on the configuration of crops and livestock. For instance, flows of energy and materials within the VAC are largely controlled by humans through their labor. Thus, labor is a major constraint on development of more intensive homegarden, livestock, or fishpond systems. Another key material flow is manure. Figures 5.2, S.3, and 5.4 illustrate the varied uses to which manure can be put: paddy fields, homegardens, and fishponds. As people intensify production in these subsystems, they may find competing uses for the manure they have available. Another critical flow is that between the market and the VAC (see Figure 5.5). The market can be a source of new materials

138 Figure 5.2 Energy and Material Flows Within the VAC System

139 Figure 5.3 Energy and Material Flows Between the VAC and the Agroecosystem

W1LDUFE NEIGHBORS

\ Seadlvngs ^readinOj stock

4^ O (FOREST) FISH POND

GARDEN LIVESTOCK

BARREN

H\LLS Figure 5.4 The Place of ihc (R)VAC in the Agroecosystem

ATMOSPHERE.

LIGHT

Figure 5.5 Energy and Material Flows Between the VAC and Outside the Agroecosystem

(FOREST) FISH PoND

GARDEN LIVESTOCK

CQslrjj breeding Fruvt and stock> neuJ varieties, other crops, meat and I we stock

MARKET

142 such as breeding stock or plant varieties; in this sense, we could call the market a source of information flow. The market might also provide basic materials needed for survival. However, the market might also serve as a nutrient and

material drain when people sell livestock and produce from the garden to the

market. Finally, we should note the importance of the forest and cooperative land in the agroecosystem (see Figures 5.2 and S.3). These subsystems are highly productive but require relatively few inputs from individual farmers.

This might result in overexploitation of these lands.

We have developed some questions about the nature of flows within the

VAC system, between the VAC and the rest of the agroecosystem, and between the VAC and the wider social and physical environment encompassing the agroecosystem. These key questions have been phrased in various ways to reflect the possible interests of farmers, policymakers, and agroecosystems researchers.

1. Farmer: How can farmers afford to keep the draft animals they need to farm, given their land, labor and capital constraints?

Agroecosystem analyst: What effects do cooperative land use policies have on the VAC system and on farmer welfare? How do farmers balance their need to keep animals; the possible destruction of homegardens, paddyfields, and forests by these animals; and the labor costs of keeping animals? How do they decide where to make significant land or labor inputs?

143 Policymaker: if land is reforested, how can farmers and cooperatives compensate for the loss of grazing land? Are there alternative means of managing livestock that are less labor intensive? Cooperatives could play a key role, but of what sort? Why did cooperative level ownership of draft animals fail?

An example of interactions between the different aspects of the agroecosystem is that the goal of increasing forest area may well result in reduced grassland available for grazing. At the same time, provincial policies to increase rice production demand higher numbers of buffalo for plowing.

This, in turn, will increase demand for grazing land. Considerable household labor is also required to feed and tend draft animals. This demand on labor and capital input was to have been solved at the cooperative level; one alternative tried and abandoned was control and provision of buffalo by the work teams.

This system has failed, and the cooperative is now selling animals to households at a low cost. This answers the capital input problem but not the labor problem.

2. Farmer: How can farmers diversify their production to ensure adequate cash income and food for their families?

Agroecosystem analyst: What role does the homegarden play in household nutrition? What happens when homegarden production shifts from subsistence to cash income? How sustainable is cash-cropping in the homegarden? Will cash- cropping out of the homegarden contribute to inequities in the system?

144 Policymaker: How can families be helped to maintain good nutrition from the homegarden? How can it be ensured that people get the best possible range of benefits from homegardens and alternative uses for them?

How cooperative policies affect household welfare is also illustrated by how the size and composition of the homegarden have been affected through the years. We were able to interview an old woman who had been one of the original Kinh settlers of her area 40 years ago. She cut a large homegarden out of the forest by encouraging jackfruit trees. She cut other trees for wood and gradually replaced them with a wide variety of perennials and annuals. This large homegarden was reduced in area in the land reform campaign when some of the land was taken to make houseplots for other villagers. The homegarden was further depleted 10 years ago, when cooperative policy dictated that parts of it be converted to cassava production. Today, we see encouragement of fishponds and of tea/cassava/coffee/fruit production for export out of the VAC.

In the cooperative with the highest proportion of cash-cropping in its homegardens, we also saw our first signs of nutritional deficiencies.

3. Farmer: How can farmers ensure sufficient fertilizer for all their needs? Can they use chemical fertilizer to increase production where they once used manure?

Agroecosystem analyst: What are the nutrient flows within the VAC and between the VAC and the surrounding environment? How tightly closed are

145 these flows? Are there "leaks" (e.g., ways to recycle more efficiently)? How efficiently do people retrieve and use manure? Is there competition between its various uses? How do fanners decide when and how to allocate manure? What would be the effects of using chemical fertilizer on nutrient flows (and on other elements of the VAC such as the fishponds)?

Policymaker: What effect will encouragement of fishponds have on the availability of manure for gardens and rice paddy? How can farmers be helped to maintain production and fertility?

In order to make good policy, we need to understand the nutrient flows within the VAC and between the VAC and other aspects of the environment.

This critical set of questions is closely related to the two previous sets of questions.

One of the most important elements in the VAC is manure. This must be allocated between numerous elements: the rice fields, the homegarden, and the fishpond (see Figures 5.2, 5.3, and 5.6). If there is insufficient manure, there are a number of alternatives. One is to increase the stock of manure by collecting it more efficiently or raising more animals. Another is to use. chemical fertilizers. Either response increases the labor or capital input farmers make. The costs must be weighed against the benefits to farmers. We must take a long-term view, however; use of manure or chemical fertilizers on crops that flow out of the local agroecosystem may deplete the system.

146 Figure 5.6 Energy and Material Flows Between the Fishpond and the Rest of the VAC

4. Farmer: How can farmers assure their families of a diversity of food sources? How can they balance their resources so that they have a surplus to sell for necessary commodities? How can they keep tea (wood/fruit/coffee) production high? How can they assure steady pig production, or even increase it, in order to fulfill their family's consumer needs, without depriving themselves of food?

Agroecosystem analyst: Can we measure flows out of the VAC? What is the long-term effect of such nutrient drains? What means are there of replacing such losses (e.g., does interplanting of Tephrosia and tea provide a more sustainable system by counteracting nutrient loss)? To what extent is the drain due to pig-selling replaced by buying meat and other nutrients in the market?

Policymaker: What is the nutritional effect on the household of raising pigs for the market or selling fruit from the homegarden? Do the benefits to families in buying household goods outweigh the possible nutrient loss and loss in productivity?

There are already a number of outflows from the VAC (to the market, see Figure 5.5). One, as noted, is fruit/tea/cassava/wood production for the market. In addition, pigs are widely raised for sale in the market. They compete directly with humans for homegarden production, as their diet is much the same as humans. These could represent substantial nutrient drains or they may be replaced by inputs from the market. Does cash represent a sufficient return in terms of sustainability of the system?

148 5. Farmer: How can farmers ensure a steady flow of meat from their chickens, rather than having to destroy and consume them periodically in response to disease? What other sources of meat are available to them?

Agroecosystem analyst: Does the existence of disease indicate an environmental stress or limitation? Is there a way of managing flocks to avoid this boom-bust cycle?

Policymaker: Given the size of flocks and the rapidity of disease, is a medical/technological response to chicken disease cost-efficient? Are there management solutions to epidemic chicken disease? Would it be better to emphasize alternative sources of protein, such as fish?

Disease was a major problem among the chicken flocks in some areas.

Since chickens appear to provide a major source of meat for the household, this directly affects household welfare.

6. Farmer: How can farmers ensure sufficient fruit tree production so that they have enough for their families and a surplus to sell in the market? How can they ensure an even flow of production so that they do not have too much at one time and not enough at another?

Agroecosystem analyst: How viable and sustainable would improved fruit tree varieties be? What would be the effect on diversity in the homegarden on the introduction of such varieties? Would coffee planting be ecologically adaptable and economically viable?

Policymaker: What varieties would require the least technological input (i.e., be least expensive

149 to introduce and maintain) and be most acceptable to farmers and consumers? What is the best method for establishing coffee as an agroforestry system?

The fruit trees in the homegarden are not improved varieties. As such, there are limits to production. It might be possible to expand and extend production through careful use of "improved" varieties. For example, if a farmer has four jackfruit trees of different varieties, the yield of fruit could be extended by several months (from May to September, instead of June to July).

This might also create more favorable conditions for insect pests and diseases, however. Farmers are independently introducing coffee to the homegardens, particularly in Lap Thach, where transport makes tea a less profitable crop than in the other two districts. This is a good example of farmer innovation, and coffee appears to be a suitable crop for the area. Again, however, it raises the question of nutrient flows out of the homegarden.

7. Farmer: How can farmers ensure sufficient labor to care for their draft animals and work in the paddy fields? How can they make sure their children are able to go to school, as well as care for the livestock? How can farmers deal with labor bottlenecks at planting and harvest times? How can they either organize the division of labor to lessen constraints or recruit labor to their household?

Agroecosystem analyst: What are the social relations of production that enable people to meet the constraints and opportunities of the economy and the environment? How do labor constraints

150 channel people's responses to environmental problems? How many workers does a household need in order to complete its tasks?

Policymaker: How can the national policy of population control be met, while helping farmers to meet their labor needs? What role can the cooperative and the district governments play in helping farmers to meet these twin goals?

Labor is one of the major constraints faced by farmers. This is a particularly sensitive problem because it is in the national interest to contain the population growth rate. However, farmers face immediate labor shortages which have traditionally been dealt with by having larger families.

151 CHAPTER 6

LAND USE IN THE MIDLANDS

This chapter combines information gathered by the agroforestry and landscape ecology teams. It addresses issues that have been only peripherally touched on in previous chapters: the structure and functioning of the local level agroecosystem as a whole and the relations and interactions among its subsystems. After briefly surveying the character of the rural landscape in the

Midlands, patterns of land use in the three districts that we visited in Vinh Phu

Province are described.

The Rural Landscape of the Midlands

The character of the rural landscape in the Midlands is largely determined by topography, although policy decisions by the village cooperatives and higher level government authorities strongly influence the use that is made of any specific parcel. The landscape of the Midlands is fairly complex, and the pattern of land use reflects this. At the grossest level, there are two basic land forms for people to work with: uplands and lowlands. At a finer-grained level of analysis, the landscape is composed of three major elements: the moderately flat valleys between the hills; the house plots and associated homegardens; and the sloping uplands. Each of these elements plays a distinctive role in the

152 overall agroecosystem, and each is associated with characteristic activities. A typical household manages agroecosystems located in all three elements.

Vallevs

In the valleys, the principal land use subsystems are paddy fields, water resources (reservoirs, ponds, and streams), and roads and roadside verges.

Paddy fields. The paddy fields are on moderately flat, terraced, and bunded lowlands (Plates 3 & 4). Paddy areas are extremely small with the average holding less than one-tenth hectare per capita (see Table 2.4). Two rice crops per year are planted on at least some fields of each household. Irrigation systems seem to adequately provide supplemental water to most farms visited; however, this probably differs from year to year according to rainfall conditions.

Even under ideal conditions, many households are unable to produce sufficient rice for home consumption and must supplement their diet with cassava. Others engage in sideline activities to obtain cash with which to buy rice.

As can be seen from Table 2.4, the proportion of land given to paddy cultivation varied among the three districts; what did not vary was the high cultural value assigned to rice cultivation. Thus, even where this subsystem is not dominant in terms of land area, it is dominant in terms of labor time and inputs allocated to it. The high value of paddy is a significant element in farmer decision-making processes.

153 In addition to rice growing, paddy fields are the location of a range of other activities. These include grazing of livestock on the bunds and in fallow fields (Plate 16), fishing or foraging for aquatic animals (fish, crabs, prawns), collection of edible weeds, and raising of vegetables on the bunds and margins of the fields.

Water resources. Reservoirs, ponds, streams, and other bodies of water are predominantly found in the lowlands. This must be qualified, however, by stating that many reservoirs may be found at the fringes of the lowlands and in watershed areas, where water is collected above the paddy fields to enable irrigation (Plate 31). These bodies of water are all created or heavily modified by humans to collect and store water from both rain and natural streams and surface runoff from the hills. Runoff from the hills is an important medium of material flows from the uplands to the lowlands. Such flows include silt, nutrients, and pesticides. Allelopathic inhibitors from upland Eucalyptus plantations may also be carried by surface runoff.

Activities associated with these water resources are irrigation, fishing and fish raising, care of livestock (e.g., buffalo wallows), and washing. The water resources also play roles in sanitation (carrying household wastes away from the hamlet) and may affect microclimates. Fish raising in ponds and reservoirs provides food to the household; ponds may receive inputs of household and animal wastes. Taro and water spinach are grown around the

154 edges of ponds. The main role of most of these bodies of water, however, is

irrigation of paddy fields, in keeping with the central place of rice in the agroecosystem.

Roads. Roads are used for transport and communications (material and

information flow) and grazing. Like reservoirs, roads are also fringe elements

in the lowland landscape, in that they tend to hug the edge between lowlands and

uplands or go through passes between hills.

The grassy roadsides are an important component of the agroecosystem.

They are heavily grazed by buffalo and cattle, so that the edges are very closely

cropped.

House plots and homegardens

The house plots are most often located above the paddy fields, often on

the lower part of a hillslope (Plates 2 & 5). Some, however, are located on

knolls surrounded by paddy fields. Many are located near roads. The house

plot is the center for a wide array of activities. The homegarden is located

there, with its diverse community of vegetables, fruit and wood trees, and

medicinal and decorative plants (Plate 17). House plots located on hillslopes

merge into the sloping uplands, and homegarden activities are not easily distinguishable from agroforestry. The house plot is also the center of animal husbandry. Cattle and pigs are penned there, and their manure is collected for the household compost pile (Plates 19 & 20). The open area between the house and the kitchen is the site of economic activities such as tea processing and paddy drying. Finally, the lower part of the house plot may be the site of a fishpond, if topography and water conditions permit (Plate 18). The households we visited usually had a shallow well. Here, house plot activities merge with those associated with water resources.

Hillslopes

The hillslopes are planted to palms, tea, cassava, or various tree crops, such as Melia/Aleuritis or Eucalyptus. Insofar as tea is an important cash crop and cassava a supplemental crop to rice, hillslopes are central to the village economic system. Critical factors influencing the use to which a piece of hillslope land is put seem to be slope, location in relation to house plot and rice fields, soil type and quality, and government policy. Of these, slope may be the most important. Three categories of slope may be distinguished: lower slopes, upper slopes, and barren hills.

Lower slopes. Lower slopes and/or those of less than 35° are usually devoted to tea plantations. Areas of mild slope adjacent to house plots also tend to be planted with either tea or cassava. Concern with protecting high value crops from theft is an important factor in decision-making about use of lands close to the house site. Family-managed cassava and tea plots are small, usually not

156 exceeding one-tenth hectare. Cassava is grown as a supplemental staple. Some is also produced for animal feed and for sale for use in alcohol production. Tea is grown both for home consumption and as a cash crop (Plates 25 & 26). Tea may be intercropped with trees for shade and to maintain soil moisture; a

Tephrosia candidal io^ intercrop is being encouraged (and adopted) for its nitrogen-fixing capabilities (Plate 30). Livestock are extensively grazed in the tea plantations.

Upper slopes. The upper slopes in upland areas are generally planted with perennial species including Caryota palm, indigenous fast-growing tree species

(Styrax tonkinensis, Mangletia glauca), and introduced tree species (Eucalyptus camaldulensis, Acacia mangium, and Tephrosia Candida). Cooperative-managed tea plantations extend over large areas of the upper slopes. Slopes exceeding

35° may be reforestation areas for fuelwood and commercial production.

Ideally, such high slope areas, and those critical to watershed protection, should be planted only with tree crops (Plates 27 & 28). Collection of fire wood and construction wood, and some grazing, also take place here.

Barren hills. A third type of hillslope is either covered with bamboo and light secondary forest or coarse grasses or, in some cases, bare soil and rocks. These are often referred to as "barren hills" (Plates 6 & 7). These areas are sites of more severe erosion and nutrient loss through leaching. Yet these sites, too, are of use to the farmers. Such "barren hills" are important grazing and fuelwood

157 collection sites. Sometimes there are sparse groves of palms or small cassava plots. The barren hills are also sources of materials for handicraft production and grass and leaves for green manuring.

Comparison of the Pattern of Land Use in the Three Districts

Within this basic form of rural landscape that is common to the

Midlands, there are distinct differences in the specific patterns of land use characteristic of each of the three districts we visited. These different patterns may be inferred to represent the outcome of the operation of different resource constraints (e.g., water, land, nutrients, and labor). In the Dong Xuan

Cooperative, Thanh Hoa District, water seems to be the key constraint followed by nutrients. In the Doan Hung District, labor may be the most important limiting factor. Land appears to be the major constraint in the densely populated

Lap Thach District.

Dong Xuan Cooperative. Thanh Hoa District

The cooperative is a combination of the old and the new. There are several nearly 100-year-old houses still occupied by members of the lineage that built them. Many other houses are newly built for immigrants, newly formed families, and people who were moved from their old house sites to make room for the cooperative buildings. The temple is now used to store cooperative

158 supplies. Its cast-bronze bell hangs from a tree in the tea plantation where it is used to signal to the workers.

The cooperative is located in a hilly region of highly drained soils

(Figure 6.1). In the valleys, eight reservoirs, a complex of paddy terraces, and tributary fishponds trap groundwater flows from the hills and maintain them at desired levels for paddy, home, and garden use (Plate 31). The topography offers excellent opportunities for irrigation of the valleys (see the discussion of water resources in Chapter 4).

There are dirt roads located through passes between the hills and roads for motorized vehicles below in the valley floor. The roadsides are heavily grazed. Staghom fern is growing on the side of the roads; it is collected for cooking fuel (Plate 23). Both are indications of the intensity of land use in this cooperative. House plots tend to be situated quite low down the slopes.

Some houses are clustered on knolls in the center of the paddy field area. Most houses edge the lower hillslopes, forming a fringe around the paddy fields.

The surrounding homegardens form an almost continuous dense band of vegetation along the base of the hills. This garden band and the tea plantations above it appear to block downslope flows of sediments and to filter flows of acidic water into the paddy fields.

There are many barren hills. Others are covered with extensive tea plantations or cassava patches. One villager told us that when he arrived in the

159 Figure 6.1 Cross-section of Landscape of Dong Xuan Cooperative, Thanh Hoa District

village 9 years ago, there were already many paddy fields, and the hills were already bare. There is significant gully erosion on many of the hills. Palms top the hills unless already replaced by tea. Patches of forest, almost all artificially planted, dot the hills, particularly above the reservoirs. Fast-growing utility trees are increasingly common in the gardens and in mixtures with the cassava and tea (see Figure 6.1). Tea and pulpwood appear to be the ascendant crops, encouraged by cooperative policy.

The land was formerly collectively worked by production brigades. In

1980, a new land tenure policy was introduced, dividing the paddy fields so that each household could manage the land as they saw fit, as long as they fulfilled their production target. According to the farmers, the government previously did not encourage the planting of tea or cassava; the emphasis was on rice sufficiency in each district. Those opening new land, however, were allowed to grow cassava and given a rice subsidy until they could produce rice themselves. Cooperative members are now given paddy land (about 0.25-0.45 hectare per household, with an average household size of seven people of whom two or three are laborers) and tea plantation (up to 4 hectares) to manage, and land for a house plot and homegarden. Currently, the cooperative is encouraging tea, cassava, and pulpwood production. Part of this policy is the result of the relatively liberal land privatization arrangements for tea plantations.

Farmers plant a combination of rice, cassava, mung beans, and tea.

161 Tea is extremely important in this region, so the amount of tea planted and the income generated from it rivals paddy. The highest proportion of one informant's 4,000,000 dong income came from tea production. Another informant reported earning 1,000,000 dong from tea production. The cooperative gets 50 percent of his tea production.

Tea is planted in homegardens or on the hillsides. The tea planted near the house appears to have higher production than tea plants in the hills, and farmers confirmed this. The proximity of homegarden tea plants makes it easier to transport organic nutrients to it. These tea plants are more carefully weeded than the ones on the hillside. Production is in the range of 100 kilograms (dry weight) annually per each hectare.

The previous generation grew tea in what some informants referred to as a

"traditional" way, different from today's methods. Under that system, the tea plants were 1 meter apart, and each plant had only two stems. There was no need for fertilizer. The life span of the tea was usually 40 years.

Farmers now use a "contour method." Plants are spaced so that there are four plants in 1 m2. In the spring, they plant mung beans between the rows of tea plants. Mung beans are also planted to shade the young tea plants. The leaves are left to decompose, adding nutrients to the soil. An alternative soil cover is "pig weed." It is a good ground cover because it will not grow over the plants. When cut back, it makes good fodder for pigs. With the

162 introduction of this technique came the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides from the government. This has consequences for runoff from the tea plantations on the hillslopes to the homegardens, reservoirs, and paddy fields. Trees may be planted along the edges of tea plantations, including Cornelia, Trema orientalis, and Mallutus for fuelwood.

Informants told us that tea is easier to manage than paddy fields, since the latter demand more labor throughout the agricultural cycle. Tea production also provides more income. Tea production is not dominant, however. One informant stated that if after 10 years his tea plants turn out to be low in productivity, he may replace them with a forest plantation. In August 1988, when grain was scarce and the price of tea low in comparison to food, one farmer pulled up his tea to grow cassava. In an economy of potential food shortages, it is to be expected that production of subsistence crops will be given priority by the farmers.

Rice production is reported to be about 3 tons per hectare. Farmers double crop many fields, but not all. Heavy inputs are made into the paddy fields. Green manure and compost are primarily used, but sometimes chemical fertilizer is also used. A soil research team is said to have visited the area to analyze the soil. Farmers said they were not informed of its findings, except that the cooperative now follows the team's recommendation on the use of chemical fertiizer. The cooperative buys fertilizer in bulk and makes it available

163 to the farmers. Farmers who want to use fertilizer but have no cash are allowed to exchange the equivalent in rice for it.

Homegarden production, such as vegetables and fruits, is generally for home consumption or given away to friends and neighbors. Poultry production is also for home consumption. Many informants said that they produced cassava for home consumption, although there is a cassava processing factory associated with the cooperative.

Cassava is generally planted as a substitute for or supplement to rice.

For instance, one informant planted cassava as a staple in his first years in this village, while slowly expanding other areas of cultivation (rice as a staple, tea as a cash crop), due to the lack of labor available in his household. Cassava growing does not require the intensive input of labor and material that rice and tea do, and it has many uses for the household. It is dried, pounded, processed into starch, and made into cakes for food. The leaves are fed to cultivated worms which are in turn eaten by the household; the leaves are also used as fish food in fishponds; and the young shoots are used as vegetables. Cassava plantations do not need any weeding. Labor is needed only during harvest, to dig up and transport the crop. Cassava is also sold to enable the household to acquire cash to buy fertilizer and pesticides to increase tea production.

Small groves of Caryota palm are scattered across the hillslopes. Some of the palm plantations in the area are said to be more than a hundred years old. One farmer told us he manages a small palm plantation above his house, where some of these palm trees shade his tea plants. These shaded tea plants seem to be healthier than those not shaded. These palm trees are managed by the farmer for the cooperative.

Palm is an important plant due to its multipurpose uses. It is used primarily for thatching roofs; making mats, screens, fans, and baskets; and used for walling buildings. One informant said that palm production is decreasing since trees have been replaced by other crops and trees. It is also possible that the availability of tile roofing and cement has lowered the demand for palm fronds.

Ca Dinh and Tav Coc Village Cooperatives, Doan Hung District

In contrast to Thanh Hoa District, Doan Hung District is less densely populated and socially more diverse (a number of families of the Cao Lanh ethnic minority still reside in the area). There is more abundant rainfall and more fertile soils. The homesteads are widely scattered across the landscape.

Land is more available and less intensively used (Figure 6.2). The main field crops are tea, cassava, and com, all of which demand less labor than intensive wet rice cultivation. The areas we visited had very little paddy land, and rice cultivation is not the primary occupation here. Animal husbandry, sugarcane production, and tea production often supplant it. Household income is derived from animal husbandry, sugarcane production, tea production, paddy production,

165

fish raising, homegarden production, and sale of bamboo to a paper factory.

The first three were by far the more important. Rice, fish, fruit, and vegetables are raised mainly for home consumption. Livestock would appear to be promising in these circumstances, but parasites and disease are said to present severe problems.

Forestry is also very promising—we saw excellent examples of successful reforestation—but faces the usual establishment problems of cutting and collection by local residents and livestock grazing. Bamboo and timber are again becoming important sources of income. Deforestation is relatively recent.

Informants recalled the hillsides being covered with large trees when they first

moved here in the late 1940s. Some of the deforestation was caused by people

from the delta who came to cut wood. Short rotation si ash-and-burn agriculture by the migrants also resulted in extensive deforestation. Regenerating swidden plots are still visible on many of the hillslopes (Plate 5). Although now officially prohibited, shifting cultivation is still practiced in more remote areas of the district. One farmer told us that he planted his cassava in fields that he cleared in areas that had been recently logged by the cooperative. After one or two crops, when yields decline, he abandons the field and clears a new plot in

167 another area.1 When asked if he had permission of the cooperative officials to use this land, he laughed and said that they did not know what went on in the hills out of sight of the settlement.

Several different reforestation strategies are being employed. Ca Dinh cooperative has distributed all of its hill land suitable for afforestation to individual households to manage. Dense secondary forest is naturally regenerating on hillslopes behind the housesites of some families. Evidently, if the area can be protected from burning and overexploitation, trees will grow back without deliberate replanting. Tay Coc Cooperative has organizd the planting of Acacia and Eucalyptus in a cooperative-run plantation on a formerly grass-covered hill top. The trees appear healthy but the project was very labor intensive, requiring the digging of an extensive system of trenches to trap runoff and silt before planting the seedlings. Individual households have also been encouraged to practice agroforestry on hill lands assigned to them to manage.

The model (R)VAC described in Chapter 5 is located in Tay Coc. We also observed a number of forest gardens where tea was interplanted with Mangletia and Melia trees. A significant change occurring in this agroforestry system is

This farmer reported cassava yields of almost 28 tons/hectare (1 ion/sao) (wet weight), although he applies no manure or fertilizer to his swidden plot. He takes no measures to protect the soil and admits that erosion is very bad. When asked why he did not try to control erosion, he laughed and said that he did not care about it because it was not his land.

168 the growing of coffee. Coffee seems to fit the existing labor constraints as the concentration of labor inputs does not coincide with the peak demands of rice

cultivation. This is in contrast to tea production.

Dong Xuan Cooperative. Lap Thach District

This district is the most recently settled, the most densely populated,

and the most oriented toward rice production. It has the poorest soils of the

three districts. Household land is about equally allocated between paddy fields and homegardens, but rice is the main crop (Figure 6.3). The homegardens are

diverse and abundant, but there is increasing production for the market (see

Chapter 5). Water control is a problem because of the topography (see

Chapter 4). A great deal of water control occurs at the district level, rather than at the cooperative level as in the Thanh Hoa District. The key constraint in this

landscape is the land itself. People do not have enough land to make a

reasonable living from agriculture alone. Many households are heavily engaged in nonagricultural activities—carpentry, cabinetry, brick-making, handicraft

production—in addition to farming. There appears to be considerable differentiation among households in access to resources and levels of income and welfare.

The district and cooperative are pursuing development strategies based on the expansion of plantation crops—tea, cassava, pulpwood, perhaps pineapple and coffee—and of agricultural processing activities. These activities have been

169 Figure 6.3 Cross-section of Landscape of Dong Xuan Cooperative, Lap Thach District

Eucalyptus Mangletia initiated by individual farmers. Direct focus on the implications of the land constraint might suggest alternative strategies that would expand the land resources through intensified production and expanded processing of garden crops.

Factors Influencing Land Use of the Midlands

Each of the areas we visited in the Thanh Hoa, Doan Hung, and Lap

Thach districts of Vinh Phu Province presents distinctive problems in landscape analysis for rural development. The areas have different critical resource constraints (thus the key relations among component ecosystems), settlement structures (thus, social organization of decisions about common resources), and external flows (thus needs for their governance). Table 6.1 is a summary of the key land use characteristics of the three districts. The contrasts illustrated in the table suggest differences among the three districts in the strategy choices people there face. Figure 6.4 suggests some of the factors influencing land use. These are only models to indicate the possibilities for comparative analysis; they suggest the need for quantitative analysis of relationships that otherwise tend to be ignored.

A key issue in land use is agroforestry. Again, there is a great deal of diversity in the three districts. Agroforestry cannot be looked at separately from homegardens, paddy fields, forest plantations, or "barren" hills. However, it

171 Table 6.1 Key Characteristics of Land Use in the Three Districts

Characteristic Thanh Hoa Doan Hung Lap Thach

Population density high lower highest Non-agricultural opportunities moderate low highest

Key resource constraints 1. nutrients labor land 2 . labor pests water 3 . pests pests

Key outflows 1. tea cassava tea 2. 1ivestock livestock handicrafts 3. cassava wood fruit 4 . livestock

Key inflows 1. consumer agricultural goods inputs 2 . consumer goods

Average household welfare moderate low moderate Average surplus generation moderate low moderate Equity among households moderate high low Figure 6.4 Factors Influencing Land Use in the Midlands

173 deserves special mention because of the critical state of forests in northern

Vietnam. Deforestation has occurred at a phenomenal rate since Liberation.

There is severe erosion, and prevention of further damage is a vital part of

Vietnam's current agricultural development policy.

In response to the change in policy and resources, the household has become the focal point in rural resource management. Agroforestry is part of an integrated rural resource system (i.e, of the use of the hill areas, paddy land, and grasslands) of farm households (see Figure 6.5 for an illustration of relationships among the subsystems of the land use system). Typical rural resource systems of the Vinh Phu farmers are illustrated in the interactions between hill and paddy lands. A diagram of the decision flows of farmers in deciding what to plant can be found in Figure 6.6. Earlier discussions and figures illustrate that the hillslopes contain various types of land management systems (e.g., palm-dominated land on the top, with cassava or tea on the side).

Virtually all fields of cassava or tea are planted on the bench terrace level, more or less on contour. Improvement of these terraces could stabilize the system further; one method could be introduction of simple A-frames for leveling. In addition, cassava and tea are seen in discrete patches across the landscape of the hill land. The significance of these patches remains to be understood.

Some levels are dominated by tea plantations, while others have no crop at all. The latter becomes an open access area for grazing. Ferns are frequently

174 Figure 6.5 Interactions Between Subsystems of Land Use System

175 Figure 6.6 Farmers' Decision Flows

176 removed from this area for household fuel and fencing materials. Such

"commons" are probably highly significant in animal husbandry systems (see

Chapter 5).

Thus, on hill lands, we find barren hills, tea plantations, cassava fields, and various forms of agroforestry. Agroforestry systems can include various

combinations of palm, Melia/Aleuritisy tea, and Eucalyptus stands. A summary of agroforestry systems in the three districts of Vinh Phu Province can be found in Table 6.2.

Key Questions

1. What type of cropping strategies should be developed to alleviate labor constraints?

Shortage of labor during the peak periods is currently overcome by the exchange labor system within the village in the short term, and by increasing family size over the long term. There is a danger that the existing labor exchange system might not be maintained in the near future, because of increasing cropping intensity of limited holding areas and reduction in family size. In addition, similar cropping patterns (i.e., tea plantation, double-cropping of rice, and predominant cassava on the hill lands) are widely adopted. There is a need to establish other cropping alternatives so that the labor supply can be spread out across the village and/or cooperative (e.g., coffee) or across time.

177 Table 6.2 Summary of Agroforestry Systems, Vinh Phu Province

Thanh Hoa Doan Hung Lap Thach Dominant Vegetation

Agricultural Rice Rice Tea Plants Cassava Cassava Rice Tea Tea Bananas

Forest Trees Eucalyptus Mangletia Eucalyptus Pinus glauca Mangletia Mangletia Styrax glauca glauca tonkiensis Bamboo Styrax Eucalyptus tonkiensis Bamboo

Agroforestry Tea + Acacia Saccharum + Tea + Coffee Types + Tephrosia Tea + Bamboo Tea + Aleurites Tea + Melia + Melia + Canarium Tea + Palm Natural Forest Tea + + Tea Aleurites Potential activities, such as bee-keeping, could be promoted to diversify different

sources of income.

2. How can the hill lands be best managed to obtain water supply on a sustainable basis?

Few farmers have attempted to naturally reforest the hill areas of the

Midlands. One farmer who did claimed that this maintained his watershed.

However, the scale of watershed to sustain water supply and/or control erosion appears to be larger than the claimed model. Alternative models for this goal,

such as reforestation, tea plantation, and the like, are open to the same criticism.

A range of different types of hill areas should he monitored to arrive at a better

understanding of hill/watershed/erosion control interactions, hence ensuring the

water supply on a sustainable basis.

3. How much water do different agroecosystems consume, store, and release relative to others?

Human actions determine how water will be used (i.e., consumed or conserved) in different circumstances. Of particular significance are the choices

of cropping system for the various components of the landscape. This question

goes beyond the conventional differences between forest, field, homegarden, and paddy. Forests of palm and Eucalyptus have drastically different implications

for the water regime. In choosing which type of forest to maintain, we want to understand these differences. Similarly, homegardens predominantly of tea,

179 cassava, and Melia will have drastically different implications from those predominantly of fruits, vegetables, bamboos, and livestock feed. Our ability to improve the landscape depends on our understanding of the different hydrologic effects of alternative crop choices within the landscape components.

4. What is the role of palms in tea production?

There is a strong tendency to remove palms for tea production. Yet, when not removed, there seems to be a positive relationship between the palm and tea crops (e.g., palms appear to provide shading and water conservation in tea plantations). Palm leaves could effectively catch significant amounts of mist and light rain in the dry season, and this might provide significant effects on tea growth under the palm tree. If this is so, the management of palm and tree combinations could lead to increased tea production.

5. How can the environmental quality of Eucalyptus stands be improved?

Monoculture of Eucalyptus represents one of the most widespread reforestation projects on the degraded hills of Lap Thach District. Uniform stands of Eucalyptus have become the predominant landscape of many hills, and these have potential industrial value for pulp mills. Two problems relating to environmental quality can be readily identified. First, the clear-cutting of

Eucalyptus stands could have an environmental impact on adjacent agricultural

180 lands. Second, lack of ground cover due to firewood collection and grazing pressure promotes heavy soil loss and erosion. Many check dams could easily silt up.

To improve the conditions of Eucalyptus stands, specific key questions can be phrased as follows:

5.1 Can Dipterocorpus alia [us be interplanted in Eucalyptus stands to ensure continuing ground cover? What are the management practices of the two species, stages of interplanting, spacing, and proportion of species best suited to this purpose?

With respect to grazing pressure, the immediate solutions are associated with the following questions:

5.2 What are the suitable grass species to be grown in association with Eucalyptus?

5.3 Should Brachiaria ruziziensis or Panicum maximun be introduced as alternative forage species in the area? If so, then:

5.4 Which areas are the most suitable for this development?

6. What are alternative strategies for agroforestry in Lap Thach?

Lap Thach is probably far behind other areas of Vinh Phu in terms of agroforestry development. Most hill areas are predominantly pure culture or degraded pasture under natural forest trees or Eucalyptus. Cassava and tea

181 plantations also appear in the hill areas, despite the encroachment of Eucalyptus plantations.

Coffee in the homegarden offers an alternative for the agroforestry system in the area. However, the expansion of coffee to the tea garden depends on the following specific key question:

6.1 What is the best method of establishing coffee as an agroforestry species?

In connection with the existing Eucalyptus plantations, bee culture also offers another alternative for the area. Some specific key questions need to be considered:

6.2 When is the best time to establish honey bee culture in the Eucalyptus stand?

6.3 Which area is the most appropriate for such establishment?

7. What factors affect the adoption or nonadoption of various agroforestry types?

We observed that assorted agroforestry systems are scattered over the

landscape of Vinh Phu Province with varying degrees of adoption. It would be

useful to understand the process of adoption. This question is expected to lead

to more detailed study and improved extension strategies in Vinh Phu Province.

8. Which reforestation strategies are most cost- effective?

182 Successful reforestation is being achieved in some areas with cooperatively managed tree plantations, in others with natural regeneration of secondary forest on household managed plots, and in others with agroforestry plots planted and managed by individual households. Each of these strategies involves different costs and provides different benefits. Comparative analysis of costs and benefits might provide useful guidelines for extension of successful strategies to other areas in the Midlands.

9. How large are each of the components of the agroecosystem, and how intensively are their particular qualities managed?

Human actions determine the extent and intensity of a particular agroecosystem relative to others in the landscape. We cannot simply say that the landscape has forest and homegarden components and that these components have specific qualitative characteristics. The hydrologic effects of Eucalyptus or cassava or bamboo depend on their extent, density, and rate of growth. Note that modifications of the water regime depend on the amount of labor available.

Thus, the strength of the water constraint is directly related to the strength of the labor constraint.

10. How is the stock of nutrients distributed among these various components, their subcategories, and their locations? How does this distribution affect the productivity of the landscape as a

183 whole? By what means might the distribution be modified to increase productivity?

The distribution of nutrients in the landscape determines the sustainable productivity of landscape resources and uses. Available nutrients can be concentrated in crops for sustenance or commerce, affecting the proportion that will be exported from or remain within the system. External subsidies of fertilizer shift the entire allocation of nutrients by increasing the total amount available for different uses. Furthermore, the balance between the use and replacement of nutrients, in specific sites and in the landscape as a whole, determines the future pattern of nutrient distribution among different sites and uses.

11. How does the balance of nutrient inflows and outflows affect sustainable trends in productivity? How do changes in resource management, in labor allocation, and in public policy affect the balance of nutrients in the system? Which changes seem likely to improve the welfare levels of people supported by the landscape?

A landscape possesses an inherent stock and distribution of nutrients among its soils, vegetation, animals, and people. Nutrients leave the system through the export of sediments and water, crops, livestock, and labor energy.

They enter the system in similar forms. The balance depends on factors similar to those affecting the water regime, on the expenditure of human effort inside

184 and outside of the system, and on the taxes, subsidies, and market values that govern certain aspects of inflows and outflows. In attempting to better utilize nutrients, one must ask the specific key question:

11.1 What will specific innovations (e.g., green manuring, animal nutrition and control, sanitation facilities, fertilizer subsidies, sediment traps) do to the overall nutrient budget in the landscape?

12. How do changes in the labor supply affect the extent and intensities of various land uses in the system and of the productivity of the system as a whole? How can labor supply conditions be modified to improve their impact on sustainable productivity and human well-being?

The distribution of human effort among resources and uses in a landscape determines their relative sustainable productivity. The magnitude of human effort depends on population density, nutrition, health, and competing claims on time. The distribution of land among people determines the effort they have reason and ability to provide.

The landscape possesses a population of people and a distribution of opportunities for their employment and support. The productivity of the landscape depends on the quantity and quality of effort that people are able to

185 place among the diverse activities within it, as well as on the substitutes for labor that earnings outside the system allow to be bought.

The agroecosystems and controls of water regime within the landscape manifest the applications of available human effort. There are strong incentives for household growth, inward migration, or shift to more extensive modes of resource management where labor is a serious constraint. Where labor is not constraining, we would expect its use in activities normally served by capital inputs (e.g., water control, fertilization from the forest, agricultural power).

13. To what extent do changes in capital and availability substitute for or enhance the effects of labor supply? For example, what is the relationship between the amount of time spent in gathering nutrients (dung, leaves) for crops, household size/land, and the farm price of chemical fertilizer? What is the relationship between the amount of time spent in water management and the availability of physical water control structures?

Agroecosystem management strategies that are ecologically beneficial

(e.g., use of compost green manure, azolla) often require heavy labor inputs.

Households that suffer from labor shortages may abandon such practices if alternatives (e.g., use of chemical fertilizer) are sufficently cheap.

186 CHAPTER 7

AGROECOSYSTEMS OF THE MIDLANDS

Four major conclusions can be drawn based on this preliminary effort to describe agroecosystems in the Midlands: (1) These systems display a considerable range of performance in terms of their key properties. (2) They are very complex and very diverse. (3) They display significant disconformities between ecological systems and the social institutions that are intended to regulate resource management. Finally, this exercise has demonstrated that (4)

interdisciplinary human ecology research employing techniques of rapid rural appraisal can successfully generate useful information in the context of the

Vietnamese Midlands.

1. Systems Properties

Tentative findings about key relationships and variables determining the

systems properties of Midlands agroecosystems are summarized in Table 7.1.

Table 7.2 presents separate ratings in terms of the properties of productivity,

stability, sustainability, autonomy, solidarity, and equitability for the major

subagroecosystems or components (wet rice fields, homegardens, tea plantations,

cassava fields, palm groves, pulpwood tree plantations, and livestock). These

187 Table 7.1 Some Key Relationships and Variables Determining the System Properties of Agroecosystems in the Midlands

PRODUCTIVITY Water resource conditions and development Crop intensification Unproductive grasslands Infertile, acidic soil

STABILITY Drought, flood, and erratic rainfall Diversification of production Pest problems

SUSTAINABILITY Forest depletion Soil erosion and fertility decline Soil/water/nutriems conservation Terracing Grass strips Alley cropping Agroforestry Acidity (pH 4.4-5.8) Communal cooperatives Decentralization of management to farm households

EQUrTABILITY Land tenure Subsistence production (rice, cassava, homegardens, pig husbandry) Agricultural diversification Institutional linkage and communal efforts

AUTONOMY Market access Source of staples, other necessities (market dependence) Involvement with markets (including sales to state or cooperative factories) Water control Subsistence production National policy, especially regarding land use, cooperative organization

SOLIDARITY Degree of cooperation in subsistence activities (e.g. labor exchange, production brigades) Form by which solidarity is achieved (e.g., cooperative meetings, communal festivals) Level of decision-making (individual, household, cooperative, district, province, nation) Policy regarding social organization of labor

188 Table 7-2. Assessment of Agroocosyitem Properties in the Midlands

PRODUCTIVITY STABILITY SUSTAINABILITY AUTONOMY SOLIDARITY EQU IT ABILITY WET RICE unil art*: high medium high medium high medium FIELD unil labor: low animal traction, flood, drought, soil fertility maintenance, dependence on cooperative managemenl differential size of plots labor supply, pest outbreaks aluminum to*icily, inputs of chemical of irrigation water, assigned to households chemical A organic evolution of insect fertilizer, pesticides, planting dates controlled fertilizer! resistance to pesticides HYVseed by cooperative HOME OARDF.N unit area: medium high high high low medium unil labor: high insufficient supply polycultural system nmiient recycling, low pr<«lucls primarily fur household management only some households of manure ft with high genetic rale nf anil erneiiwi household consumption; have suitable site fur fertilizer, varietal diversity tittle requirement for fish pundt •election external inputs TEA unil area: medium high medium UfW low low PLANTATION unil labor: low picking is tabor high pest resistance low coil erosion, need ct*h crop dependent household management high capital cost to intensive on daily lo replenish nutrients on external market establish lea plants ha sis eiported in harvest demand CO CASSAVA unit area: low high low high low high FIELD unit labor: high gives good yield few pest problems, high tele of soil subsistence crop, household management; soil can he grown on vacant on infertile, yield insensitive erosion no eilemal inputs enauai may damage wet rice land wilh no special eroded hill soils lo weather fluctuations fields of other households tools or infrastructure PALM ORDVES unil area: low high high low low low unit labor: high negligible lehnr perennial Irer* l>iw rate nf anil ermtim cash crisp with houaehrild management imly Mime hnu«ern»W» except lo harvest •nd nulrient depletion limiled market have suitable A transport leave* land for pal ma PULPWOOO TREE unil area: low high medium low low low PLANTATION unit labor: high main labor cost ii trees art drought long-term nulrient cash crop sold *! household management, only some households planting and pest resistance depletion in log ei ports fixed price lo alleopalhic chemicals may have sufficient land nnce established monopoly buyer damage neighboring crops and labor to plant tree LIVESTOCK unit area: low low medium medium Vow low unit labor: medium collecting fodder and high vulnerability in overgrazing reduces need for vaccinal inn livestock cause damage only weallhiet households caring for animal* is disease and fond fodder supply, promotes and veterinary to neighbor's crops; can afford to purchase labor intensive in a shortages Soil erosion services competition for public buffalo; high risk investment land-limiled situation resources ratings are intended for use only as the basis for generating questions for more systematic investigation. It would be premature to use them to formulate development policies.

Examination of Table 7.2 reveals that no subagroecosystem achieves high levels of performance with regard to all properties. Attempts to maximize performance in terms of one property are invariably accompanied by a lower level of performance in terms of others. Improving the ecological management of the Midlands will, of necessity, involve making critical trade-offs between different properties. Thus, cultivation of cassava fields on hillslopes is relatively productive in terms of land and labor, very stable, but not very sustainable. It also has negative impacts on downslope subsystems, especially the wet rice fields. The cassava subsystem displays high autonomy and equitability, however, which makes it of great value to poorer households that lack access to capital and other inputs needed to successfully manage some of the other more productive and sustainable subsystems such as wet rice fields and livestock.

Suppression of cassava growing in order to improve the sustainability of the overall agroecosystem may threaten the livelihood of resource poor households.

Palm groves, which perform well in terms of the properties of sustainability, labor productivity, and autonomy, are less successful when evaluated in terms of productivity per unit land, autonomy, and equitability.

One is led to ask, "Is it possible to intercrop other species with the palms to

190 enhance productivity of the land and to diversify the sources of income provided by this subsystem without lowering its high sustainability and stability?" Some

farmers now attempt to achieve this by planting cassava beneath the palms, but this appears likely to increase soil erosion and also to shorten the lifespan of the palms, thus reducing sustainability.

Significant interrelationships are evident between the values of the properties achieved for any one subagroecosystem and those obtained by all of the other subsystems. Thus, the very high productivity and sustainability of the wet rice fields are achieved in part at the expense of lowered productivity and sustainability of all of the hillslope subsystems. One cannot realistically hope

to obtain high productivity and sustainability in both wet rice fields and uplands as long as the paddies are so heavily dependent on inputs of nutrients and green

manure from the uplands.

2. Systems Complexity and Diversity

The agroecosystems of the Midlands are extremely complex and

diverse. They involve multiple components (high diversity) interacting with one another in many different ways across space and over time (high complexity).

A typical farm household is involved in managing not just a rice field but also

a homegarden system including trees, perennial shrubs, and annuals, as well as

a fishpond and a variety of livestock, an upland cassava field, a tea plantation,

191 and possibly a grove of bamboo or palms, and a tract of hilltop forest as well.

The same household is also likely to be involved in side-line craft production as well as participating in the work of a production brigade. These different agroecosystem components are often widely dispersed in space. They also all function according to different temporal cycles.

Similar complexity is confronted at every level in the social systems hierarchy, from the village cooperative to the province. There are, however, certain common patterns evident within each local area, due to similarities in the constraints and opportunities faced by the households there. For instance, Dong

Xuan Cooperative in the Thanh Hoa District is able to take advantage of a topography that allows excellent local-level water control. This allows the farmers there to irrigate their paddy fields in a fairly reliable fashion and probably contributes both to sufficient (or nearly sufficient) rice yields if no disasters occur (e.g., drought, pest infestation) and to good yields in other crops, such as tea. In contrast, the Dong Xuan Cooperative in Lap Thach

District is more densely populated and suffers from insufficient agricultural land to achieve food self-sufficiency. People in this cooperative rely heavily on cash income from handicraft production and fruit production out of their homegardens. Finally, Doan Hung District is remarkable for the relative extensiveness of its production system; this environment supports larger cattle

192 and buffalo herds and extensive planting of crops such as cassava and sugarcane, rather than labor intensive irrigated rice.

The great complexity of agroecosystems in the Midlands is matched by their high degree of diversity. Within any general type of subagro eco system

(e.g., homegardens), a very great range of variation is found from specific site to specific site. The species composition of the gardens, for example, is highly diverse. Farmers in Thanh Hoa plant a few individuals of many different species in their plots. Products of the gardens are primarily consumed in the household. In contrast, farmers in Lap Thach District plant many individuals of only a few species, primarily bananas, oranges, and coffee, intended for cash production. Even within a single village cooperative, no two homegardens appear exactly the same. Some incorporate a fishpond, others do not.

Livestock are integrated into the VAC system in very different ways from household to household. The diversity that characterizes the homegarden systems is also present in other types of subagroecosystems.

There is also considerable variation in resource endowments, patterns of land use, and strategies of resource management among different households, even those located within the same hamlet. Tables 7.3 and 7.4 present

information on resource endowments and patterns of landuse and livestock

rearing collected by the soil management team from seven households.

Considerable variation is evident in the kinds of land managed by different

193 Table 7.3. Land Use by Seven Households in Vinh Phu Province*

Thanh Hoa District Doan Hung Lap Thach District District, (Dong Xuan Cooperative) (Ca Duih (Dong Xuan Cooperative) Cooperative) Household A B C D E F G Type of Land Use 7 members/ 6 members/ 8 members/ 9 members/ 4 members/ 7 members/ 6 members/ (all areu in m2) 3 workers 2 workers 4 workers 3 workers 2 workers 2 workers 3 workers wet rice field 4320 3960 6120 2520 3600 1440 2880 borne garden 720 720 720 (080 1080 3960 fish pood —- 150 .... 120 ...... 240 cassava/upland crops 720 1440 360 .... 1080 1080 360 tea I0S0 1440 360 .... 720 — — bamboo, palm trees, 2160 9720 2520 3600 .... - — — eucalyptus vegetables — 720 —- -— — ....

total area/household 9000 18150 9360 6960 6480 3600 7400 area/capita 1286 3025 1170 773 1620 514 1240 area rice field/capita 617 660 765 280 900 206 480 * data collected by Soil Management Team

Table 7.4. Livestock Holdings of Seven Households in Vinh Phu Province*

Thanh Hoa District Doan Hung Lap Thach District District, (Dong Xuan Cooperative) (Ca Dino (Dong Xuan Cooperative) Cooperative) Household A B C D E F G 7 members/ 6 members/ 8 members/ 9 members/ 4 members/ 7 members/ 6 members/ Livestock 3 workers 2 workers 4 workers 3 workers 2 workers 2 workers 3 workers buffalo 1 1 3 1 1 I cow —- 2 2 ...... —- 2

P'g» 2 3 3 3 9 —- 2 poultry >20 >60 10 40 20 " dau collected by Soil Management Team

194 households and in the amount of each kind that they control. Size of holdings influences the nature of household resource use and management practices.

Household F in Lap Thach District, for example, has only a small amount of paddy land per member (200 m2). It is too poor to own a buffalo so lacks access to manure needed to obtain high yields from its land. Consequently, it does not produce sufficient rice to meet its basic subsistence requirements. The limited household labor supply is therefore concentrated on producing cordage from wild bamboo collected from the forest on Nui Tarn Dao. This cord is then sold to obtain cash to purchase food. Household G is located only 100 meters away in the same hamlet. It has a much better per capita endowment of rice land (480 m2), owns its own livestock (one buffalo and two cows), and focuses most of its labor supply on agricultural production. Rice yields are normally sufficient to meet consumption needs while livestock and fruit from the well- managed homegarden are sold to earn cash to purchase manufactured commodities.

Comparable diversity exists at higher levels in the systems hierarchy.

Thus, each of the three districts included in this survey displays very different characteristics, reflecting the diversity of topography, climate, soil, vegetation, transportation and communications, and social institutions in the Midlands.

The existence of such high levels of complexity and diversity has important implications for designing research on Midlands agroecosystems. It

195 also represents an important constraint on the choice of effective institutions for development and management of rural resources.

Designing agroecosystem research in an area with high complexity and diversity is a difficult problem. Scientific resources are limited so that it is impossible to study every single unique site in detail. But concentrating efforts on only one or a few sites is likely to produce information of very limited applicability elsewhere in the region. Experimental research is especially likely to be highly site specific with findings applicable only to the small number of sites that display similar characteristics to the research site. Technologies that work on an experimental plot in one village cooperative may not work anywhere else. Finding ways to identify larger scale commonalities that may unify the complexity and diversity of local agroecosystems should be a high priority for

future agroecosystems research in the Midlands.

A useful next step in research on the Midlands might be to attempt to describe the range of variation in agroecosystems found within the total region.

Such an analysis could be done using available secondary data (maps, aerial photographs and Landsat imagery, and demographic, agricultural, and economic

statistics), combined with brief reconnaissance visits to key localities. This analysis, similar to the Agroecosystems Analysis of Northeast Thailand (KKU-

Ford 1982), would seek to identify major patterns in the spatial distribution of agroecosystems in the Midlands. It would provide the basis for selection of sites

196 for future intensive research that would be representative of the major patterns of diversity within the region.

From the standpoint of resource development and management strategies, it should be sufficient to note the problems that local complexity and diversity present for centralized systems of planning and decision-making.

Finding more effective institutional mechanisms that match the environment in which they must function should be a major concern of policymakers. No single social organizational solution, whether it be communalization or privatization, is likely to be appropriate for management of all resources in all local conditions in the Midlands. It would be useful to attempt to document the many different institutional approaches to resource management that have already been tested in Vietnam at different times in the past and in different ecological circumstances in order to see what forms of organization have worked well under what kinds of circumstances.

3. Disconformities Between Ecosystems and Social Systems

It is often assumed that there is a natural good fit between rural social systems and ecosystems so that optimal management is achieved. This may be the case in the small, simple, traditional societies commonly studied by anthropologists, although even in such cases it is probably more problematic than is assumed. It is much less true in large-scale, complex modem societies.

197 In such systems, the responsibility of different social units for management of specific environmental components or ecosystems is often poorly delineated.

Lines of authority are often multiple and cross-cutting. For example, we tend to think of a farm as a single agroecological unit in which the farm household is solely responsible for all management decisions. In the Midlands, however, households have been assigned responsibility for management of parcels of different types of land scattered almost at random across the total landscape.

Their rice field may be in one valley while their upland cassava field is on a hillslope several kilometers away. As several farmers pointed out to us, this leads to serious management problems. Yield of the paddy fields is reduced by sediment and runoff from the hillslope fields, but there is no incentive for the farmers managing the hillslopes to control erosion because doing so will not protect their own rice yield but that of someone else (this problem is referred to by resource economists under the label of "externalities'').

Land use decision-making is also influenced by institutions at different hierarchical levels. A farmer's decision as to whether to plant tea or cassava on a particular plot may partly reflect his own knowledge of the suitability of the plot for the crop. It is also influenced by land use plans drawn up by the village cooperative and the district, by tax policies established by the province and the central government, and by prices set in part by the central planning organs and in part by the market, both internal and international. These various influences

198 may work at cross purposes producing less than optimal land use at the field or farm level. We learned enough in this study to recognize that this issue is both very important and very poorly understood. Learning more about the various influences on land use decision-making at different levels in the social system hierarchy should be a high priority for future research in the Midlands.

Conflicts between units at different levels in the social system hierarchy also affect management of rural resources. One example of such conflict is the difference between national and household interests with regard to controlling population growth. Households consistently cited labor constraints as a problem. Their response is to have more children in order to assure that they have sufficient numbers to get more land and labor to gather green manure

(rather than buy fertilizer), collect animal manure, herd draft animals, collect fuelwood, and work in the fields. This household survival strategy is clearly at odds with the national need to control population growth. Similarly, households are currently able to exploit uplands, particularly forest land, at fairly low direct costs to themselves. This frequently results in overexploitation of upland areas, with negative consequences for households later on as well as costs to the regional or national levels as they attempt to reforest or otherwise correct damage done. In all cases, the appropriate level of resource management must be carefully considered.

199 4. Human Ecology Research in the Midlands

This preliminary research exercise has demonstrated the value of employing the human ecology perspective to better understand the agroecosystems of the Midlands. The human ecology perspective, when employed by interdisciplinary teams, is especially effective in directing attention

to critical links and interactions between social and ecological factors that are all too often viewed as unrelated to each other. In the Midlands, the central role played by social factors in shaping the landscape is thrown into bold relief. This is a reflection of the power granted under the Vietnamese socialist system to corporate institutions, especially the village cooperatives, to influence resource

management practices at the farm level. This is a quite different situation from that encountered in most other Southeast Asian countries where resource decisions are largely in the hands of individual farm households. It has been very useful from the standpoint of SUAN researchers to observe the way in which the more corporate character of Vietnamese resource management illuminates the role of social factors in human ecology.

This study has also demonstrated that rapid appraisal techniques can be

effectively employed in the Vietnamese rural context. Despite very limited time

for introduction to the methods of RRA, and training and practice in employing them, the CRES students quickly mastered the basic techniques of semistructured interviewing. In the future, it would be useful if several CRES

200 staff had the opportunity to attend an intensive RRA training workshop at one of the SUAN institutions.

This seminar is to be seen as only the first step in what all of the participants hope will be a continuing series of joint research activities involving staff from SUAN, EAPI, and CRES. It has demonstrated that scientists of many different disciplines, national identities, and languages can work together using a human ecology perspective to achieve a better understanding of some of the resource management problems of the Midlands of Vietnam. A number of important key questions have been identified that can only be answered by carrying out additional investigations. It is our hope that we will be able to continue to work together in the future to seek solutions to the many serious ecological problems that affect the welfare of the rural people in all of our countries.

201

APPENDIX A

LIST OF SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS

Staff of the Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies (CRES) 19 Le Thanh Tong, Hanoi

Le Trong Cue Deputy Director, CRES

Le Van Lanh

Nguyen Thu Phuong

Nghiem Phuong Tuyen

Participants in the Post-Graduate Course in Ecological Approaches to Resources Development, Land Management and Impact Assessment in Developing Countries, Hanoi University, 1989

Vu Minh Hoa Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies, Hanoi University

Tran Ngoc Chau Environmental Center, General Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, Hanoi

Dang Van Than. Center of Geography and Natural Resources, National Center for Scientific Research, Viet Nam

Nguyen Khanh Van

Huynh Nhung

Pham Hong Chuong

Pham Thi Thoa

Ly Minh Son

203 Tran Van Phuong Epidemiology and Hygiene Department of Medical Institute, Hanoi

Nguyen Hoang Giap Science and Technology Department, Ha Son Binh Province

Vo Thi Thanh Science and Technology Department, Dong Thap Province

Vu Thi Nhung

Le Quang Minh Agricultural University, Hue City

Nguyen Quang Truong Hue University, Hue City

Nguyen Truong Thanh Plant Protection Institute, Hanoi

Nguyen Van Sy Hanoi Water Resources University

Kha Cong La Forest Protection Department, Song Be Province

Tran Thi Lanh Forest Inventory and Planning Institute, Ministry of Forestry, Hanoi

Tran Trung Dung Tay Nguyen University

To Thi Loi Hanoi College of Construction

Le Hien Thao

Vo Cong Hau Director, Con Dao Conservation Area

Le Ngoc Tuong Environmental Engineering Association, Hanoi

Nguyen Tuyen Quang Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology Institute

Tran Due Vien Agricultural University, Hanoi

204 Southeast Asian Universities Agroecosystem Network (SUAN) Participants

Terd Charoenwatana Faculty of Agriculture Khon Kaen University Khon Kaen, Thailand

Yvonne Everett Department of Forestry and Resource Management 145 Mulford Hall University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 USA

Keith Fahrney College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI 96822 USA

Kathleen Gillogly Department of Anthropology 1054 LSA, The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA

Harold J. McArthur Coordinator for International Programs College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI 96822 USA

June Prill-Brett Cordillera Studies Center University of the Philippines College Baguio Baguio City, Philippines

A. Terry Rambo Environment and Policy Institute East-West Center 1777 East-West Road Honolulu, HI 96848 USA

Charmaine Rambo 663 Kala'au Place Honolulu, HI 96821 USA

205 Kanok Rerkasem Multiple Cropping Research Centre Chiangmai University Chiangmai, Thailand

Jeff Romm Department of Forestry and Resource Management 145 Mulford Hall University of California Berkeley. CA 94720 USA

Percy E. Sajise University of the Philippines at Los Banos College, Laguna, Philippines

206 APPENDIX B

TEAM MEMBERSHIP

Soil Management Team Nguyen Truong Thanh Keith Fahrney Tran Trung Dung A. Terry Rambo Dang Van Tham Nguyen Thu Phuong Pham Thi Thoa

Agroforestry Team Kha Cong La June Prill-Brett Le Trong Cue Kanok Rerkasem Le Quang Minh Percy E. Sajise Tran Thi Lanh Vo Cong Hau Nguyen Van Sy

Homegardens Team Ha Van Vinh Vu Minh Hoa Huynh Nhung Yvonne Everett Le Hien Thao Kathleen Gillogly Tran Due Vien Charmaine Rambo Vo Thi Thanh

Water Resources Team Nguyen Khanh Van Le Ngoc Tuong Pham Hong Chuong Le Van Lanh To Thi Loi Harold J. McArthur

Landscape Ecology Team Nghiem Phuong Tuyen Vu Thi Nhung Ly Minh Son Nguyen Quang Truong Nguyen Van Chuong Jeff Romm Terd Charoenwatana

207 APPENDIX C

SCHEDULE FOR THE CRES-SUAN SEMINAR ON AGROECOSYSTEM ANALYSIS, HANOI AND VINH PHU PROVINCE, 7 - 18 AUGUST 1989

Saturday

5 SUAN scientists arrive at Noi Bai from Bangkok

Sunday

6 Sightseeing in Hanoi

Monday

7 Seminar on Agroecosystem Analysis

Introduction (Le Trong Cue)

SUAN organization and activities (Terd Charoenwatana)

Northern Thai Agroecosystem (Kanok Rerkasem)

Cordillera Agroecosystems (June Prill-Brett)

Upland Agroecosystems of the Philippines (Percy Sajise)

Tuesday

8 Continuation of seminar sessions

Research on Rural Resources (Percy Sajise)

Agroecosystem Analysis (Kanok Rerkasem) Relating Agroecosystem Research to Rural Development Policy

(Jeff Romm)

Plan for Field Research in Vinh Phu Province (Terry Rambo)

Collecting Data from Farmer208 s (Harold McArthur)

Conclusions (Le Trong Cue) Wednesday 9 Travel from Hanoi to Viet Tri. Lunch with Provincial Officials and briefing on province. Travel to Thanh Hoa District. Briefing on District.

Thursday 10 Orientation visit to Dong Xuan Village Cooperative. In afternoon teams develop plans for field research.

Friday 11 Interviewing farmers in Dong Xuan Village Cooperative. In evening, presentation of preliminary results.

Saturday 12 Travel to Doan Hung District. Briefing on District. In afternoon teams begin analysis of field data.

Sunday 13 Orientation visit to Tay Coc Village Cooperative. In afternoon interview farmers. In evening teams report on preliminary findings.

Monday

14 Travel to Lap Thach District. Briefing on District.

Tuesday 15 Interview farmers in Dong Xuan Village Cooperative. In afternoon travel to Nui Tarn Dao. Begin preparation of final reports. Wednesday

16 Presentation of team reports. Students depart for Hanoi.

Thursday 17 Presentation of synthesis of findings to Vinh Phu Provincial Science and Technology Committee. In afternoon travel to Hanoi. Friday 18 Final seminar on agroecosystem analysis. Presentation of reports of research teams.

Saturday 19 SUAN scientists depart from Noi Bai for Bangkok.

209

REFERENCES

Conway, Gordon R. 1984 What is an agroecosystem and why is it worthy of study? In An Introduction to Human Ecology Research on Agricultural Systems in Southeast Asia. Edited by A. Terry Rambo and Percy E. Sajise. College, Laguna, Philippines: University Publications Program, University of the Philippines, Los Banos. 1985a Agricultural ecology and farming systems research. Paper presented at the Farming Systems Research Workshop at Hawkesbury Agricultural College, 12-14 May 1985, under the auspices of the Australian Council for International Agricultural Research. 1985b Agroecosystem analysis. Agricultural Administration 20: 31-55. 1987 The properties of agroecosystems. Agricultural Systems 24: 95-117.

Conway, Gordon R., Zahur Alam, Tariq Husain, and M. Alim Mian 1985 Agroecosystem Analysis and Development for the Northern Areas of Pakistan. RSRP Report No. 1, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Gilgit, Northern Areas.

Cue, Le Trong 1988 Agroforestry practices in Vietnam. Working Paper No. 9. Environment and Policy Institute. East-West Center. Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Gourou, Pierre 1975 Man and Land in the Far East. London: Longman.

Hamilton, Lawrence S. 1985 Overcoming myths about soil and water impacts of tropical forest land use. In S. El-Swaify et al. (eds), Soil Erosion and Conservation, Soil Conservation Society of America.

KEPAS 1983 The Sustainability of Agricultural Intensification in Indonesia: A Report of Two Workshops of the Research Group on Agro-Ecosvstems. Jakarta. Indonesia. Kelompok Penelitian Agro-Ekosistem, Agency for Agricultural Research and Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Indonesia.

211 Khon Kaen University 1987 Proceedings of the 1985 International Conference on Rapid Rural Appraisal. Khon Kaen, Thailand: Rural Systems Research and Farming Systems Research Projects.

KKU-Ford Cropping Systems Project 1982 An Agroecosystem Analysis of Northeast Thailand. Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand.

King, Franklin H. 1911 Farmers of Forty Centuries: or. Permanent Agriculture in China. Korea and Japan. Madison, Wisconsin: Mrs. F. H. King.

Levin, R. 1974 Qualitative analysis of partially specified systems. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 231: 123-138.

Livingstone, Frank 1967 Abnormal Hemoglobins in Human Populations. Chicago: Aldine. 1971 Malaria and human polymorphisms. Annual Review of Genetics 5: 33-64. 1973 Data on the Abnormal Hemoglobins and Glucose 6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency in Human Populations 1967-1973. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Technical Reports No. 3.

Marten, Gerald G. 1988 Measurement problems in agroecosystem analysis: A critique of system properties. In Agroecosystem Research for Rural Development. Edited by Kanok Rerkasem and A. Terry Rambo. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Multiple Cropping Centre and SUAN.

Marten, Gerald G. and A. Terry Rambo 1988 Appendix 3. Guidelines for writing comparative case studies of Southeast Asian rural ecosystems. In Agroecosystem Research for Rural Development. Edited by Kanok Rerkasem and A. Terry Rambo. Multiple Cropping Centre and SUAN. Chiang Mai: Thailand.

May, Jacques 1954 Cultural aspects of tropical medicine. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 3(3): 424-430.

212 1960 The ecology of human disease. In Studies in Human Ecology. Edited by L. Krader and A. Palerm. Washington, D.C: Pan American Union.

Nguyen, Truong Thanh 1990 The paddy agroecosystem of the Red River Delta of Viet Nam. Unpublished paper from the SUAN-EAPI Workshop on Rural Systems Sustainability, 10 January to 6 April, East-West Center, Honolulu.

Rambo, A. Terry 1973 A Comparison of Peasant Social Systems of Northern and Southern Viet-Nam. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Center for Vietnamese Studies Monograph Series III. 1989 Rural resource management in Northeast Thailand: A framework for interdisciplinary systems research. Unpublished paper. Farming Systems Research Project, Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand.

Rambo, A. Terry and Percy E. Sajise, eds. 1984 An Introduction to Human Ecology Research on Agricultural Systems in Southeast Asia. College, Laguna, Philippines: University Publications Program, University of the Philippines, Los Banos.

Rerkasem, Kanok 1989 Agroecosystem and rural resource analysis. In Proceedings of the SUAN-EAPI Exploratory Workshop on Lao Agroecosystems. Khon Kaen, Thailand: The SUAN Secretariat, Farming Systems Research Project, Khon Kaen University.

Thomas, David E. 1988 Village Land Use in Northeast Thailand: Predicting the Effects of Development Policy on the Use of Wildlands. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley.

Tuan, Nguyen Van n.d. "Water resources and their use in three districts of the Midlands Province of Vinh Phu," an unpublished report, Hydrology Section, Hanoi University. (The original is in Vietnamese.)

213 PLATES

BPPlat" e ^2 . Paddy fields, house and home garden, and hillslope fields. (Thanh Hoa District)

217 Plate 3. Valley lands planted to wet rice next to "barren" hills. (Doan Hung District)

Plate 4. Rural landscape in the Midlands: The narrow valleys are devoted to wet rice; secondary forest covers the hills. (Doan Hung District)

218 Plate 5. Hills deforested by shifting cultivation. (Doan Hung District)

Plate 7. Severe soil erosion on a "bare" hill in the Midlands. (Tam Dao District)

Plate 8. Farmers construct sediment traps to protect paddy fields from run-off from the hillslopes. (Doan Hung District)

220

Plate 11. Irrigating rice with a traditional basket scoop. (Road from Hanoi to Vinh Phu)

Plate 12. Chemical pesticides are widely used in rice cultivation. (Doan Hung District) Plate 13. A villager gathering wild vegetation at Nui Tam Dao forest for use as green manure in her paddy field. (Tam Dao District)

Plate 17. A typical farm house in Vinh Phu with surrounding homegarden. (Thanh Hoa District)

Plate 18. A well-developed homegarden with fishpond. (Ha-Nam-Ninh Province)

225

Plate 19. Cattle convert straw to valuable manure. (Thanh Hoa District)

Plate 20. A compost pit in a homegarden. (Thanh Hoa District)

226 Plate 21. Collecting firewood from stumps along roadside. (Road from Hanoi to Viet-Tri, Vinh Phu)

227 Plate 23. Ferns collected from the hillslopes are used as cooking fuel. (Thanh Hoa District)

Plate 24. Teenage farm girls making cord from bamboo collected in the forest. (Lap Thach District)

228

Plate 27. Monocultural reforestation: Acacia. (Doan Hung District)

Plate 28. Monocultural plantation of Eucalyptus. Note the lack of understory vegetation. (Phong Chau District)

230 Plate 29. Eucalyptus plantation with well-developed understory vegetation. (Doan Hung District)

Plate 31. A successfully rehabilitated landscape in the Midlands. Tea plantation, artificial forest, and reservoir. (Doan Hung District)

Plate 32. Degradation of the remaining natural forest at Nui Tam Dao. (Tam Dao District)

232 RECENT OCCASIONAL PAPERS OF THE EAST-WEST ENVIRONMENT AND POLICY INSTITUTE

11. Conservation or Conversion of Mangroves in Fiji: An Ecological Economic Analysis, by Padma Narsey Lal. 1990, xii, 108 pp. ISBN 0-86638-132-5.

10. International Conference on the Sea of Japan: Transnational Ocean Resource Management Issues and Options for Cooperation, by Mark J. Valencia, editor/author. 1989, ix, 239 pp. ISBN 0-86638-116-3.

9. Soil Conservation Strategies for Upland Areas of Indonesia, by Brian Carson. 1989, x, 120 pp.

8. Water in Nepal: An Interdisciplinary Look at Resource Uncertainties, Evolving Problems, and Future Prospects, by Dipak Gyawali. 1989, xii, 126 pp.

7. Logging Versus Fisheries and Tourism in Palawan: An Environmental and Economic Analysis, by Gregor Hodgson and John A. Dixon. 1988, xii, 95 pp.

6. Forestry Research Capacity in the Asia-Pacific Region: An Evaluation Model and Preliminary Assessment, by David N. Bengston, Hans M. Gregersen, Allen L. Lundgren, and Lawrence S. Hamilton. 1988, x, 96 pp.

5. Risk Assessment of Hazardous Chemical Systems in Developing Countries, by Kirk R. Smith, Richard A. Carpenter, and M. Susanne Faulstich. 1988, x, 140 pp.

4. Maritime Jurisdiction in East Asian Seas, by J.R.V. Prescott. 1987, vi, 72 pp.

3. International Conference on the Yellow Sea: Transnational Ocean Resource Management Issues and Options for Cooperation, by Mark J. Valencia. 1987, vi, 165 pp.

2. Applying Ecology to Land Management in South-East Asia, by David Harper, Daniel Botkin, Richard Carpenter, and Brian Mar. 1987, x, 143 pp.

1. China-USA Governmental Cooperation in Science and Technology, by Toufiq A. Siddiqi, Jin Xiaoming, and Shi Minghao. 1987, viii, 61 pp.

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