The path towards progress - appropriate technologies which are accepted by farmers

Le Viet Ly

National Institute of Animal Husbandry, Hanoi
Coordinator (Northern part)
S2/VIE/22,GCP/RAS/143/JPN

Introduction

Considerable progress has been made in Vietnamese agriculture since 1989. Chronic seasonal starvation which occurred every March and August has been stopped. Those days make us remember the proverb “In order for the economy to become strong, the agriculture must develop first”. If there is famine in the countryside, the city will suffer.

Before the economic renovation in 1989 our scientists used to do research and carry out their experiments in the big state farms, and medium scale cooperatives. Now they are working in touch with small household farmers. Promoting new technology transfer on farms does not necessarily mean that the techniques are new and modern. But first of all, they must be appropriate. In the era of the market economy, this must be taken into account to select the correct technology to transfer.

In our opinion, an appropriate technology must meet following principles:

• The technology must meet the farmer's needs (market demand). This means that the productivity of crops and animals should increase through applying the technology, and this will raise the income of the farmers.
• The technology must be suitable to small household's ability, should not require large investment, be appropriate to most farmer's pockets and should increase incomes for producers.
• In applying the technology to production one thing that should be considered is its effect on the environment.

The agro-ecological zones
First of all, we have to turn our attention to the economic-ecological consideration. Vietnam is divided into 7 eco-economic zones:

Northern Mountainous and Midland Region
The main features of this region are large land areas, green hills or barren stone mountains, isolated hamlets, under-developed markets, poor living standards, and low level of education. Buffalo production is rather well developed, and pig raising is also popular but the productivity is low (using indigenous pig breeds). Transportation, communication and irrigation systems are the biggest constraints to development of this region.

Red River Delta
The typical character of this region can be summarized as follows: land scarcity and high populationdensity". The Red River Delta is the second largest rice bowl of the country.

The people's education level is good, technical skill is high, and the market is developed. There is high demand for animal products in the big cities. Cattle production has increased, local pig breeds have fallen sharply, while exotic pig herds are increasing rapidly. At present unemployment is high.

Northern Central Coastal Region
This is a narrow strip, dominated by mountains in the West. There is a tendency to promote industrial crops such as peanuts, coffee and rubber. The market is under-developed, cattle production is limited, but buffalo production is well developed. Pig production is based on predominately local breeds, while crossbred animals make up a only small proportion. This is a food deficit area and the population is poor.

Southern Central Coastal Region
There is a concentration of the population in the cities. Beef production is very well developed. The pig breeds are is dominated by crossbreds. Goat and sheep raising is common in the dry areas. Aquaculture and fishery are well developed. This region is characterized by a prolonged dry season, so there are a lot of constraints to the provision of feed for animals.

Central Highland Region
The main features of this region are as follows: shortages of both food and labour. This region is famous for industrial crops such as coffee and rubber. The dry season is prolonged, and lack of water is the main constraint of the region. Reforestation is vitally important, but difficult.

Cattle production is well developed. Pig breeds consist of local and crossbred types. In the dry season there is a big shortage animal feed.

North-Eastern Mekong Region
This is a peri-urban area and there are advantages in the ready access to markets. Development of industrial crops is promising: coffee, sugar cane and cashew. There are big resources of by-products (brewery residue, oil cake). Most of the pigs, chickens, and ducks are of improved breeds. Dairy cattle is developed. The people's education level is good.

Mekong Delta Region
This is the biggest “basket of rice” of the country. Rice straw is an important by-product. Fishing and shrimp production are also developed. The majority of pig production is based on crossbreeds Post harvest losses and environmental pollution are big problems.

It is clear that there are wide variations in both natural and economic characteristics and people's education level within these regions, especially the demands of the market. Therefore, the products, irrespective of the technology, must be carefully selected. The benefits of new technology, should not only should satisfy a need and pressing demand, but should also have long-term positive effects (sustainability, environmental protection).

Sustainable use of local resources
The projects supported by SAREC/SIDA and recently by FAO (GCP/RAS/143/JPN) have the following objectives:

• Promote crops which take advantage of the tropical climate by producing either energy or protein or both. Shortage of protein for people as well for livestock is a big problem in Vietnam.
• Combine availability of feed resources in a locality with maximum income. The chosen feeding system does not necessarily aim at achieving maximum daily weight gain, but more importance is given to local availability and price. Parallel with exploiting feed resources available in the location, much work focuses on the use of the products and by-products derived from sugar cane (sugar cane juice and molasses as feed for pigs and other animals as well as sugar cane tops as feed for buffaloes, cattle, goats and rabbits).
• Emphasis is put on achieving a full cycle system: crops (sugar cane) → animal production → processing food for people and energy → and manure to return to plants. A successful element in this recycling process, which is well accepted by farmers, is the low cost simple plastic biodigester.

The portfolio of technologies
Feeding pigs with sugar cane juice
This technique came firstly from a series of experiments that aimed at maximizing the utilization of the energy of sugar cane - the highest biomass producer in the tropical region. In addition, the harvesting time of sugar cane occurs in the dry season, at a time of serious animal feed shortages. Why did not people develop the integration between sugar cane and cattle production in the past? Recently, many efforts, however, have been put to the utilization of sugar cane not only as a feed resource for ruminants but also for pigs and poultry.

It could be said that the utilization of sugar cane juice as a feed for pigs is a new idea that did not occur to many people. The reason is that the price of sugar cane is always higher than that of conventional foodstuffs. The utilization of molasses as pig feed had been observed in some locations. Molasses is mixed with other feeds in order to replace a proportion of energy in pig diets.

Trials began in Hanoi and Hochiminh city with the goal of fully replacing conventional carbohydrate by sugar cane juice. Sugar cane juice based diets for pigs were supplemented with feeds rich in protein feed such as soybeans and ensiled cassava leaves, vegetables and legumes. It was found that the technology is technically correct. However, in some areas the economics can still be a problem, because of high price of sugar cane in the cities where sugar cane juice is used as a soft drink for human consumption.

It was decided then to look at other areas where the replacement of conventional carbohydrates in the pig diet is a real requirement. Northern mountainous areas (Tuyen Quang, Bac thai, Cao Bang provinces) are where this technology can be applied. In these areas, average food per capita is low, sugar cane is conventionally planted, transportation is not convenient and there are no sugar cane factories. Artisan sugar cane processing, which is hard work and requires fuel, brings little lasting benefit. Soya beans and other kinds of bean - as protein feed resources -- are also planted in this area.

In the beginning, farmers try to replace all the carbohydrate concentrate in the diet by sugar cane juice and it was successful. In the next step a small amount of maize that is available in mountainous area is added to the ration, in this case a part of protein (from soybean) is replaced by maize.

The sugar cane stalks used for juice extraction are chosen on quality. This allows the farmers to keep the best stalks to sell when the price is acceptable. In Bac Thai, the residue from making rice wine is used in combination with sugar cane juice as pig feed. It has been shown that feeding pigs with sugar cane juice is a flexible technology. It creates a chance for farmers to make a better use of available local feed resources. This feeding system is valuable, because farmers can control the way to make the best use of sugar cane. In 1995, the low price of sugar cane led to widespread use of this technology. V Last year the drought caused a loss of sugar cane. The farmers in La hien, Bac Thai said to each other: “money lost in sugar cane harvesting can be regained by using sugar cane juice for pig feeding”.

Introduction of Trichantera gigantea into small households
Trichantera gigantea develops well in different zones in Vietnam. The leaves are rich in protein (12– 14% in the dry matter). The palatability is good especially for pigs. It can growth well under the shade. Until now Trichantera gigantea extends over a large area in the mountainous provinces. Farmers accepted it with great enthusiasm.

It should be mentioned here that some initial successes have been obtained in the utilization of duck weed, azolla and other water plants as animal feed.

Use of plastic tube as low cost and simple biodigester
One of the first plastic tube biodigesters that was installed in one family household in Bavi showed that it is comfortable and had longer life (more than 3 years). Then this technique is widely apply in Hochiminh city, Southern provinces, Tuyen Quang, Can Tho, Hanoi, Ha Tay and Hue.

The application of this technique has had an enormous impact in the Ho chi Minh city area and the Southern provinces. More than 700 plastic biodigesters were installed in this region, compared to less than 100 in the North.

Some comments should be made about applying this technique in Vietnam:

• Biodigesters should be installed in locations where environmental pollution and fuel shortages are problems that need to be solved.
• Due to the fact that the technology uses animal manure for the fermentation we have to consider the size of the animal production unit. A herd size of 4–5 pigs, 1 cow or 1 buffalo can provide enough manure for biogas production to meet the requirements for fuel for cooking for one family. However, sometimes the farmers prefer using the manure in natural form (solid state) but not in liquid form to facilitate transportation, so the herd size should be larger in order to provide manure for both purposes.
• The development of biodigesters in the big cities is an urgent requirement for the pig rearer. In these cities pollution is a big problem and sometimes it is the main constraint to herd size. In the mountainous areas the technique should also be widely applied to avoid deforestation, but the amount of manure, and the supply of water should be carefully considered.
• Parallel to industrial pig production for lean meat purposes, the size of production units is increasing and the requirement for biodigester installation is increasing. This can be seen from the practices in the northern part of Vietnam.

Ensiling shrimp head with molasses
One again, the solution for finding new protein feed sources for pigs goes hand in hand with environmental protection. After paying more attention to energy feed sources in sustainable livestock systems, now more attention is being put on protein feed sources. The deficit of protein sources is a serious constraint to our livestock development.

Initially, shrimp head ensiling was conducted in some small households. The use of molasses for shrimp head silage is a good technology. To avoid pollution caused by this process, ensiling of shrimp heads should be carried out in the production area. This improvement is welcome and supported by farmers and the departments of science, technology and environment in the provinces.

It should be emphasized that the results obtained by the project have indicated that technology transfer will be successful if it is associated with socio-economic and ecological factors of each region.

“The bottom-up” strategy is justified and the successes of implementing the SAREC and FAO projects in Vietnam have indicated that our colleagues, with the assistance from international experts, have learned how to transfer the appropriate technologies to the farmers.