By Thuy Thu Doan – CISDOMA
The field visit organized for members of the ALiSEA-Vietnam to Mai Son and Moc Chau districts, Son La province, Vietnam was successfully organized by the The Consultative Institute for Socio-Economic Development of Rural and Mountainous areas (CISDOMA), the Vietnam Association of Rural Development Sciences (PHANO) and the Northern Mountainous Institute of Agriculture and Forestry Science and Technology (NOMAFSI). This activity was supported by the Agro-ecology Learning Alliance in Southeast Asia (ALiSEA), within the framework of the Agroecology and Safe Food System Transitions in Southeast Asia (ASSET) project – funded by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the European Union (EU).
The field visit took place for 2 days from October 17 to 18, 2024. Twenty participants from the Northern, Central and Southern provinces of Vietnam including experts from research institutions such as the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Northwest University, Vietnam National University of Agriculture, Southern Fruit Tree Research Institute and CIRAD; officers of NGOs including Consultative Institute for Socio-economic Development of Rural and mountainous Areas – CISDOMA, Mekong Organics, PGS Vietnam and farmers from SPERI). The visit also received participation of the distributors including food stores of safe and organic products
Objective of the visit:
- Facilitate share and learn about the agro-ecological transformation models implemented by partners of ASSET project.
- Promote knowledge exchange, sharing and networking among members of the AliSEA network in Vietnam.
- Increase the presence of the ALiSEA network in Vietnam.
The delegates were updated with knowledge about agroecology and the process of transforming the farming model on slope land from the sharing of NOMAFSI’s technical staff, officials of the Son La Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the head and farm owner of Thanh Dat cooperative, and farmers directly involved in the project:
- Visit the model of intercropping on sloping land in Moc Chau district: planting crops and trees along the terrace and increasing soil cover, diversifying crops to help reduce soil erosion, and at the same time provide enough food for humans, and feed for livestock.
- Visit the model of planting coffee trees integrated with livestock raising in Ban Nam, Chieng Chung, Mai Son, Son La: coffee trees are intercropped with grass and legumes under acacia shading. The grass is harvested and processed by fermenting to provide silage for animal feeds, composting for organic fertilizers to fertilize the crops. The delegates were also instructed to practice silage of animal feed.
- Visited Thanh Dat Fruit Tree Cooperative to learn about the technique of creating organic soil cover and selling products by making bio-cover layer right on the surface of plan bed after grass cutting to save the labours and organic fertilizer to feed the plan growth; Diversify products that fits with consumer tastes; Reusable and compostable plastic bags to wrap the fruit to avoid fruit borers and reduce plastic wastes.
- Visited the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry Research Center – NOMAFSI, Mai Son district with the trial of new coffee planting and breeding, the model’s coffee planting under the shade and passion fruit planting
The participants expressed their feelings about the difficulties of the officials when implementing the project and the determination of local people in the process of transitioning to an agro-ecological model. In addition, the delegates also spent a lot of time discussing measures to reduce the use of herbicides and increase the use of biological products in the process of ecological agriculture transformation.
Ms. Lo Thi Quyet (household) shared the happiness of her family and the people in the village, who have been able to get much better off thanks to the well-developed Catimo coffee tree planting area under the shading of wood trees and grass bands for animal feed. Up to now, the coffee planting areas have been covered and there is no abandoned land area as before. She added that thanks to the cow manure press (machine), that processed in to “pressed fertilizers” after composting with microbial production, has made it easier to transport organic fertilizer to the field; and therefore, coffee plants are fertilized with organic fertilizer to help plants grow well and increase the yield of coffee beans. The harvested grass is put into a shredder and silage machine to provide enough food for the cattle in winter.