Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development
_____________________________________________________________________

CARD Project Progress Report

036/04VIE

Assessing the effectiveness of Farmer Field
Schools for Implementation of Citrus IPM
in Viet Nam MS2: First Six-monthly Report

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1. Institute Information

Project Name
Assessing the effectiveness of Farmer
Field Schools for Implementation of
Citrus IPM in Viet Nam
Vietnamese Institution
Plant Protection Department
Vietnamese Project Team Leader


In Australia: Administrative contact
Name:
Gar Jones
Telephone:
+6124736 0631
Position:
Director, Research Services
Fax:
+6124736 0905
Organisation
University of Western
Sydney
Email: In Vietnam
Name:
Mr Ho Van Chien
Telephone:
+8473834476
Position:
Director
Fax:
+8473834477
Organisation
Southern Regional Plant
Protection Centre
Email:


training 98 trainers in Master Training classes. Newly trained trainers have now
commenced 24 FFS across 13 provinces in the Mekong Delta and the Central Coast
regions of Viet Nam. At 18 of these FFS, teaching demonstration trials have also been
established. FFS will run for 21 weeks and the training and activity schedule will be the
same across all. 2. Executive Summary
Viet Nam has a well-developed National IPM program that has resulted in more than
500,000 farmers being trained in IPM technologies for rice, vegetable, cotton, tea,
soybean, peanut, and sweet potato crops. Prior to this project no IPM training had
been conducted in citrus, despite it being an important fruit crop in Viet Nam. In the
first 6 months of this project efficient planning and sustained efforts by all project
personnel has resulted in 98 master trainers being trained by 10 key scientists, and
these trainers commencing 24 FFS in 12 provinces in the Mekong Delta and Central
Coast regions of Viet Nam. FFS will involve weekly farmer meetings and will be
conducted over 21 weeks. A schedule of training activities has been developed for the
FFS and these activities will be conducted simultaneously at all FFS. Teaching
demonstration trials have also been designed and implemented in 16 FFS when they
were visited by Australian and Vietnamese project personnel in June. All major
components of the project logframe have been achieved according to schedule
establishing an excellent foundation for achievement of project objectives by the
scheduled date of project completion.

3. Introduction & Background
Citrus fruit is one of the major fruit crops in Vietnam (MARD 2004) and citrus
production is an important source of income for many Vietnamese farmers. However,
productivity and production of citrus in Vietnam are low when compared to those in
developed countries. It has been stated by MARD that “in general, citrus cultivation
has not been significantly developed over the past few years, largely because of the


4. Progress to Date
4.1 Implementation Highlights
Implementation commenced with a planning meeting on 25
th
January at which project
milestones and deliverables were outlined. Personnel were assigned to different tasks
and dates for implementation were set. A key stakeholder beneficiary meeting was
then conducted on 22
nd
March. At this meeting the locations of FFS were decided and
the TOT program drafted. Two TOT courses were held from 18-29
th
April and 9-20
th

May. FFS commenced at the end of May or early June. From June 1
st
to 19
th
16 FFS
were visited by Australian and Vietnamese project personnel, baseline data collected
and teaching demonstration trials implemented.

4.2 Capacity Building
The institutional capacity of the PPD to facilitate farmer participatory training is high.
However, this project is addressing capability gaps in relation to specific knowledge

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about citrus IPM, using a participatory approach. The project is providing a platform

May and have resulted in a total of 98 personnel being
successfully trained. Training courses were conducted by key project scientists.
Competency assessment of trainers showed that all participants received a score of
75% or above (see Annex 1).

4.4 Publicity
On Saturday (16/7/2005), on TV of Vinh Long province (this TV station is placed in
centre of the Mekong River Delta in the south of Vietnam) had the "Farmer
Bridge" for "Question ans Answer" directly from 15:00 to 17:00 o'clock of
IPM on citrus. We participated 5 Scientists (including me). The content of
Questions of farmer are the objective of IPM and trend for future to extent
FFS. Many of questions that want to kown how to control "Greening disease"
and other insect-pests such as "leaf miner", "psylid", "wax scales" I
think this work annouce to citrus growers that we have had IPM on citrus
project from CARD and we are carrying out with good results. Most of all
methods to pest control are friendly to environment and citrus growers get
high benefits. 5
4.5 Project Management
The Vietnamese Project Team Leader has demonstrated exceptional Project
management skills and has coordinated the training of 98 trainers and the
commencement of 24 FFS across 12 provinces as according to the project logframe. A
schedule of training activities has been developed for the FFS and these activities will
be conducted simultaneously at all FFS.

FFS training program
Week Activity
1 Contact, organise class and select orchard

5. Report on Cross-Cutting Issues
5.1 Environment
The focus of FFS is to increase the farmers understanding of the ecosystem and the
impact of human influences on it. This approach has the potential to reduce the
detrimental impacts of human activities on the environment.
5.2 Gender and Social Issues
In the training of master trainers a total of 69 males and 29 females have been trained.
This proportion of males and females is reflective of the overall PPD trainer gender
balance. In the central coast region, the ratio of male to female farmers participating
in the FFS is similar to that of the trainers. However, in the Mekong Delta region the
proportion of females participating in FFS is lower. This may be related to traditional
roles of women in the delta being more oriented to animal husbandry.
6. Implementation Issues
6.1 Issues and Constraints
The major constraint of the project is transportation difficulties and cost of moving
farmers between FFS in different provinces. Allowing farmers to travel to FFS in
other regions would greatly facilitate direct exchange of information and experience
in growing citrus. We found that the farmers can communicate very well between
themselves and trust other farmers much more than scientists or other professionals.
Another constrain of the project was that in planning too much focus was placed on
ACIAR and CIRAD activities, which are not highly relevant to farmers needs. In the
second year of the project, feedback from farmers, trainers and other stakeholders will
be sought to re-focus on the farmer needs.

6.2 Options
Possible sources of additional funds to transport farmers between FFS in different
provinces will be investigated. Other options that could be investigated for the second
year of the project are to invest more funds into each of the FFS, and instead of
increasing the number of FFS by 100% (from 24 to 48), increase the number by 50%
(from 24 to 36). The number of trainers attending each FFS would then be increased