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 MS4: SECOND 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
Mr Ho Van Chien
Australian Organisation

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:

farmers in the Mekong Delta to neighbouring provinces and project review workshops in
3 locations with representatives from all 12 provinces involved. Feedback from project
participants has resulted in modifications to the training programs for 2006 which will
improve their relevance and effectiveness.

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 year 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 successfully conducting 24 FFS in 12 provinces in the Mekong Delta
and Central Coast regions of Viet Nam. FFS involved weekly farmer meetings and
were conducted over 21 weeks. Trainers developed a schedule of activities during the
master training program and these activities were conducted simultaneously at all
FFS. Teaching demonstration trials were also implemented in 16 FFS. A farmer
practice baseline study was conducted at 15 locations and all farmers participating in
FFS completed a 52-question pre- and post-intervention survey. Results from the 727
pre-intervention surveys and 694 post-intervention surveys have now been analysed.
All components of the project logframe for 2005 have been completed. Two major
additional outputs to the project logframe have also been achieved and these will
significantly enhance the relevance of the project to both trainers and citrus farmers.
Study tours that allowed farmers to visit FFS in nearby provinces were funded by the
Australian Organisation and three review workshops that allowed very important
feedback about the training program in 2005 from participants were sponsored by
Bayer Viet Nam and SK Corporation Korea. At the project review workshops it was
agreed that the training program for 2006 should be modified to improve the
effectiveness and relevance of the training. Modifications include TOT being held
earlier in the year with more practical sessions and FFS starting earlier and finishing

through reduced pesticide application as a result of improved knowledge of pests and
diseases and more effective control measures; increased food security through
enhanced production; and protection of the health of farming communities and
consumers of fruit through reduced pesticide use in fruit production.

The key methodologies adopted in this project are participatory based learning and
action based research. The objective of both techniques is to fully engage participants
and allow them to direct the learning and research to best meet their needs.

4. Progress to Date
Implementation Highlights
Successful implementation of the program for 2005 has resulted in 98 trainers being
effectively trained and these trainers conducting FFS at 24 locations in 8 provinces in
the Mekong Delta and 4 provinces in the Central Coast region of Viet Nam (Table 1).
Two additional FFS were held in Tien Giang province using local government
funding, and 2 more have been pledged for 2006 . This is a very significant

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endorsement of the relevance and usefulness of the training and it is expected that as
awareness of the FFS program in citrus increases, more locally FFS will be held.

Table 1. Location of FFS
Province Number of FFS
MEKONG DELTA
Tien Giang 3 + 2*
Dong Thap 2
Vinh Long 3
Can Tho 3
Tra Vinh 1
Hau Giang 2


In September the Australian Organisation agreed to financially support farmer study
tours in the Mekong Delta from sources other than the project budget, and a total of
$2494 was transferred to Viet Nam (Annex 2). Farmer study tours were conducted
from the 24-29
th
October with a total of 540 farmers from 18 FFS in 8 provinces in
the Mekong Delta visiting a FFS in another province. Farmers from seven provinces
visited Lai Vung district in Dong Thap province and farmers from Lai Vung visited
Cai Bei district in Tien Giang province.

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The second additional objective of conducting review workshops in Can Tho, My Tho
and Vinh was achieved in November, with sponsorship from Bayer. At these meetings
the results of demonstration trials were reported by trainers, TOT and FFS training
programs were evaluated, feedback provided and revisions to the TOT and FFS
curriculum were agreed on (Annex 3).

Capacity Building
The institutional capacity of the PPD to facilitate farmer participatory training is high
and this project is further enhancing that capacity by addressing capability gaps in
relation to specific knowledge about citrus IPM. During the first year of this project it
has become clear that most of the necessary skills and expertise are available within
Vietnamese Universities and research institutions, but limited funds within local
institutions for travel result in poor access to this expertise. This project has provided
some funds to allow travel for Vietnamese personnel, but this is not sufficient and it is
recommended that more funds be allocated for travel within Vietnam in future
projects. The Australian Institution provided additional travel funds for Dr Nguyen
Thi Thu Cuc from Can Tho University to visit the Central Coast region of Vietnam as

information to farmers through the media is by television as more than 90% of all
farmers have a television set in their own home. Every province in Vietnam has a
local television station and as 70% of the population live in rural areas, the level of
content relating to agricultural matters is high. Television reporters have been invited
to all major project events such as meetings and the opening and closing of FFS.
Numerous television reports about the project were broadcast in 2005, and details of
reports broadcast on National TV (VTV), Can Tho TV (CVTV) and Vinh Long TV
(VLTV) are provided in table 2. In July and September Tien Giang TV also hosted 60
minute sessions on the program “Farmers’ Bridge” where farmers called the TV
station with questions about the use of new technologies in citrus orchards and
scientists answered.

Table 2. Details of television programs reporting on project activities

Topic Program title Program
length
(mins)
Broadcast
date
TV
channel
“IPM” a new technology on
fruits commodity production
Specialist
topics of
Horticulture
30 Aug 31 VTV
Technologies for good taking
care of Citrus orchards at the
end of rainy season (use of

70 Nov 27 CVTV
Developing and using organic
fertilizer in sustainable
agriculture production
Farmers’
Bridge
70 Dec11 CVTV
Prevention and treatment water
flooding for Citrus orchards
Horticultural
Practices
15 Sept 15 CVTV

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IPM - Enhancing effect of
productivity and improve
quality of citrus fruits by PSO
using
Farmers’
Bridge
120 Jul. 9
VLTV
IPM on Citrus program in Vinh
Long of PPD and WSU
Agriculture-
Rural Report
11 Sept 20
VLTV
Greening disease attacked on
King orange and need to have

Project Management
The Vietnamese Project Team Leader has demonstrated exceptional project
management skills and great resourcefulness. In addition to coordinating the training
of 98 trainers and successful completion of 24 FFS across 12 provinces in 2005, Mr
Ho Van Chien has initiated a range of activities outside the original scope of the
project. These include provision of hand lenses to all FFS, arrangement of study tours
allowing farmers in the Mekong Delta to visit citrus farms in different provinces to
their own, and the organisation of three review workshops in November 2006.
Funding for all these activities has come from outside the project budget. The
Southern Fruit Research Institute has also contributed greatly to the training program
providing 3 lecturers for the TOT program in 2005. This was not envisioned in the
project document and as such their time is not included as part of the in kind
contribution. The expertise of SOFRI researchers has greatly strengthened the scope
of training provided to trainers. The Australian Organisation has demonstrated great
commitment to the project and has facilitated training activities in Vietnam by
forwarding funds to the Vietnamese Institution before they have been received from
the funding organisation. The Australian Organisation has also provided additional
funds outside the budget to allow study tours for FFS participants in the Mekong
Delta. However, provision of additional funds is not sustainable given the difficult
economic situation that all Australian Universities are currently faced with. Oleg
Nicetic has contributed additional time to this project in Viet Nam when he travelled
to conduct research on a related SK Corporation funded project. All travel costs were
paid from the SK project.

85. Report on Cross-Cutting Issues
Environment
The focus of FFS is to increase the farmers understanding of the ecosystem and the


Exchange of information between farmers except on a very local scale is also limited.
Farmer study tours were funded from outside the project budget to facilitate exchange
of information between farmers from different provinces. The study tours were
greatly appreciated by farmers, and trainers attending the review meetings reported
that farmers wanted more study tours. Additional sources of funding are being
investigated, but at this stage the likelihood of obtaining funding is not known.

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Options
At the review meetings the option of increasing the number of FFS by 50% (from 24
to 36) from 2005 to 2006 rather than an increase of 100% (from 24 to 48) as planned,
in order to increase the resources available for each FFS, was suggested. This was not
considered a viable option, because of the extremely high demand for FFS. Additional
sources of funding to supplement project activities will continue to be sought.

Feedback from the review workshops held in November consistently indicated the
need to modify the training programs. Participants requested more practical
components to the TOT and for the FFS to run for longer to allow all phenological
stages of citrus from flowering to harvest to be included in the program. Key scientists
involved in the delivery of TOT will be asked to restructure their teaching program to
include a lecture session on the morning and a practical session in the field in the
afternoon. The agreed strategy to extend the FFS program from flowering to harvest
was to retain 21 teaching sessions as in 2005, but for these sessions to be held less
frequently and concentrated around the important phenological stages of the citrus
trees and their pests and diseases.

7. Conclusion
High levels of enthusiasm for this project, efficient planning, open communication
between project personnel and sustained efforts have resulted in all components of the

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June project personnel including Oleg Nicetic, Ho Van Chien,
Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Cuc, Dr Tran Van Hai and Mr Cuong visited 16 FFS in the
Mekong Delta and the central coast regions of Viet Nam (Table 1). At each location
the farmer who hosted the FFS demonstration experiment on his land was
interviewed, and discussions were held with other farmers participating in the FFS
about their citrus growing practices with particular emphasis on pest and disease
control. A local agricultural chemical shop was also visited and the owner or manager
interviewed to determine the dominant pesticides that are sold to local citrus growers.

Information collected from these interviews complements detailed information
collected from each of the participating farmers in pre- and post intervention surveys.
The major aims of these interviews were to:
¾ obtain an overview of current citriculture practices throughout the study area
¾ document spray application practices and pesticide usage
¾ determine if IPM strategies based on mineral oil (major focus of ACIAR
project CS2/2000/043) and imidicloprid (major focus of CIRAD research
program) are feasible to implement given farmers current practices and their
economic circumstances
¾ determine the major gaps in the knowledge of farmers so that these topics can
be included in the FFS.

Findings

Dominant citrus species
In the Mekong Delta mandarin (King and Tieu varieties) are the most commonly
grown species, but the area planted with pomelo is expanding rapidly (Table 1). In the
Central Coast, pomelo is by far the most dominant species while in Nghe An oranges
are most commonly grown.


motorised sprayers and disease free seedlings. Scientific questions that should be
answered in the future are if there are different optimal planting densities that are
related to the size of the farm land.

To facilitate discussion about the optimal planting density, bus trips were organised
for FFS participants from all provinces that practice high density planting to Dong
Thap province to experience and exchange their experience with farmers that practice
lower density planting.

Dominant pests and diseases
Farmers have great difficulty identifying pests and diseases, and in many cases are
unable to separate damage caused by pests or diseases. In most cases the farmers
intervene when it is too late to provide effective control of the causal agent. A typical
example of late intervention is with leafminer. Farmers also apply pesticides
unnecessarily to visible pests that do not cause economic damage. A typical example
of this unnecessary application of pesticides is with aphids.

Overall in the Mekong Delta farmers nominated mealybugs on roots as the major
problem (Table 3). This mealybug was previously an unimportant pest as it was
naturally controlled when trees were flooded. Better flood management has allowed
mealybug populations to develop year round without natural control and it is now
considered a serious problem by farmers. The mealybug has not yet been identified
and as such no effective control measures are available. However, as there has been
no objective evaluation of damage caused by this pest it is not clear if it really is a
serious pest or if it is of concern to the farmers because it is a new phenomena.
Further investigation as to the importance of this pest is needed in the second year of
the project. Other major pests nominated by farmers include leafminer, psylla and
mites (Table 3). Although leafminer does not appear to cause economic damage, it is
of concern to the farmers because damage appearing on leaves after leafminer have
pupated and moths hatched is very visible. Sprays are often applied at this stage,

Phytophthora was observed in every region and province visited and although it
appears to be as serious a problem as Huanglongbing, most farmers were unaware of
the disease. Much greater awareness of the disease and effective methods to manage it
are necessary and achieving this will be a focus of the training in 2006. As another
CARD project 05204VIE “Management of phytophthora diseases in Vietnamese
horticulture” is currently underway, UWS staff visited the Australian project leader of
the phytophthora project Professor David Guest to discuss the problem of
phytophthora in citrus. Linkages were formed between the projects by connecting
participating Vietnamese personnel and Mr Duong Minh from Can Tho University
has now attended two of the three review workshops for this project held in
November 2005.

Pesticides were generally not overused in the regions and provinces visited. However,
timing of spraying and the type of pesticide used needs to be optimised. In Nghe An
province the number of sprays can be reduced, but in the Central Coast the number of
sprays needs to be increased for effective pest and disease control. Farmers
predominantly used cheap products that were older generation pesticides (Table 3).
Use of mineral oil was found to be negligible which is disappointing considering the
investment made by Caltex and through previous ACIAR and CARD projects. The
main reason for low uptake of the use of oil is phytotoxicity experienced by many
growers. Phytotoxicity was due to many factors including high temperature and
humidity, misuse of oil by farmers mainly through incompatible mixtures, too
frequent sprays promoted by researchers and susceptibility of certain varieties of
mandarin. Beside problems of phytotoxicity the efficacy of oil was not sufficient in

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many cases due to poor application methods. This baseline study revealed that except
for Dong Thap and Nghe An province, knapsack sprayers are used by the vast
majority of farmers (Table 3). Mineral oil is an important component of this project,
but it is only part of a program that will include a range of other pesticide

mix and a long hose fitted with a wand and an adjustable hollow cone nozzle.
Adoption of motorised sprayers is slow and will probably continue to be slow on
smaller properties because a knapsack is sufficient and can be operated by one person
unlike the motorised sprayer which requires two operators. The quality of knapsack
sprayers is very variable and unfortunately only a small number of growers use
quality metal knapsack sprayers that can achieve reasonable pressure. Very cheap
knapsacks made of low quality plastic are commonly used. Efforts should be made
within the project to educate the farmers about the benefits of good quality knapsack
sprayers
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