INDICATIVE PRIORITIES FOR THE ACIAR PROGRAM:
SOUTH CENTRAL COASTAL VIETNAM

ACIAR's Vietnam strategy emphasises technical and agribusiness research to enhance smallholder incomes from selected areas of high-value agriculture, aquaculture and forestry. From 2008 onwards, there will be an increasing focus of ACIAR’s agricultural programs on two regions of Vietnam, where poverty has persisted and where Australian agricultural technical skills have a clear ability to assist in development. These are the South Central Coast and the North West Highlands. Although, the South Central Coastal region covers Binh Thuan, Ninh Thuan, Khanh Hoa, Phu Yen, Binh Dinh, Quang Ngai, Quang Nam provinces, funding constraints would make it unlikely that activities could be developed in all of these provinces.

Priorities for a collaborative agricultural research program between Australia and the South Central Coastal provinces of Vietnam were discussed on 3-5 March 2008 at a workshop in Quy Nhon, Binh Dinh province. The focus of the workshop was crop agriculture, livestock, soil and water management and related agribusiness and socio-economic factors. ACIAR will consult separately on priorities for R&D cooperation in fisheries and forestry.

The workshop included senior ACIAR staff and representatives of the:
• Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Department of Science and Technology and Department of Horticulture);
• National R&D Institutes - Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences (including institutes for Soils and Fertilisers, Vegetables and Fruits, Food Crops and Agricultural Sciences Institute of South Central Coast of Vietnam); Institute for Animal Husbandry, Institute Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development;
• Southern Vietnam R&D Institutes - Institutes of Agricultural Sciences of Southern Vietnam, Southern Fruit Research Institute, Southern Institute of Agricultural Engineering and Processing, Southern Institute of Water Resources Research;
• Provincial Departments of Agriculture and Rural Development;
• Universities;
• Non-Government Organisations, and
• the AusAID Implementation Support Program for P135-2 (Quang Ngai province).

ACIAR will use them as a framework to develop a multi-disciplinary collaborative research for development program, subject to further advice and information from Vietnam and alignment with the Australia-Vietnam (Whole-of-Government) development cooperation strategy that is currently under development. These priorities are expressed by participants at the consultation at a particular point in time and are not to be considered as officially-sanctioned priorities of the Government of Vietnam. Proponents of collaborative research projects should initially approach the relevant ACIAR Research Program Manager.

The initial integrating focus in South Central Coastal Vietnam will be on more profitable but sustainable field and tree crop cultivation and beef cattle production systems in challenging environments (poor sandy soils and under water limiting conditions), through technical cooperation in areas where Australian agencies have the necessary expertise.

Of the three subregions within the South Central Coast the initial focus will be on parts of the drier Central (Binh Dinh and Phu Yen) and Southern (Khan Hoa, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan) provinces, with an emphasis on coastal and sloping areas under 400m above sea level. Research will address the particular vulnerability of the central coast of Vietnam to the impacts of climate change impacts and desertification.

ACIAR and Vietnamese research agencies will involve a wider range of partners such as provincial government agencies, extension departments, farmer groups, the private sector and non-government organisations during the development and implementation of projects. In the early stages of implementation, the program will synthesise information from previous relevant projects and analyse lessons from related initiatives. There will be a focus on medium and small landholders who have the capacity to adopt technologies and engage in the market.

Agreed priorities include:

Soils and water

Although rainfall is usually concentrated in a 3-5 month period, the south central coastal area has a range of average rainfall levels and a variety of soil types, from sands to alluvial loams to clays. Some areas near rivers and reliable groundwater provide for irrigation of rice and vegetables. This leads to a range of production systems from paddy rice, to peri-urban vegetable and intensive monogastric livestock production to rain-fed field and tree cropping areas and crop/livestock/ grazing systems. ACIAR will focus where Australian technical expertise is strong in the latter two systems, with a focus on drier areas. Specific priorities include:

• Understanding of soil properties, available resources and inputs, and current land-use practices of the selected sub-regions

• Identification of appropriate crops/cropping systems best suited for sandy soils.

• Integrated management practices for efficient use of nutrients and water for cost-effective field and tree crop production on infertile sandy soils;

• Application of sustainable practices to protect groundwater from salinisation

• Utilization of above information to develop sustainable land-use practices on infertile sandy soils.

Livestock

The agreed focus is on beef cattle production systems that are integrated with crop production, crop by-products and forage use. Most potential exists for improving systems in hinterland areas rather than on coastal strip, because of greater land availability and grass resources. Farm sizes are small, so there is a lack of land for forage cultivation or grazing, making it hard to expand the system past 5 cattle. Feed shortages are common in both the late dry season and during the peak of the wet seasons, when floods are common. Interventions are required to transform smallholder cattle raising system from “extensive” to “semi-intensive or intensive”, through improvements in economic returns to land and labour resources including better integration of livestock into cropping systems. Specific priorities include:

• Understanding the role of current cattle production systems in household economy to assess likelihood of adoption of different technologies

• Economically viable utilization of available on-farm and off-farm feed resources for beef cattle
- In lowland through optimising use of drought-tolerant forages, by-products and concentrates for fattening and finishing cattle
- In upland areas, through improved utilisation of feed sources other than grasses

• Forage and feed conservation technologies (including silage of sugar cane and cassava by-products) and utilisation of supplements and concentrates to add value to rice straw

• Analysis of factors affecting the efficiency of fattening cattle so that feeding options can be developed for local and cross-bred cattle for different times of the year, to maintain growth and body condition both in the hot and flood seasons

• Assessment of the impact on crossbreeding in improvement of live weight and growth rates

• Management of potential foot and mouth disease threats and micronutrient and mineral deficiencies in cattle

Horticulture and Cash Crops

Crops of greatest importance in the region include: legumes (peanut, soybean, mungbean), cassava and sugarcane; Fruits (particularly mango and table grapes, but also pomegranate, dragonfruit, pineapple, banana and jackfruit), nuts (particularly cashew, but also macadamia and pistachio) and vegetables (onion and garlic, tomato, chilli). Rice is produced in wetter and reliably-irrigated areas, and there is increasing interest in bio-fuel crops such as jatropha. It was agreed that the main emphasis for collaboration will be on agronomy / farming systems for semi-arid environments rather than crop varietal improvement, with a particular emphasis on cashew, mango and peanut. Crop residues and by-products from peanut, cassava, sugarcane and some other crops also have an important role in livestock feed, while manure from livestock is critical to improve the structure, water holding capacity and fertility of sandy soils. Specific priorities include:

• Development of sustainable intercropping systems involving legumes (peanut, mungbean or soybean) with fruit trees (especially cashew and mango)

• Integrated crop management (nutrition, agronomy, integrated pest management), varietal selection and postharvest handling of peanut and other grain legumes

• Improving market returns from table grape, mango and cashew production, including integrated pest management, postharvest handling, marketing and implementation

• Water use efficiency, soil fertility management and good agricultural practices for vegetables produced in drier regions - onion and garlic, tomato, chilli

• Production systems that increase cassava yield but limit soil/environmental degradation
• Water-efficient irrigation, nutrient management and intercropping strategies to increase sugar cane yield

Agribusiness and extension

Improved market engagement of small and medium landholders is critically important. The more remote areas within the region particularly suffer from poor access and limited availability to utilise market information. Understanding the capacity of smallholders to improve sustainability and profitability based upon changing market demands is required. Extension and knowledge transfer systems need to take into account the changes required throughout the supply chain to improve market performance, and projects will foster greater linkage of the farmer, research and extensionists to the market and greater engagement of private sector partners. Specific priorities include:

• Selection of commodities with regional comparative advantage (market demand, agronomically-adapted, and suitable for natural resource and human capital in the region)

• Market and supply chain analysis to identify critical points for commodities to enhance stakeholder relationships and focus technical intervention to deliver improved market returns

• Interventions in the livestock and horticulture supply chains, including
- determining whether interventions in transport and marketing improve returns
– research on technical, economic and social factors affecting the sale price of cattle
– assessing whether there are market signals to reward high quality beef production

• Technical, social and economic constraints influencing the mechanisation of agriculture – e.g. sugar cane harvesting and processing, and groundnut harvesting

• Identification of strategies for stakeholder engagement to scale out adoption past the farmer and extension groups who were directly involved in the research