SCALING UP IN AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, AND NUTRITION
Oxfam America: Learning from the System of Rice Intensification in Northern Vietnam | GINA E. CASTILLO, MINH NGUYET LE, AND KIMBERLY PFEIFER
Focus 19 • brIeF 15 • June 2012 D
espite Vietnam’s remarkable success in reducing poverty from almost 60 percent of the population in 1993 to 14 percent in
2008, 18 million Vietnamese still live on less than US$1.25 a day. Vietnam supplies a fifth of the rice consumed worldwide, and yet millions of rice farmers grow barely enough for subsistence. Over 9 million farmers in Vietnam own less than half a hectare of paddy land, generally fragmented into 6–10 smaller plots. Some 90 percent of these farmers live in the country’s northern region. They are highly vulnerable to external shocks, especially climate change and the high and volatile price of food and agricultural inputs. Meanwhile, extension services often overlook their needs and rely on prescriptive, top-down approaches that have failed to invest in their ongoing adaptive capacity. Oxfam America (Oxfam) has been working with civil society
partners and the government of Vietnam to make the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) available to smallholder rice producers across Northern Vietnam at a scale hitherto unreached. Unlike many conventional rice-farming practices, SRI encourages farmers to optimize the performance of the individual rice plant rather than maximize inputs. It is a principles-based system and relies on a menu of husbandry practices, each of which delivers increased yields, often with fewer input requirements than established practices. Oxfam encouraged farmers to experiment with transplanting
seedlings younger than one month; transplanting individual seedlings rather than clumps of three or more; spacing plants widely and regularly rather than densely and irregularly; and keeping soils moist rather than inundated. The introduction of SRI is flexible. Farmers may adopt it at any scale and with any combination of the husbandry practices that SRI comprises, using the same seeds and fertilizers already available to them.
A design for scale
From the outset, the program aspired to move beyond local implementation and reach national scale and impact not only SRI implementation but the capacity of farming communities and extension services. At the national level, it had technical and financial support from Oxfam and the government’s Plant Protection Department (PPD). At the local level, the program has coordinated with mass organizations, local government, and service providers to work together with farmers. At the provincial level, the PPD advocated for resources from the provincial government for field-level implementation. The program design involved three interlinked phases:
1. Local testing and confirmation of the potential of SRI. SRI was tested in a range of local contexts to assess crop performance, profitability, and scope for local adaptation. The aim was twofold: (i) to build an evidence base confirming the potential of SRI and (ii) to build local experience in extension approaches that enable farmers and local technicians to
adapt SRI principles and learn how to maximize benefits for themselves.
2. Expanding upon experience and the evidence base to build a critical mass. Oxfam and PPD focused on refining the SRI technical and extension materials in order to make these widely available to technicians and agencies. A tiered extension model was developed with intensive farmer field schools (FFSs) at one end of the spectrum and extensive farmer-to-farmer extension approaches at the other. This allowed the program to build a critical mass of experienced practitioners at both farmer and technician levels.
3. Aligning with the government and mobilizing resources. As the first two phases progressed, the program increasingly prioritized documentation of field results to engage researchers and policymakers. The program was able to align with and influence various policy mandates and leverage government resources to invest in the program. Advocacy has played an important role in the expansion of SRI: to gain support, leverage resources, and to foster greater dialogue between farmers and policymakers.
A growing reach: Results to date
A successful pilot in Dai Nghia commune in 2006 marked the launch of the SRI extension partnership for Oxfam and the PPD. Starting from 3,450 farmers nationwide who were applying SRI on 70 hectares of paddy land, Oxfam invested in six provinces. In 2011, the PPD reported that by the end of the spring crop, 1,070,384 farmers had applied SRI principles on 185,065 hectares across 22 provinces, accounting for 6 percent of the nation’s paddy areas and 11 percent of Vietnam’s rice farmers. Farmers have directly benefitted from adoption of SRI. On
average, SRI farmers increase their yields by 9 to 15 percent while reducing use of inputs compared to conventional practice: 70–75 percent less seed, 20–25 percent less nitrogen fertilizer, and 33 percent less water. This has resulted in additional income of US$95–$260 per hectare per crop season. Farmers report positive changes to the environment and their health as a result of less use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. Additionally, monitoring shows that as farmers gain confidence
in SRI they are applying it to a greater portion of their paddy land. The average application per farmer increased from 0.01 hectare in 2003 to 0.26 hectare in 2008 and to 0.31 hectare in 2010. Farmer participation in design and delivery of the program
fostered buy-in, helped to garner support for horizontal scaling, and facilitated functional expansion and longer-term systemic changes. The extension services are working in a more participatory manner and are increasingly able to integrate farmers’ challenges and demands. The evidence-based, open-ended learning approaches are well received by both farmers and local technicians. Farmers’
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