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Progress and Activities

• Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Designates SRI as Technical Advance
Following up an initial decision April 1, 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has issued a formal decision October 15, 2007, acknowledging SRI as "a technical advance," and directing the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Plant Protection, the Department of Cultivation, the National Agricultural Extension Center, and Provincial Agricultural and Rural Departments to "guide and disseminate " this technical advance.

• Networking of SRI Collaborators in Vietnam Expanding and Becoming More Formal
With the assistance of Oxfam America, a number of different institutions in Vietnam are beginning to consult and cooperate more in the evaluation and dissemination of SRI in this country. On July 11, the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences hosted a national workshop on SRI that brought most of these institutions together to exchange experience. The National IPM Program of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development which has done the most systematic evaluation of SRI (see report) is expanding its SRI activities with support from Oxfam America, as are Thai Nguyen University and the Center for Sustainable Rural Development. Over the past several years, several faculty at Hanoi Agricultural University have been working with SRI methods, learned mostly from the SRI internet home page, with positive results in ten provinces. Dr. Nguyen Tat Canh began working with SRI in 2001. The Japanese Volunteer Corps is also now introducing SRI in its rural work. More information on these and other SRI activities in Vietnam is contained in a report by Norman Uphoff on his visit to Vietnam, July 7-14.

•Postitive 2006 SRI Evaluation to Result in Government Support
The National Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program in Vietnam has conducted evaluations of SRI methods since 2003, expanding the evaluations from 3 provinces that year to 17 provinces by 2006. When its report summarizing what was learned from these trials was presented to the Science and Technology Council of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in early April, the recommendation that SRI be recognized as a technological advance for rice production under Vietnamese conditions was accepted. This endorsement means that provincial governments will be able to access government funding to support the extension of SRI use and that research institutions in Vietnam will be able to get support for further SRI studies. SRI dissemination has been very compatibly integrated into the IPM Program’s Farmer Field School activities.

• Dr. Hoang Van Phu at Thai Nguyen University, who started SRI trials on campus in spring 2004 and field trials in Bac Giang province in 2005, has sent the following update: From a demonstration area of 600 m2 in spring 2005 in Bac Giang, the SRI area expanded to 17 ha there in the summer crop. The area under SRI was about 150 ha in the spring crop (2006). Hoang is pictured at right with two colleague-trainers (click on photo to enlarge).Hoang learned about SRI from Klaus Prinz in Thailand, whom he got to know while doing his MS at Chiangmai University.

Dr. Hoang Van Phu's earlier reports of replicated factorial trials have shown SRI yields at 33x33cm spacing of 8.8 t/ha, with a calculated reduction of 62% in water use, and 85% in seed rate. More details are given in Uphoff’s trip report (see TNU section of 2006 trip report).

• SRI is also being evaluated and extended in Vietnam under the auspices of the Vegetable IPM program supported by FAO and through the Farmer Field Schools which the IPM program maintains with a farmer-participatory approach. During 2004, an evaluation of SRI experience in Vietnam was done for FAO by Max Whitten, as part of a four-country evaluation that he and John Schilling undertook. SRI is featured on the first page of the National IPM Program 2006 Calendar, widely distributed with DANIDA assistance.

Women promoters (click to enlarge picture)

Elske van der Fliert, program development officer with FAO’s vegetable IPM program in Vietnam, reports visiting a field day organized by a farmer group in Hanoi province presenting the results of their SRI trials this past season. Four women farmers reported spreading SRI to about 1,000 farmers in their commune who cultivate a rice area of about 300 ha.

This area was hit earlier in the season by a severe storm that lodged conventionally-grown rice but did not affect SRI rice. Van de Fliert was impressed by the awareness among these farmers of the need for collective action, which motivated them to try to involve more farmers in the practice, so that there could be more water savings for the whole block. (Click here to enlarge photo.)

Norman Uphoff was able to visit the farmers at Dông Trú in January 2006. His report on their progress, with data on their production (up 21%), costs of production (down 24%), and net profit per ha (up 65%) given in his trip report. • The NGO sector is not yet well-developed in Vietnam. But the NGO known now as LÚA (formerly CIDSE) is starting SRI work, and there may well be other NGOs that also take up SRI now that its performance in Vietnam is better documented. (see LUA section of 2006 trip report.) • Researchers at the National Institute for Soils and Fertilizers in Hanoi, having learned about SRI and the research issues it raises, are interested in developing a number of research efforts that can assess and explain SRI effects under Vietnam conditions (see NISF section of 2006 trip report). Reports and Articles Uphoff, Norman. 2007. Trip Report from Visit to Vietnam, July 7-14, 2007, Reviewing SRI Progress. July 7-14, 2007. Unpublished CIIFAD trip report. 20 p. Ngo Tien Dung. 2006. SRI Application in Rice Production in Northern Ecological Areas of Vietnam. National IPM Program (updated through 2006). Unpublished. 12 p. Uphoff, Norman. 2006. Report on a visit to Vietnam to review SRI progress. January 3-12, 2006. Unpublished CIIFAD trip report. 16 p.