Impacts of farmer-based training in seed production in Vietnam

Key words: farmer seed production school, farm-saved seed, formal seed sector, impact assessment, improved practice, local practice, rice (Oryza sativa), seed production, seed quality, Vietnam

Rice (Oryza sativa) is the most important food and cash crop of Vietnam. It is cultivated in all provinces of the country since ancient times. Farm-saved seed is the most important seed source covering more than 80% of the farmers’ seed needs. However, farmers not always use the best techniques of producing and selecting seeds. Inadequate seed quality is an important yield limiting factor in rice production.
To improve the farmers’ capacity to produce, process, store and use good rice seed, the farmer seed production school (FSPS) training programme was conducted in seven provinces of Vietnam during the period 2003−2007. The study reported in this thesis took place in four out of those seven provinces, i.e. Nam Dinh, Nghe An, Binh Dinh and Dong Thap. The objective was to assess to what extent farmers’ knowledge in seed production practices and seed quality management had increased and whether that knowledge increase was reflected in an increase in potential rice yields and profits, and in diffusion of retained practices after training to other farmers in communities.
A long seed production training programme with the farmer field school approach was combined with field demonstrations including plots with either local practices or improved practices which were conducted in each FSPS. We recorded and analysed data on on-farm demonstrations at 429 FSPSs and on ex-ante and ex-post tests of knowledge at the FSPSs. Moreover, we carried out a survey among 240 rural households.
Results of the study indicate that some rice varieties were better adopted in the farming systems than other varieties: well adopted ones were KD18 in both Nam Dinh and Nghe An province and OM1490, Ai32 and MO2718 in Binh Dinh and Dong Thap. With local practices in the farm-saved seed system of the transplanted rice crop, farmers used old seedlings, planted many seedlings per hill, planted too many or too few plants per unit area and applied unbalanced quantities of fertilizers; for the directly sown crop farmers used high seed rates in the traditional system. Rice yields showed larger differences between local practices and improved practices in the dry season than in the wet season all across Vietnam. With improved practices at the FSPSs, rice yields were 8.5% higher in the wet season and 13.6% higher in the dry season; additional profits associated with the improved practice in both the dry and wet seasons averaged 212 US$ ha-1. The majority of the FSPS-farmers moved from food production to seed production, reduced seed rates by about 50%, and used high quality seed to produce seeds with much better quality. More important is that the FSPS-farmers diffused improved practices (79%) and shared good seeds (57% of respondents) with other farmers in their communities to help other rice growers to improve their productivity. A large proportion of non-FSPS farmers learned and applied improved practices for rice production through neighbouring FSPS-farmers within the community. Besides, evaluation in acquired knowledge during training showed that FSPS-farmers with lower scores (<20%) in the ex-ante test realized an enormous improvement of 55.4% points in the ex-post test. There was a clear trend: the higher the scores in the ex-ante test, the smaller the increase in the score, suggesting that the tests provided insight into the knowledge gaps for improvement in training programmes.
The FSPS is considered as a good training model for farmers. The FSPS-farmers well retained the acquired knowledge and applied the improved practices to enhance the farm-saved seed system in the project provinces. The community capacity was strengthened through establishing seed clubs by FSPS-farmers. It created a seed supply and production network to ensure seed security for small farmer’s seed needs in the rural areas. Thus, it promoted seed policies to strengthen the informal seed system in Vietnam.
Impacts of farmer-based training programme in seed production illustrate that in a country like Vietnam where more than seventy percent of the population live in rural areas and depend on agricultural production, farmer education is a very effective way for agricultural development.