Transformation of Smallholder Beef-cattle Production in Vietnam1

Introduction This chapter addresses the question “Can smallholder livestock production systems in developing countries be transformed to take advantage of the increasing demand for meat?”, a question that has been posed by many authors (for example, Tarawali et al. 2011). On the basis of a case study that followed smallholder cattle development in Ea Kar, a district in the central highlands of Vietnam, over a ten-year period, it analyzes the contributions to sustainable intensification of smallholder livestock production made by technology interventions, market linkages, private-sector development, participatory research and farmer group-based approaches, capacity strengthening, local coalitions, and innovation platforms. Livestock production is considered to be an important pathway out of poverty for the rural poor in developing countries (for example, Kristjanson et al. 2010) and worldwide 1 billion poor people depend on livestock for their livelihoods (McDermott et al. 2010). Livestock are living assets contributing to nutrition, food security, and building wealth. The increasing consumption of meat in some developing countries, related to rising household income and rapid urbanization, has been well documented (for example, Delgado 2003). In Vietnam, per capita meat consumption rose at an average annual growth rate of 4.1 percent from 11 kg in 1980–1982 to 28 kg in 2001–2003, confirming Vietnam as one of the developing countries where the predicted “livestock revolution” is taking place (Pica-Ciamarra and Otte 2011). While much of this increase can be attributed to increased consumption of pork,