Conference on International Agricultural Research for Development Improvement of access to available agricultural technologies: did it cause land-use changes and poverty reduction in the North-western upland of Vietnam?

Before the economic reform, or “Doi moi”, the north-western uplands of Vietnam, which are characterized by a complicated terrain and a high cultural diversity, were affected by high illiteracy rates, severe environmental degradation, and poor infrastructural facilities. The livelihoods of the rural upland communities were maintained through a combination of hillside swidden agriculture with low land productivity, forest product exploitation and meager wet rice production. Access to available agricultural technologies was extremely limited. Poverty was widespread in the region. However, development in this region has gained some remarkable achievements since 1990, and one potential explanation is the introduction and application of improved agricultural technologies. This paper examines to what extent the improvement of access to agricultural technologies and the adoption rate contributed to changing land-use and to reduced poverty in 75 communes of Son La province in the time period from 1989 to 2000. Aerial photographs and satellite images taken in 1989, 1994 and 2000 were interpreted to detect land-use changes. Poverty was proxied by the number of assets controlled by the poor, which were collected at the commune level by means of a survey with a structured questionnaire. All data were geo-referenced and spatially analyzed by using Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques and statistical procedures. The research findings show that the absence of suitable technologies such as improved breeds of crops and livestock and new farming techniques and lacking access to agricultural extension services left the agricultural potential of the region untapped in many locations. Local farmers pursued land-extensive farming approaches at the cost of a reduced forest cover. Vast areas of forest were converted into agricultural cultivation from 1989 to 1994, whilst the incidence of poverty still remained at high levels. Due to the improvement of access to modern agricultural inputs and extension services, subsistence production has been replaced by high-yielding and more profitable varieties since mid-1990s. Agricultural output soared. Living standards of local inhabitants improved considerably as a result of rising agricultural profits and, in the same period, deforestation decreased. However, the rates of technological adoption, land-use changes and poverty reduction do not show the same patterns across the research area. To better target the activities of agricultural extension services to the rural poor, this paper provides some recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of current agricultural extension services.