Khuong farms on two small plots of rice paddies, a total of 10 sao (nearly an acre) in Dong Dat commune of Thai Nguyen’s Phu Luong district. She attributes the good harvest to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a package of good agricultural practices for hand-planted rice that increase yields while using less seeds, water, and fertilizers.
Today more than 1.3 million farmers in Vietnam have embraced this innovative farming method, producing more rice and earning extra income for their families. Oxfam has been helping promote SRI in Vietnam for nearly six years, and has made possible the ongoing training of farmers in the methods.
“It’s a smart investment needed to lift people out of poverty and to boost the national economy,” says Ngo Tien Dung, Deputy Director General of the Plant Protection Department in Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture.
SRI practices involve five simple steps including soil preparation, plant and water management. Farmers who use SRI transplant seedlings earlier and space them individually and in square patterns farther apart to reduce competition for light, water, and nutrients.
“I save quite a lot on seeds and fertilizers,” Khuong says. “Before I used almost 50 kg (110 pounds) of seeds for the two paddy fields, but now I use only 4 or 5 kg because with SRI, I transplant only one and sometimes two seedlings per hill instead of bunches of them.”
Robust root systems, bigger and healthier plants grow more grains of rice. Khuong now produces 2.7 metric tons of rice from her two paddy fields, as compared to just 1.8 tons grown with conventional methods, a 50 percent increase.
“I’m very pleased with the results, and I’ve stop worrying now,” she says.
According to the Plant Protection Department, farmers who use SRI significantly reduce the use of chemicals, thus growing healthier food, improving soil quality, and protecting farm biodiversity. On average, SRI farmers increase their yield by 500 kilograms (1,110 pounds), and earn extra income of $130 per hectare in just one cropping season (a hectare is just under 2.5 acres). This is a significant sum in a country where average income is around $1,200.
SRI was recently honored with the National Golden Rice Award for making positive changes in the life of over a million Vietnamese farmers.
The award is an initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to honor major contributions to sustainable agriculture and rural development. Fifty-six winners were selected from across Vietnam for the first biennial Golden Rice Awards, which took place in November.
SRI was the first recipient at the Golden Rice Awards ceremony, and was recognized as an innovation that helped to revitalize sustainable food production, improving food and income security for small-scale farmers in Vietnam.
“We need to build the momentum for SRI extension over the coming years,” says Ngo Tien Dung of the Plant Protection Department, who received the award for the Department’s outstanding work in promoting the farming method.
The benefits of SRI go beyond increasing yield and reducing input costs. According to a report by Africare, Oxfam, and World Wildlife Fund, SRI practices have contributed to the reduction of greenhouse gases released from agricultural activities.
By improving nutrient use efficiency, farmers reduce the use of water, fertilizers, herbicide and pesticide, resulting in reduced emissions of methane, one of the most prevalent and dangerous greenhouse gases.
Farmers also reported positive change in community relations as a result of using these techniques. SRI farmers—most of them are women—learn together and help each other in the fields. This practice has created a culture of mutual support in rural communities.
Oxfam has been supporting organizations promoting SRI in Vietnam since 2006, working closely with officials of the Plant Protection Department, and recruiting local farmers to train others. These local experts formed a core of SRI proponents and formed Farmer Field Schools that grew demonstration plots and promoted the techniques.
Because farmers who try SRI see results almost immediately, the number of SRI farmers increased five-fold from 2009 to 1.3 million in 2012.
]]>Oxfam is working with a Sudanese partner organization to respond to the humanitarian emergency that began unfolding in the summer of 2011, when armed conflict erupted between government and rebel forces in the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile; in April of 2012, border clashes between Sudan and South Sudan triggered another wave of displacement in the same states; in all, more than 900,000 people have been displaced or severely affected by the recent conflicts in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Aid providers are unable to reach many of those who are caught in this latest conflict, but an Oxfam partner has reached 45,000 people with a range of interventions, including:
Refugees from the conflict between Sudan and the SPLM-N continue to flow across the borders into Ethiopia and South Sudan. In the camps of Jamam in Upper Nile, South Sudan, many are arriving in a traumatized state, having trekked long distances without enough food or water. But the conditions in the camps where they have sought refuge are dire: residents and aid providers have had to contend with severe shortages of food and water, soft soil conditions that interfere with well drilling, and huge price increases for essentials like fuel and food.
Oxfam is helping more than 32,000 refugees in the Upper Nile region gain access to drinking water and sanitation, as well as hygiene materials like soap, and we are providing cash relief to help people cope with rising food prices.
Read more about the Jamam camps.
]]>Oxfam and our partners are now assisting more than 330,000 people in Darfur who have been affected by the conflict that began in 2003.
Armed clashes in Sudan continue to drive people from their homes. In January, more than 100,000 people fled the gold-mining area of Jebel Amir in North Darfur. Oxfam and a local partner have been assisting thousands of families with clean water, sanitation facilities, and relief materials like plastic sheeting and blankets.
Oxfam America is working with local Sudanese partners and community members to provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene programs to more than 260,000 people in camps and villages in Darfur. Our water engineers are helping maintain the wells, pumps, tanks, pipes, and taps that deliver treated water to the settlements, and our sanitation and public health staff are ensuring that camp residents have latrines, bathing areas, soap, water cans, and access to the information they need to stay healthy under challenging camp conditions.
Many people affected by the conflict no longer have the means to make a dignified living. Farmers who have been displaced from their land, herders who have lost their animals, and widows who are trying to raise children alone have a range of needs as they try to restore their incomes. Oxfam partners have offered small business grants and loans, as well as vocational training and assets like donkey carts to many of the most vulnerable residents of the camps. In rural areas affected by the conflict, we are providing seeds, plows, and horse carts for farmers, as well as small business loans.
High-efficiency stoves can address an array of problems in Darfur. In a joint program with two partners, Oxfam America has supported local camp residents to assemble and distribute more than 15,000 stoves that are more than twice as efficient as traditional three-stone fireplaces. For the women who purchase their firewood in the market, the stoves reduce the cost of fuel and ease the heavy economic pressure on their families. But for those who must trek into the countryside to gather firewood, facing the risk of assault from armed bandits and militias, fuel-efficient stoves are even more critical. Read more about how the stoves have been making a difference.
Oxfam America's fuel-efficient stove program is helping protect Darfur’s fragile environment by reducing the need for firewood and charcoal.
Other environmental initiatives include planting and protecting tens of thousands of tree seedlings around school and camps for displaced people.
]]>
Chhoun says he is now using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) since he learned about it two years ago during training sessions with Oxfam’s partner, a local organization called Srer Khmer. SRI techniques involve cost-saving ways of planting rice: farmers use less seed, water, fertilizer, and grow more rice. Farmers can follow as many as nine steps, ranging from seed selection to the way they transplant seedlings individually (instead of in clumps of five or more plants together). SRI techniques promote the growth of stronger roots, so each plant produces more grains of rice.
Since following SRI practices allows him to plant fewer seeds and use less water, Chhoun says it is helping him save money, grow more rice in the same area, and even increase the number of harvests per year. “The techniques we’ve learned have helped us feed the family better,” he says. “I plant three rice crops a year now. Here I’ve just harvested my rice, and then I transplanted again right away.”
Year-round cultivation
On a cool winter afternoon, Dieb and Chhoun and three of their children are across the narrow dirt road from their house, transplanting rice onto a rented field. Dieb is in the nursery, pulling the seedlings up by their roots. She carries them a short distance to where Chhoun is planting them in a small area flooded with about six inches of water. He wades down a straight row, inserting each individual seedling about one inch deep and 18 inches from the next.
Chhoun and Dieb were the first family in their village, Anlong Hab, to grow three crops a year. That was three years ago. Last year there were three families doing it, now there are 10. “In the wet season everyone grows rice so it’s hard to find land to rent,” Chhoun says. “Usually people don’t grow rice in the dry season, so it’s an opportunity for me to go rent their land.”
Chhoun says the added production is helping his family of nine eat better, but they still need to grow more. So finding land he can plant is a priority. “I want others to grow three crops a year also because we’re all poor,” he says, wondering aloud if he will find enough land to rent if more farmers expand their growing season.
Nevertheless, Chhoun and Dieb feel they are making progress, and their status in the community is changing as others have learned from their experience. Chhoun’s rice cultivation skills have established him as one of the most innovative farmers in the village. “I’m quite proud,” he says. “We’re poor, but people look at me and follow what I did. That’s what motivates me to do this work.”
]]>A shorter commitment won't get the job done. It takes time to help people build skills and infrastructure, to get policies changed, and to ensure that governments spend their money more effectively.
Smart development demands monitoring and evaluation. Organizations should be accountable to report not only what they do, but also how they measure it. Don't believe stories that guarantee long-term impact after one or two years' investment; that's barely time to lay some groundwork.
We all crave the easy answer, the quick solution, but if eradicating poverty were simple, people living in poverty would have sorted it out long ago. They may lack resources like land, but they certainly don't lack intelligence or insight. Poverty is a global challenge—one that we can overcome together, but listening and learning from people living in poverty, and developing solutions with them, takes time and sustained effort.
This issue of OXFAMExchange includes inspiring stories, but they are just snapshots from a family album: moments in a long journey together. Each story is ultimately about perseverance and the need for long-term commitment.
Thomazeau—home to about 52,000 inhabitants—is a rural community in western Haiti, surrounded by mountains and little-touched by the earthquake two years ago. In fact, it was an area that saw a large influx of arrivals from the capital immediately after the quake. But it is also economically deprived.
Most people here are “planteurs”—small-scale farmers living off their land and selling what crops they can. But poor roads are a major problem in getting goods to markets. And, as Dumel pointed out, there are few economic opportunities available in the community.
That’s also true across Haiti, where an estimated 75 percent of the population is not in salaried employment, and jobs are scarce.
Finding work is especially challenging in rural areas, where even the most casual of jobs are hard to come by. This was a major issue in Haiti, as much before the earthquake as now, and it is hampering people’s ability to rebuild their lives.
According to an Oxfam survey last year, finding work is the top priority for most Haitians. And that’s why a project which Oxfam supports in Thomazeau is raising the hopes of many women.
The women have their own section within ODECT known as RAFARE. That stands for Rassemblement des Femmes pour l’Accès aux Ressources Économiques, or Rallying Women to Access Economic Resources. Its goal is to try to improve the economic status of women. The group owned one milling machine and earned money processing grain brought to the center by farmers and merchants. Oxfam hired RAFARE after the earthquake to help provide milled cereals which formed part of food kits that were distributed in the outdoor camps where people had sought shelter.
Oxfam is now helping the women again—with funds and training, including enlisting the help of expatriate Haitian experts with specific skills. The group is modernizing its service center and expanding its operation.
The small building where they’re currently located will double in size, allowing the women to have storage facilities where they can stock processed and unprocessed grains and market milled cereals. Oxfam has helped them to purchase two new grinding machines and is providing training and other equipment. The goal is to enable the women to run their operation as a full-fledged business. They will buy and sell locally produced grain throughout the year, rather than just seasonally; and during lean times, in between the harvests, they can sell surplus stocks in the local market.
“It will bring more economic opportunities here. There will be more jobs and more money coming in,” said Marie-Claude Estenfile, general secretary of RAFARE. “There was always a shortage of grains being sold in the local markets from April to June, but we will be able to provide processed grains during that period.
It means people won’t have to travel an hour or more to some of the markets, like in Croix des Bouquets, 24 kilometers away, to buy what they need. It will be easier to purchase food locally and we will help to strengthen the supply chain. The markets will be busier; the money will benefit the local economy.”
Having proper storage facilities and being able market their own cereals will enable the women to work all year round, and not just stay open for business during the busy harvest period.
“It will guarantee people’s food security here,” said Dumel, adding that it will also create new jobs. “During the lean periods, people would have to buy imported rice and grain from other places. But we will have stocks to sell and supply to the local markets.”
RAFARE’s members are excited about the project.
“It gives me hope for the future,” said Hermircie Alfred, 40. “I hope we can buy and sell the grains locally all year round; and we can make more profits.”
“There are very few job opportunities here,” Alexina Augustin, 45, a mother of eight. “The only jobs we can really find are selling cereals and this project will help us. I lost my home and land a few months ago during flooding and now I can’t send my children to school. This will be a lifeline for me,” she said.
]]>The agriculture ministry reported that there are now 1,070,384 farmers—about 70 percent of whom are women—applying the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI, on 185,065 hectares (457,110 acres) of their rice fields. The number of farmers using SRI practices in Vietnam has tripled since 2009.
SRI is a package of good agricultural techniques for hand-planted rice that helps farmers reduce their costs. And the innovative techniques are helping the poorest rice producers on the smallest rice paddy areas boost their rice yields: When compared to traditional rice growing techniques, SRI producers can increase rice production by as much as 500 kilos (more than 1,000 pounds) per hectare. (A hectare is about 2.5 acres.) This typically increases income by about $130 per hectare, enough money to cover food costs for a month for a family of four, or invest in five piglets to raise and sell.
“There is significant evidence that lives are changing at the village level,” said Le Minh, Oxfam Associate Country Director in Vietnam. “I give most of the credit to the collaboration amongst our farmers. When they are successful, they want to share their success with families and friends.”
SRI farmers generally use less seed, sometimes as much as 70 percent less. They do this by transplanting fewer rice seedlings, and spacing them farther apart. This reduces competition for nutrients and allows the rice plants to have more room to grow stronger roots, which makes them more resistant to pests and diseases.
Inspired by their own success, farmers like Le Ngoc Thach are committed to help others. Thach attended an SRI training and visited a few demonstration fields. He gave SRI a try in 2006 and was convinced that these growing techniques would improve the lives of farmers in his cooperative. He started to spread the word. Now 2,000 families, his entire grower cooperative in northern Vietnam, are part of a network of over a million farmers who employ SRI and earn extra income.
Vuong Hoang Kim, a cooperative member in Yen Bai province, has volunteered to teach other women farmers about using SRI. “We all are very happy to see our rice plants grow very quickly and we gain a lot of benefits from these simple techniques,” she said.
Oxfam has been working with several partner organizations to promote SRI to small-scale farmers as a means to help poor farmers in Vietnam. One partner is the Plant Protection Department in the Ministry of Rural Development, which has been training farmers in SRI techniques in northern provinces of Vietnam with support from Oxfam since 2007. SRI training is part of a larger effort to help build the ability and confidence of smallholder farmers to develop agricultural innovations as a way to earn more money. The program is especially important for women in rural areas, who normally depend on agriculture for income and food.
“It’s a great achievement for small farmers because they are the ones leading the SRI innovation,” said Ngo Tien Dung of the Agriculture Ministry’s Plant Protection Department. “We need to build momentum for SRI extension over the coming years. It’s a smart investment needed to lift people out of poverty and to boost the national economy.”
Vietnam is the second largest rice exporter and accounts for one fifth of global rice supply. In 2010 the country exported 6.6 million tons, worth about $2.8 billion. Oxfam’s collaboration with the Plant Protection Department is helping small-scale farmers, who are usually the poorest, to increase their share of this business. SRI farmers now represent about 10% of all rice growers in Vietnam.
]]>In one case, at least 22,500 people in Uganda lost their homes and land to make way for a British timber company, the New Forests Company (NFC). Villagers told Oxfam that some evictions resulted in physical violence, and destruction of property, crops and livestock. Many have been left destitute, without enough food or money to send their children to school. They have received no compensation or alternative land. NFC denies that it was responsible for any evictions.
What’s more, NFC is supported by investment from international institutions which claim to uphold high social and environmental standards, including the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. In addition, HSBC, which prides itself as a responsible bank, owns 20 percent of NFC and has one of six seats on the NFC Board.
Preliminary research indicates that as many as 227 million hectares have been sold, leased or licensed in large-scale land deals since 2001, mostly by international investors. This modern-day land rush follows a drive to produce food for people overseas, meet damaging biofuels targets or speculate on land to make an easy profit.
However, many of the deals are in fact ‘land grabs’ where the rights and needs of the people living on the land are ignored. Global safeguards exist to protect poor people, but they are being flouted in the scramble for more land. And it’s women—who produce up to 80 per cent of food in some poor countries—who are most vulnerable.
Oxfam is calling for remedies to the Ugandan mass eviction and the other large scale land grabs included in the report. Investors, governments and international organizations must also put a stop to land grabbing by fixing the current policies, regulations and business practices, which frequently fail to ensure that local people are consulted and treated fairly during negotiations. They should also ensure that all relevant international standards are respected including the World Bank's International Finance Corporation Performance Standards and the Forest Stewardship Council's standards.
The US government should take a leadership role in curbing this growing phenomenon working closely with like-minded governments at the UN's Committee on Food Security in Rome next month to push forward strong and broadly supported Voluntary Guidelines on land tenure. Finally businesses and policy-makers should start to explore measures that the US government and industry can take to curb the worst abuses by US investors and US listed companies in affected countries, including measures to increase transparency around land deals.
Get the latest updates on the Uganda case and find out how you can show your support—join Oxfam's GROW campaign today.
Help shine a spotlight on the worrying practice of land grabs. Read Oxfam's new land grabs report and share it with friends.
Watch this video and share it with your friends.
]]>Puddles swallow trucks to their underbellies. And everywhere, green sweeps the hillsides: delicate shoots of teff, so vibrant it looks lit from within, mix with fields of corn, the stalks thickening by the day and inching skywards.
But here in this village of about 1,100 households in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, they’re holding their breath. Will the rain stay steady? Will it fall in enough abundance to fatten the grains and produce a bountiful harvest on which so many here depend?
At night, in my hotel room in Abi Adi, I listen as the rain pelts the metal roofs and pours into the courtyards and muddy streets below. I think about all the uncertainties farmers in Adi Ha face, and then I think about the south and what happens when those uncertainties become life-threatening. There, where southern Ethiopia, northern Kenya, and south-central Somalia meet, a severe drought and food crisis has snared almost 12 million people, farmers and herders both. The UN has already declared famine in two parts of Somalia. And some areas of the region are the driest they have been in six decades.
Though the rain in Tigray brings hope, nothing is certain. Not when the weather has become increasingly erratic. And not when the vast majority of farmers rely on rain to feed their fields. Countless families here—like those now struggling in the south—have known the ravages of drought.
But in Adi Ha, and a growing number of communities in Tigray, farmers now have a means of managing some of that unpredictability: weather insurance for their crops.
Initiated in 2007 by Oxfam America and a host of partners, including the Relief Society of Tigray and Swiss Re, a new program has found a way for even the poorest farmers to afford insurance. Instead of cash, these farmers can pay for their premiums with labor, a resource they have in abundance. If insufficient rain falls during a critical period of the growing cycle, and their teff, wheat, or barley suffers, farmers will receive a payout—an infusion of cash that can help them cover their losses and weather the rough times.
“This insurance is very good,” said Selas Samson Biru, who paid 200 birr ($11.75) this year to cover half a hectare of teff—a tiny grain that is a staple of the Ethiopian diet. “The insurance is good because it’s saving our assets in a bad year.”
As she spoke, a heavy sky pressed down on the fields of Adi Ha. Nearby, farmers coaxed their oxen through rocky fields, hurrying to plow and plant. It felt like rain. But Biru was worried still. She expected her corn would be OK, but the teff?
“We have some doubt,” she said.
Readings at a small rain gauge across the river from one of Biru’s fields showed that, on the Ethiopian calendar for July, rain had fallen on only seven days until a thorough dousing on July 24, when 50 millimeters (2 inches) soaked the fields. Before then, the heaviest rain measured just 30 millimeters (1.2 inches).
With the green that rain has brought to Adi Ha, it’s hard to fathom just how dry the south is. And in fact Biru, far from any access to the Internet or TV, said she had not heard about the drought and suffering there.
“We are sorry about that news,” she said, worry creasing her brow. “We feel that type of drought might come to us.” And then she brightened.
“Have they bought insurance?” Biru asked. “This is one of the most important things that needs to be scaled up.”
That’s in the works. Through a new partnership, Oxfam America and the World Food Programme, together with Swiss Re, are helping to bring this insurance model—and a package of other resource-management techniques including savings, credit, and disaster risk reduction strategies—deeper into Ethiopia and across three new countries.
It won’t come in time to help families in the south, but the disaster there may finally spur some serious international interest in finding long-term solutions—like weather insurance—to the devastation drought brings.
]]>Over time, that will mean one third of the dangerous fuel-gathering trips to the countryside, one third the loss of trees, one third the smoke inhaled by Dawelbiat and her young ones, one third the air emissions. And now that she is buying her fuel in the marketplace, she’s spending a third of what she used to and has more money to feed and clothe and educate her children.
Her stove—known as the Berkeley-Darfur Stove—is the brainchild of the Darfur Stoves Project (DSP), a US-based Oxfam partner organization that draws on the work of engineers at the Lawrence-Berkeley National Laboratory in California. DSP worked with women in Darfur to develop a stove suited to their needs that would use less than half the fuel of a traditional three-stone fireplace and significantly less than other stove models that are available locally. The result is a portable 12-sided metal stove - around 12” in every dimension - that is as advanced in its design as it is simple in its construction. And whose frugal output is a match for the scarce resources of the Darfur camps.
On a day in December, while her daughter and a friend play on a mat behind her and a neighbor holds her ten-month-old baby, Dawelbiat sits down on a low stool next to her stove and begins to cook her family’s mid-morning meal. The kitchen is a low mud-brick building, shadowy but brightly lit where the sun slips in through the doorway.
She places a pot of water on the stove, adds a few pieces of wood to the firebox, and sets the fire going with a match. When the water boils, she sprinkles ground millet into the pot and stirs it with a long, carved wooden stick until she’s created a thick porridge—known as asida—which she sets aside in a bowl. The next course is mullah, a soup made of onions fried in oil with dried meat, crushed tomato, okra, and spices. And finally, tea. In the space of an hour, Dawelbiat and her fistful of kindling have produced a meal for six.
At the compound of Oxfam partner SAG (Sustainable Action Group) in nearby El Fasher, the usual sounds of a Darfur town—the roar of vehicles, the clatter of grain mills, and the bleats and brays of animals—is replaced with the banging of metal on metal. Here in a building sided and thatched with sorghum stalks, eight men from the Al Salaam camp work at tables assembling Berkeley-Darfur stoves. They smile at visitors and get back to work, bending and hammering metal into its designated size and shape. To the list of benefits of the stoves can be added one more: employing survivors of the conflict, who—uprooted from their homes and farms—struggle to find any work at all.
So far, SAG and the workers from the camps have produced and distributed around 9,000 stoves. With enough funds, they’ll create 15,000 stoves in 2011. Some will go to the camps, others to rural areas hard up against the deadly combination of deforestation and armed conflict.
Dawelbiat is shy with strangers, but her praise for the stove is effusive all the same. “The stove is good because it’s efficient and saves fuel and cooks faster. It’s better at keeping the kitchen clean, and there is less smoke. You can easily cook with it and easily move it around. Even a small portion of fuel can make your food.”
“More people should have these stoves,” she concludes.
It is a point that no one argues.
]]>Tragedies such as this compelled Thach to serve as president of the commune agricultural cooperative. When he was elected to this post in 2001, he says he made a commitment: “I told myself to find new technology to help farmers get a better life.”
In his research about ways to help farmers in Dai Nghia, Thach learned about a new and innovative way to grow rice, Vietnam’s most important food crop and the main source of nutrition for many small-scale farmers. It’s called the system of rice intensification, SRI, and involves techniques that help farmers save money on seed, fertilizer and other chemicals, and cuts down on labor needed for transplanting.
Oxfam and the Plant Protection Department, which is part of Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, have been running farmer field schools to help rice farmers learn the new techniques, and in turn teach other farmers about SRI. Oxfam began this work in Cambodia, and then expanded it to Vietnam in order to help small-scale farmers learn new farming methods, develop their skills to analyze and solve agricultural problems, and teach each other to improve their farming.
Thach was excited about bringing SRI to his village. “I saw with my own eyes the obvious benefits of SRI in all the places I visited,” he says. “So when I introduced the method to my farmers, I knew exactly that victory was on my side.”
Despite his confidence, Thach knew there would be doubts among the farmers. For example, SRI recommends transplanting single rice seedlings, instead of bunches of them. Many farmers did not believe this would increase their yield. “How can one rice seedling produce more than four or five seedlings together?” Tran Minh Tien, member of the Dai Nghia Agricultural Cooperative, said as he recalled farmers’ reaction when Thach first introduced SRI in the commune.
But Thach was willing to take the risk. In 2006, he made a bold promise to the farmers, “If you apply SRI and the yield is lower than the yield from your ordinary practice, I will take my own money to compensate for your losses.”
With this assurance, he convinced 50 families to try SRI on a 10-acre plot. Initial successes attracted more farmers to try SRI. Farmers learned from each other as they helped their neighbors work in the field, and they all witnessed more and better rice in the SRI field. The number of SRI farmers in the commune tripled in less than a year, and in the spring crop of 2008, all the 2,000 members of the cooperative applied SRI on the entire commune’s 420 acres of paddy land. “I’m very happy to win this confidence from all the farmers in my cooperative,” Thach said. “It is my most precious achievement.”
Farmers in Dai Nghia work closely with Thach to grow two rice crops and one non-rice crop including soybean and vegetables per year. Those who used to spend one month to transplant their rice now spend from 10 to 15 days. This allows them to have more time to do other work such as raising livestock or growing vegetables.
“Now I have more time to become a seller at the market, and my husband has more time to work in construction,” said Nguyen Thi Dua, one of the first women who started using SRI in the commune. “We earn a little more income for our family.”
All farmers in Dai Nghia are now embracing this growing method with results that are boosting household incomes, helping them to send their children to school, and fund other essentials.
The Plant Protection Department reported that on an average field just smaller than an acre, farmers can save $53 per year of two rice crops on seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and on hiring labor for transplanting. The combination of input savings and yield increase contributes to extra income of about $70 on the same size of paddy land. That’s enough to pay for one year of school or two year’s worth of seed for the next growing seasons.
Thach takes pride with this achievement for the commune. “I’m proud to see farmers in my community increase their income and improve their living conditions,” Thach said. “SRI has brought about a better life for Dai Nghia.”
Thach and other farmers have been concerned about the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in Dai Nghia. The fertilizers were actually decreasing soil fertility and making the rice plants even more dependent on artificial fertilizers. A lot of pesticides were released into the environment to kill pests such as stem borers, but the chemicals also killed beneficial soil bacteria and other valuable species including fish. Some of the chemicals travelled into the air, soil, and water sources, causing environmental concern for the people who depend on the resources. But the rising prices of these chemicals forced them to find alternatives.
Growing SRI rice reduces farmers’ reliance on pesticides; the plants are farther apart, which makes them healthier and more resistant to pests. Thach says he can see the effects of less spraying of pesticides: “I think SRI creates a better biodiversity condition for the rice field. There are more fish and other creatures living in the field.”
Nguyen Thi Dua, an SRI farmer in Dai Nghia, said due to the wider spacing of seedlings, her rice plants get better exposure to sunlight and have stronger roots, which reduces vulnerability to pests. “I don’t need to spend too much money on buying pesticide anymore,” she said. “The fields are looking good, and I’m pleased with the clean and sound environment.”
Thach remains committed to exploring new and better ways to grow rice and to sustain the environment. Farmers who used to grow barely enough rice for family consumption now have a surplus.
But perhaps most importantly, farmers in Dai Nghia are open to new ideas. “SRI is a success in Dai Nghia commune,” says Tran Minh Tien. “We’re now working with the [Hanoi] University on organic rice, and the research over the last year shows some success. This can lead us to adding more value to our rice, and a safer product for consumers.”
]]>“Before we would use 100 francs to buy tea,” Diallo said after a group meeting at her home, while she was selling a small bag of cooking spices to a young boy waiting patiently in her doorway. “We would sit around and laugh and tease each other. We didn’t know that if we put our 100 francs together, we could do something really important.”
Saving for Change group members pool their savings, and borrow money to invest in small businesses. Selling foodstuff as Diallo does is quite common, as is selling phone cards, and buying and selling cloth and clothing. Members pay back their loans with 10 percent interest, and the money grows in the group fund for 12 months, when all the assets are disbursed to members equally, and a 12-month cycle starts again. Last fall at the end of the last cycle, each member got nearly $50.
Mariama Ly, a 38-year-old mother of four wearing a bright red head scarf that forms a perfect circle around her face, says she did really well this past year. “I bought new furniture for my house, a bicycle for my son, and I invested the rest in my business,” she says brightly.
Her enthusiasm is easy to understand when you hear her story: Unable to find any steady work in their village, called Bandafassi, Ly’s husband had to move to Dakar where he is a fisherman. It is a good 800 kilometers (just under 500 miles) away, so he only comes home for the annual Tabaski holiday, which marks the end of the Ramadan fasting period. He stays for a couple of weeks, handing over the money he has earned to support the family.
But the money rarely lasted a year, forcing Ly to buy much of the food and clothing for her family on credit. When her husband came home, Ly says “He dealt with all my debts, he had to go around the village paying it all back.” It was the source of stress in their relationship.
After she joined the Saving for Change group in her village, staff from an organization called La Lumière used a grant from Oxfam to teach her and the other members how to establish a saving fund, make loans to members, start their individual businesses, pay back the loans, and re-invest her profits.
Ly began selling dried fish, pepper, vinegar, and other spices around her neighborhood. She says she can now cover all her household expenses. And her relationship with her husband has completely changed. “He’s treating me really well,” she says proudly outside her small home, the only one in her neighborhood with new thatch on the roof. “We talk a lot, we talk things over together. Before he just did what he wanted, but now we discuss it first.
“He’s really happy that I take this responsibility. I get a lot of respect from him now, and it makes me really happy.” Best of all, she says, “when he comes back to the house, there is just peace and love between us.”
Her group president Diallo says harnessing the modest savings and energy of the group members has created similar changes for all of them. “Before we had no way to help ourselves, but now with just 100 francs a week we solve a lot of problems, and help our husbands and our children.” Now, instead of sitting around drinking tea and teasing each other, she says “We tease the men. We are handling all the expenses now, not them.”
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Achieving farm resilience requires building up the resilience of vulnerable farmers by developing their skills, expertise and voice while supporting their use of agro-ecological farming practices. Building resilience depends not just on how farmers manage resources, but on how well local, national, and global institutions support farmers. Agro-ecological practices can empower vulnerable small-scale farmers, offering them both greater control over their lives and an accessible means of improving their food security, while decreasing their risk of crop failure or livestock death due to climate shocks. Vulnerable farmers can use agro-ecological practices to build resilient farms and improve their livelihoods, achieving multiple benefits: 1. improved food security; 2. adaptation to a changing climate; and 3. mitigation of climate change.
People-centred resilience consists of five principles which should guide how investments in vulnerable farming communities are designed and implemented. They are:
Following these principles ensures that investments support farmers in their efforts to become food-secure and adapt to climate change. Four institutions central to delivering people-centered resilience are: secure land rights; dynamic farmer associations; responsive agricultural advisory services; and public support for environmental services.
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