Farmer-managed trials and extension of rural aquaculture in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

Abstract

AbstractThe WES (West-East-South) Aquaculture Project of Can Tho University had the ultimate objective of assisting rural households in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam to improve and diversify production, nutrition and income sources through integration of aquaculture practices into their farming systems. The final stage of the project comprised different activities involving aquaculture extension for the development of aquaculture in the rural areas of the Delta. Several studies in this region have suggested that relatively small incremental changes to existing farming systems should be made, rather than attempting to introduce alien technologies which usually fail. Small-scale farmers were selected as the target group. The basic institutional infrastructure for extension in the region was available; but the efficiency of the national extension service was low due to limited funds, facilities and knowledge. The WES-Aquaculture Project applied a step by step approach during the implementation of the extension component, which included surveys of farming system and existing extension activities, training courses for both extension officers and farmers, and in the final stage farmer-managed on-farm trials. The procedure for farmer-managed trials was technical assistance through farm visits, training programmes, field school workshops and study tours, and also interest-free credit. The results from 25 farmer-managed trials demonstrated significant improvement of the productivity of various farming systems. The fish yield in rice-cum-fish systems increased from an average of 429 to 801 kg/ha-1/crop-1 (average increase 2.1 times) while the fish yield in pig-cum-fish systems increased from 3860 to 7592 kg/ha-1/crop-1 (average increase 2.6 times). The success of the farmer-managed trials indicates the potential for rural aquaculture in the Mekong Delta through appropriate extension activities.