- The Project Management Board formulates a revolving loan programme suitable to the project models (criteria on electing borrowing households, rights and duties of the Management Board and the borrowing households, loan duration, loan capital, interest rates ...) and asks GEF SGP financial managers and the participating communities to elect borrowing households on the basis of criteria formulated by the Project Management Board;
- The Project applies the revolving loan programme to households developing the banana and mandarin trees on their own land. Upon the completion of the project, the loans will be reclaimed and turned over for the building and enlargement of the models;
- The project loans will be granted in kind to the borrowing households to set up the model during 3 years, including: (i) Seedlings; (ii) Fertilizer; (iii) Pesticides and insecticides
- The loans will be managed by the community with simplified and effective loan formalities at interest rates similar to those regulated by the Bank for the Poor.
- The agricultural sector has devised a plan to exploit biodiversity resources, the land potential and the customs and experience of local communities to develop fruit trees and produce agro-products.
- The science and technology sector of Ha Nam province has defined the orientation for a project of building a cultivation area of clean fruits in the province on the basis of inheriting the results of recovering the genetics resources and building the model of preserving the genetics of specialty fruit trees obtained through Project VN/02/002, of which the results were summarized and evaluated in September 2005.
Notable Community Participation
- The project gives priority to community participation. During the project design phase, knowledge and traditions of local people were studied and taken into consideration in project design. The local people were in consultations about the project issues and solutions at community meetings and through surveys/interviews.
In order to promote the role and responsibilities and to ensure community ownership, during the project implementation and M&E, the project will:
- Provide the community with full information on the project. Representatives from the community will be given the opportunities to attend project opening, mid term and final meetings, and project workshops.
- Give community opportunities to participate in all project activities.
- The project team will develop the revolving loan mechanism to assist the participating community in purchasing the materials for the project model building. The community select among themselves the participating community based on the selection criteria developed by the project team. The community manage the revolving loan programme.
- The community is given opportunities in project monitoring and evaluation.
- Mobilising the community to invest their labor and resources in model building.
- The project take into consideration the community needs and cultivation techniques when developing training materials.
- The community ownership, benefit and participation are cornerstone in project implementation and M&E.
Policy Influence
- The project has helped attract the attention and concern of the authorities and the agricultural sector of Ha Nam province on local biodiversity products such as: Dai Hoang king banana, a long-known traditional specialty fruit of Ly Nhan district of Ha Nam province, much liked by consumers. The establishment of the trademark for this product has been included in the plan, beginning with the preliminary stage of setting up the geographical indicator.
- The establishment of a production area of clean fruits has also been mentioned 2007 by the provincial science and technology sector in the science action plan of and in the Resolution of 2005 on developing fruit trees by the District People?s Council.
- The results obtained from the implementation of the project of preserving local biodiversity resources have been officially stated in the Resolution by the District People?s Council of Lý Nhan.
- The determination of the government authorities and the provincial science and technology sector stated in the plan for enlarging the scope of producing specialty fruit trees recovered and developed by the project is the insurance of the value of the project results, which does not only help converse biodiversity but also boost up local socio-economic development.
- The capital from the project will be revolved with the amount of farming households benefiting from the project increasing through production.
Policy Impact
- The results of restoring the genetic resources of specialty fruits trees will help the government plan and work out policies on conserving biodiversity linked to developing local agricultural production. Producing local specialty fruit trees will be one of the sectors to receive the government?s investments in personnel and finance for producing commodity to cater for the ever-increasing consumption needs.
- The participation of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hà Nam province will help integrate the project activities in a suitable way into the provincial policies on agricultural management. On its part, the project will contribute to clarifying the value of biodiversity-economy of the genetic resources of specialty fruit trees and the feasibility of developing the potential of these resources. All this will help attract the attention of all related government levels to conserving local agrobiodiversity.
- Specialty fruits trees are closely related to cultural traditions of the local community (festivals and rituals: Mid-autumn festival, the Lunar Tet, commemoration days, death anniversaries, longevity celebrations...; literature: fruit trees mentioned in Nam Cao?s works; arts: fruit trees mentioned in cheo songs of Hà Nam); after the project completion, the conservation of the 3 species of specialty fruit trees will be mentioned with fuller and more proper attention in the local communal code.
Gender Focus
- Women are given prioroties in the project capacity building activities and revolving loan programme.
- Women take part in most activities of the project model building, including making seedlings, planting, caring, harvesting, and selling products.
Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment
1. One of the key objectives of the project is to enhance awareness and understanding of the project stakeholders on the following issues.
- global environmental issues such as biodiversity conservation, climate change, land degradation and desertification
- linkage between poverty and enviornemntal degradation
- enviornemntal protection and sustainable development
- millenium development goals (MDGs)
2. The project has awareness raising activities on global enviornmental issues, focusing on the project issue of agro biodiversity conservation.
- Oragnising training workshops, dialogues, community contests on the issue of agro biodiversity conservation
- Mainstreaming the project issue in the farmers? association activities and programmes
- Using public media when possible
- Attending in exchange visits, workshops and environmental communication activities organised by GEF SGP where GEF issues are discussed.
Capacity - Building Component
Capacity building activities
The project capacity building activities include the followings.
- Training workshops in
- Community meetings and workshops for assessment on project model building and experience sharing in conservation of local agro biodiversity, including banana and mandarin
- Study tours/exchange visits to learn from other localities in conservation of local agro biodiversity, including banana and mandarin
- The community is assisted in planning their production and designing the VAC model in lowlands (Banana-Fish-Pig; Persimmon-Fish-Pig; Mandarin-Mulberry-Pig), making maximal use of the water surface in ponds and lakes to store water during the dry season and breed fish for additional income ? This aims at creating an appropriate ecology in the overall combination between cultivation and husbandry); applying technical measures in planting, caring, controlling diseases, controlling natural disasters, gales, storms and fallen trees in the household gardens.
- Nurseries: designing, building and promoting the activities of nurseries:
* The nursery of Dai Hoang king banana and Nhan Hau persimmon was set up at Dai Hoang hamlet of Hoa Hau commune (within the premises of the Memorial House for writer Nam Cao on an area of 100m2). Here the 200 king banana trees (chuoi ngu mit) and 12 true-bred persimmon trees (geneticrated from roots) were selected and planted to preserve the genetics of high quality, serving as seedling geneticration for future needs. King banana trees started to yield fruit in May 2004.
* The 700m2 nursery of fragrant mandarin was set up at Ta Ha hamlet of Van Ly commune in a 63m2 house surrounded by insect nets located. The genetics of mandarin trees were recovered by cell culture to obtain clean trees (S0 diseases) and stored here. Twenty S1 trees were bred to supply graft nodes to geneticration sessions to be provided to household gardens participating in model building.
The setting up of such nurseries ensure the preservation of the seedlings; besides, the nurseries provide a place to apply science and technology in situ, helping the producers acquire knowledge and practice necessary techniques for production in the model (grafting mandarin, controlling diseases and insects, creating the canopy...)
- In addition to the project capacity building activities, the project team members attend exchange visits, training workshops on project design and implementation, M&E as well as themtaic workshops for sharing experience and lessons learned organised by GEF SGP.
- In addition to the project capacity building activities, key community members attend exchange visits, themtaic workshops for sharing experience and lessons learned organised by GEF SGP.
- Training participants are project participating farmers, and commune key farmers and extension workers of participating commune.
Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods
Emphasis on sustainable livelihoods
- Local fruit trees are one of the main income of the local people.
- Once recovered and developed , the genetic resources of fruit trees will help form a reasonable plant structure, serving the implementation of the policy on transforming the plant structure and increasing the economic value of each cultivation area..
- The development of fruit trees will contribute to diversifying agricultural production, increasing the amount of categories of valuable agro-products to cater for the needs of the markets, hence boosting up the socio-economic development of the locality.
The enlargement of planting king banana trees has so far actively carried out by the people in the communes of Hoa Hau and Tien Thang (next to Hoa Hau commune is the land with similar features of being on the same stretch along Chau river): filling up more ponds, switching from planting low value trees. King bananas have been consumed more and more at increasing prices (reaching an average of VND 200,000/bunch, VND 300,000 at peak times by the time before the Tet holidays of 2007), bringing about considerable income to the farmers.
A few households in Van Ly commune have been able to sell products from the trees supplied by the project, (fragrant mandarin, and oranges) at higher prices than other fruits. There have been mandarin trees yielding up to 20kg of fruit.
All these results have consolidated the community?s trust in developing specialty fruit trees and preserving the genetic resources of local precious trees.
Linkages gef projects
The project has performed connected activities with major GEF project (Project VIE 01 G35 presided over by the Institute of Agricultural Genetictics):
- Attendance to professional conferences;
- Exchange with genetictic materials (graft nodes and persimmon roots for geneticration);
- Reference to methods, documents, and results in each stage of Project VIE 01 G35 to be applied to the reality of Project VN/02/002.
Project sustainability
The project will be sustainable thanks to the followings.
- Enhanced awareness and understanding and capacity of the local authorities and communities on enviornmental issues in general and agro biodiversity conservation
- The project models demonstrate the environmental and economic benefit of agro biodiversity conservation
- The revolving programme was well managed with 100% repayment rate and will contibue to assist the local communities who want to grow banana and mandarin.
- The local communities benefit from the project training activities and know how to cultivate banana and mandarin. This together with the economic benefit of the model will ensure that the communities will expand to grow banana and mandarin in their areas.
- After Project VN/02/002, the models of household gardens will continue to be consolidated and perfected to start the harvest stage by late 2007.
- The contents of preserving and developing the genetic resources will be enlarged in the form of plantation production and concentrated production for king banana and fragrant mandarin.
Project Results
1. Impact on the awareness of the governments and communities of various levels:
The three species of specialty fruit trees have so far been planted in home gardens by the residents of Ly Nhan. Golden days did come for Van Ly fragrant mandarin (the 1960s-70s) and for Dai Hoang king banana and Nhan Hau persimmon (some years before 1954). For 20-30 years, as the fragrant mandarin has suffered degradation mandarin from undersize, the local people have gradually cut down the trees and replaced them with other kinds of fruit trees (plums, sapodilla, longan, litchi, mango...). Meanwhile, as king banana is mistakenly thought to originate from Nam dinh, the governments and communities of every level tend to pay little attention to this species and leave it to the local people?s discretion. With the arrival of the project together with thorough information on biodiversity and on the economic value of this specialty fruit and through the contest on selecting and defining the origin Dai Hoang king banana held in Ly Nhan district, Ha Nam province, there have been changes in the awareness of the community as well as the recognition of the district government. Hence, the people became eager in reforming their gardens and enlarged the area of planting king banana and fragrant mandarin. These plants have then become the concern in the business of each family participating the project as well as of the surrounding communities. The governments of the district and province have begun to recognize and include the preservation and development of these genetic resources in the resolution for local agricultural development. The said concern found in the policies and investments of personnel and finance by the government in preserving and developing the genetic resources of the mentioned fruit trees serves as a basis for the program of producing specialty fruits of Ly Nhan district and Ha Nam province.
2. The establishment of the model of household gardens for preserving and developing the genetic resources of specialty fruit trees has helped recover in due time the genetics of Van Ly mandarin tree which was then almost extinct, recover the famous name of Dai Hoang king banana, foster Nhan Hau pure-bred persimmon trees to replace old and stunted ones. All these have helped in properly conserving agrobiodiversity and preventing the gradual loss of a precious natural resource in the locality. This is the very basis for developing the production of commodity fruit trees ? a sector of great potential in Ha Nam.
3. A duration of 3 years for fruit trees would not ensure a stable production for the growers. Yet, the model of household gardens has started to bring about additional income, especially in the area with planted king banana (most of the banana gardens earned an income of more than VND 70 million/ha/year), and a number of mandarin gardens have begun to yield fruits of the same good quality as those from original seedling trees, with some yielding over 20kg. This project result has indeed help increase the producers? income.
4. During the implementation of the project, GEF SGP a link was formed among the governments, the professional staff, and the producers, helping creating a suitable and effective style in scientific-technological transfer to the farmers. The interrelationship between science-technology and traditional experience has also been the focus of attention, helping boosting the efficiency of the model-building activities.
5. Propagation and communication have also play their active role in the efficiency of the project. Lessons of experience have been exchanged, the project contents and efficiency widely propagated. On the reverse, public opinion has also has its impact by encouraging the participating communities to strengthen their beliefs in the project and to become more active in the activities in order to fulfill the objectives protracted after the project.
