Project Detail

Preventing and controlling land degradation and desertification through sustainable production of grafted cashew in semi-arid areas

In southern central coastal provinces in Vietnam, dry land degradation and droughts have resulted in a large area of barren and waste land. Deforestation and inappropriate agricultural practices over a long time together with the arid climate and weather with the prolonged dry season and droughts have caused the problem of land degradation and accelerated the rate of desertification in the region in recent years. One of the key solutions to address this problem is to regreen the barren and waste land with a crop structure, which is suitable for the socio-economic and physical conditions of the arid area. Over the past years, cashew has proved to be suitable to the barren and waste land and to the arid conditions in these provinces thanks to their being easy to grow. However, most of cashew orchards have produced very low yield and generated very low income for farmers due to poor-quality strain and lack of technical and financial investment in cashew development. Farmers continue to

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cut down their cashew trees, resulting in decreasing the acreage of cashew, and enlarging the area of barren and waste land.Khanh Hoa is a South-Central coastal agricultural province which has suitable climate conditions for the growth and development of cashew. In this province, especially in areas such as Cam Ranh and Khanh Son, cashew is considered a key economic commodity.The project VN/04/011 meets the goal of GEF/SGP by contributing to solving the problem of serious land degradation in the project area. It will be carried out in two communes of Cam An Bac and Cam Phuoc Dong of Cam Ranh Township, Khanh Hoa Province. The primary purpose of the project is to control land degradation and desertification in the project area through regreening the waste and barren land with the agroforestry model of grafted cashew and other short-term agricultural crops. Techniques in grafted cashew cultivation, replacing deteriorated and flawed cashew orchards with intensive ones of advanced high-yield varieties to improve the yield of the cashew orchards, will be transferred to farmers. The project gives priority to develop the mechanisms to promote the sustainability and replication of the project model. Key activities include training technical capacity and linking cashew production with marketing and developing financial mechanisms to support community to invest in cashew development, including to mobilize the investment capital of private enterprises in production, processing and marketing of cashew products. One of the key project activities is to compile technical guidelines in cashew production, to distill and share experience with other localities in Khanh Hoa province and South Central coastal region in cashew production and business.The project supports the plan of the Government in cashew development through developing the model which has the potential to be largely replicated in all provinces in the southern central coast where the same problem of land degradation and desertification has occurred.

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Farmers' Association of Cam Ranh Township, Khanh Hoa Provinc

Country:

Viet nam

Area Of Work:

Land Degradation

Operational Phase:

Phase 2

Grant Amount:

US$ 50,000.00

Co-Financing Cash:

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 44,504.67

Project Number:

VN/04/011

Start Date:

2/2005

End Date:

2/2008

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

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Enhancing local people's capacity to grow grafted cashew in a sustainble agro-forestry model

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Project Characteristics and Results

Capacity - Building Component

- 5 conferences with 50 participants per each for representative of all levels of government, local agencies and community households participating in the project - Organized for households to visit investment model of grafted cashew planting with watering in one household in Cam An Bac - 4 technical trainings on planting, grafted tree care for 200 practitioners who were farmers and extension centre collaborators of 8 communes within 5 days per each course - Welcoming delegates of Ninh Phuoc district, Ninh Thuan to visit the project model - Receiving a delegation of Dak Lak to visit the project model - Professionals providing water saving devices visited the project, and gives instructions for operation, maintenance and irrigation equipment - Group of experts and project management team took part of exhibiting at the GEF SGP conference in Ha Nam province - Visit the model of farmer groups linked to business purchasing agricultural products for factory - contest on communication skills for environmental protection for farmers' association in 8 communes of Cam Ranh town and Cam Lam commune

Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods

Cashew was planted for quite long time and popular in the south-central coast. Weather in Cam Ranh town was in line with the growth and development of plants. Provinces and districts consider that the cashew trees were goods in the economic structure of industrial intensive plant and planning and program for development. Planting costs were low (25-50% lower compared to other crops such as rubber, coffee, tea, pepper) consistent with the ability of the poor. By 2005, the province area was over 3000 ha, average yield of 4.2 tons/ha, output of 1.212. Project implementation was in Cam An Bac and Cam Phuoc Dong communes. Project had monitoring and evaluation of environmental performance, the socio-economy of cashew-intensive model (purified cashew, cashew intercropped with beans, acacia, chilli/peppers and amomum trees). The project built links between farmers and private enterprises in the processing and sale of products.

Project sustainability

No scaling up is due no assessment of the economic efficiency of water saving irrigation model while the cost was not appropriate with financial capacity of the people

Notable Community Participation

The project focused on the involvement of communities. During the project development, the project got knowledge, experiences and practices of local people and enterprises and consulted on the most urgent needs and solutions to build the model. To promote the role and responsibility of the community in the process of implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the project, the project do following activities: - to disseminate information of project for community (conference for start-up, review and completion of the project) - facilitate community and enterprises to participate in all activities of the project (demonstration models) - Facilitate community participation in surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of the results and learn to apply the model for their own families - Mobilizing the contribution of the public and enterprises - Focus on community customs

Project Results

Building models of organic cashew planting, water savings:
- Number of households: 10 households (14.7 ha), including 2 households participating the model of irrigation and 8 households joining the model of organic cashew planting
- Develop model of organic cashew planting, water savings: Mr. Dinh?s family built underground water collection pond with a capacity of 31.5 m3 and water tanks, semi-manual irrigation pipeline installation; Mr. Dong?s family built the underground water-collecting pond with a capacity of 20m3 and centralized water tank, semi-manual water supply pipeline installation. The system worked well enough to provide water for the model
- 51 community households 6 communes were expanded by project loan of 120,155,400,d and capital of phase 1 of the project of 136 million. 48.6 ha of grafted cashew was planted in the multiplexed mode of agroforestry and grew steadily, with less pest

- Analysis of pesticide residues, heavy metal residues, microorganisms in seeds and fruits:
+ Pesticide residues in cashew nut, heavy metal residues (lead, mercury) and microorganisms of nut and fruit were reported to be below the threshold and lower than outside the project area, to ensure organic safe cashew
+ Residues of heavy metals (lead, mercury) and water microorganisms in two lakes were reported to be below the threshold
- Analysis of the land:
+ Total dry weight of 1 ha of intensive agroforestry method was 5 tons / ha / year, so the fertility was improved quite much and soil and nutrients was kept better, step by step limit land degradation and desertification
+ Improved soil quality by microorganisms in the soil. Model intercropping with agricultural short crops increased the efficiency of the model
- Purchase of fertilizers, pesticides, plant seeds, agricultural materials to provide to households as schedule
2. Sustainable production development through linking farmers and businessmen in the processing and sale of products
- 01 dialogue between scientists, farmers, managers and businessmen for more than 50 delegates to help farmers to understand that the cashew development was appropriate and the community to discuss the output of products
3. Propaganda on the project and the results of the model in various ways:
+ Dialogue and meeting to respond the World Environment Day at Cam Ranh;
+ TV reportage, reports in the mass media about the project,
+ Communication panel built
Overall, the project built a model of sustainable organic cashew production with the development trend of scientific and technical progress. The project provided knowledge of science and technology on sustainable organic cashew production for local people, raise awareness of environmental protection in the community. Project achieved good environmental efficiency. However, the project had not achieved the economic objectives of the project (lower yield as designed, not meet with the quality standards as required by the project, inconsistence of irrigation model with the financial capacity of the people)

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