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In the mountain areas of Northern Vietnam, the past decade was marked by rapid changes in agricultural production systems. Under the new land policies, some farmers had no other choice than to return to the traditional slash and burn cropping systems. Now, however, land allocation to individuals prevents farmers from shifting cultivation to newly cleared land, which is necessary to regenerate soil fertility, and thus for slash and burn practices to remain sustainable. As a consequence, in some villages there is an increasing risk of land degradation. As livestock feeding relies mainly on natural resources, land degradation results in chronic shortages of forage and more generally to a crisis in traditional production systems. To tackle these issues, the Mountain Agrarian Systems Program has designed alternative cropping systems based on direct seeding under a cover crop. Beside their widely recognized role in the conservation of soil and natural resources, these innovative techniques also provide good forage for the farm animals. However, their diffusion implies a profound reorganization of the crop-livestock systems at complementary scales from field, farm, and up to the village community. Accompanying such changes requires that all partners jointly develop communication procedures based on a common knowledge base. In this paper we discuss the spatial compartment model, a graphic discussion and simulation tool used to represent a village in a way that allows both researchers and local stakeholders to understand and visualize their individual and collective situations. We used the model to test a set of cropping innovations through a participatory simulation with local farmers. The farmers were very interested in the new techniques, and some began to test them on their own land. The spatial compartment model proved to be an effective communication tool between scientists and local stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mountain areas of northern Vietnam, extensive husbandry of large-ruminants is limited by the lack of natural forage. Since 2000, the Mountain Agrarian System Program has been concerned with this issue and has evaluated technical alternatives aimed at sustainable integration of crop-livestock systems. One alternative consists of feeding systems for large-ruminants based on cropping systems with plant cover. Diffusion of information about the new system is supported by a set of interactive communication tools for use between farmers and researchers. A participatory simulation method was developed that combines a compartmental model of the village territory with five technical innovations. Farmers simulate the adoption of the innovations they choose among food-forage cropping systems in rotation or in association, and urea-treated straw. They evaluate the quantity of forage that can be grown for their herd using the chosen set of techniques. Simulations revealed farmers' constraints and objectives in adopting sustainable cropping systems on the hillsides while maintaining a small animal husbandry system. The results obtained by each farmer provide a useful basis for discussion about the implementation of innovation. This participatory simulation method could be more widely used to facilitate the diffusion of innovations such as integrating livestock feeding systems with conservation cropping practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avian influenza outbreaks have been occurring on smallholder poultry farms in Asia for two decades. Farmer responses to these outbreaks can slow down or accelerate virus transmission. We used a longitudinal survey of 53 small-scale chicken farms in southern Vietnam to investigate the impact of outbreaks with disease-induced mortality on harvest rate, vaccination, and disinfection behaviors. We found that in small broiler flocks (≤16 birds/flock) the estimated probability of harvest was 56% higher when an outbreak occurred, and 214% higher if an outbreak with sudden deaths occurred in the same month. Vaccination and disinfection were strongly and positively correlated with the number of birds. Small-scale farmers - the overwhelming majority of poultry producers in low-income countries - tend to rely on rapid sale of birds to mitigate losses from diseases. As depopulated birds are sent to markets or trading networks, this reactive behavior has the potential to enhance onward transmission., Competing Interests: AD, NT, HX, BN, PT, HL, MB No competing interests declared, (© 2020, Delabouglise et al.)