PROJECT ASSESSMENTS - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 182

VEGSYS *
Sustainable technologies for pest, disease and soil fertility management in
smallholder vegetable production in China and Vietnam
A) Project setting
1) What was the background and motivation of the project?
How the idea for the proposal developed:
In the field site of the EroChinut project (http://www.erochinut.alterra.nl/) many of
the farmers approached the researchers with questions about vegetables. They
complained about all their problems in cultivation, marketing and lack of any
extension. After checking the status of vegetable research and extension in Sichuan
Province this confirmed what the farmers were complaining about. In addition the
observed high doses of agro-chemicals and wide use of forbidden products, made it
even more important to develop a project which would deal with this. As LEI was
also involved in peri-urban project in Vietnam (funded by an earlier phase of the
LNV IC programme) with similar problems, it was decided to submit a proposal to
deal with these problems in the two countries. With almost 18 million hectares of
harvested vegetable area per year in China and 600,000 hectares in Vietnam it was
clear that there is a large need for applied research and extension in the horticulture
sector.
As phrased in project proposal:
In many areas of Asia, smallholder farmers are increasingly investing their limited
resources in vegetable cultivation as cash crops as they see this as the most promising
income generating activity. Vegetable farming is often combined with other market-
oriented activities, such as pig raising and fruit trees. However, farmers face problems
of poor seeds, increasing crop damage by pests and diseases, and low fertilizer effi-
ciency. More and more agrochemical inputs are used to overcome these problems
(fertilizers and synthetic pesticides), with increasing environmental pressure on the
local environment. A further problem is the considerable fluctuation in market prices
for vegetables from one season to the next. The combination of low fertilizer efficiency
and high use of synthetic pesticides means that this activity is rapidly becoming
environmentally unsustainable. The high requirements for agrochemical inputs in
combination with fluctuating market prices make this new activity economically
unsustainable.
* Questionnaire received 2006; Project leader S. Van Wijk (Alterra)