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SFB 564: D3.1 - Micro-economic and regional assessment of sustainability of mountain farming systems in Northern Thailand and Northern Vietnam
Project
Project code: DFG SFB 564: D3.1
Contract period: 01.07.2000
- 30.06.2003
Purpose of research: Applied research
High and increasing population pressure in the mountainous regions of northern Thailand and Vietnam has resulted in land use practices that induce heavy soil erosion and degradation of soil and water resources. These land use practices are part of a complex farming system where some long-established ethnic groups, like the Black Thai in Vietnam and the Karen in Thailand, combine irrigated rice fields in the mountain valleys and adjoining terraces with various upland crops under rotational cultivation in the lower parts of the uplands. Other ethnic groups such as the Dao and H’mong in Vietnam and the Lahu, Akha and H’mong in Thailand, who more recently migrated to these areas, cultivate the higher altitudes in a diversified combination of swidden fallow systems and permanent tree crops. Different types of animal husbandry with varying intensity add to the complexity of the farming systems. Some households members may also be engaged in agricultural processing and in off-farm activities. Overlaying this typical structure are large variations according to agro-ecological conditions and economic and institutional settings.
This subproject aims at characterising and modelling these farming systems with their interlinkages, representing typical ecological, ethnic, social and institutional / infrastructural situations. On this basis, it will evaluate the economics of labour use in crops and animal production, resource conservation measures and off-farm activities. This will be the basis for analysing in an interdisciplinary approach the competitiveness of fruit tree production (D1) with improved irrigation (B1) and introduced cover crops (C1) in Thailand and resource conservation measures tested in B3 and improved animal production activities (D2), both in Vietnam. Constraints and requirements for making improved agricultural practices economically viable will be identified. This will provide important feedback to these subprojects to possibly extend or modify research direction, particularly for the next phases of the research program.
The subproject will have two components, one carrying out the work in the Northern Thailand project region, the other in Northern Vietnam. The villages and farm households to be selected will include in Thailand those, where the subprojects D1, B1 and C1 are located, and in Vietnam those where B3 and D2 are located. The Thailand component can build on previous research work in Northern Thailand carried out by various Thai researchers (funded under the DAAD-PhD and other programs); it will focus on updating and complementing the earlier work. The Vietnam component will focus on the Son La and Bac Kan provinces and in a similar way as in Thailand complement earlier and ongoing research carried out in the Son La province (see A. Luibrand, own research).
The subproject intends to use an innovative approach to address the aggregation problem. It plans to use digitised maps and remote sensing data about the conditions of natural resources (area of forest, pasture land, degraded land, cultivated area, etc.) for the region and upscale the findings of individual farming systems about land use and erosion to watershed or regional level within a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) that will be developed to an Environmental Information System (EIS) in cooperation with the subprojects in project areas B and C (first in Thailand and in later phases in Vietnam). It is expected that relatively accurate projections about land use and resource degradation as well as the impact of watershed-wide application of resource conservation measures at the watershed /regional level can be obtained.
Section overview
Subjects
- Agroeconomics
