Crop Diversification in the Asia-Pacific region - United Nations in ...

development of new crop varieties and animal races, as well as biotechnology in agriculture,are being funded by the national government.Out of 22 agriculture research institutes, there are 15 institutes working directly oncrops, 5 institutes serving crop production, irrigation and water management, planning andprojecting, and policy formulation. They have responsibilities in studying and applyingbiotechnology, geographic information systems, informatics for planning crop production,breeding new crop varieties, post-harvest and processing, formulating policies for thegovernment, and suggesting development strategies under varying conditions. The mandateof agricultural research institutes is to experiment and explore ways of improvingtechnology for better effectiveness.Agricultural extension systems are organized for villages, districts and provinces bythe central government and are coordinated by the Department of Agricultural Extension.There are provincial extension centres for each province, and extension agencies orextension group at district or village level. Besides extension agencies, there are otherextension organizations or activities of people’s associations, companies, institutes anduniversities. All of them pay more attention to crop production.Crop diversification will be given due attention, because of the requirement ofimproving consumption patterns, as well as for the benefit of all farmers who compriseapproximately 80 percent of the population. Total calories from food of farmers and thepoor are based on rice by 80 percent. This dependence should be gradually decreased to 60percent, replaced by edible oil, vitamins, food rich in protein such as soybean, sesame, fruits,vegetables, peanuts, meat and fish. In terms of trade, total income from different kinds ofcrop products will be higher and more stable in local as well as in international markets.Finally, strategies for crop diversification have been developed and are available forimplementation.6. COUNTRY STRATEGY FOR CROP DIVERSIFICATIONIn the past, when Viet Nam had to import food to meet the need for food security,food production had to be developed at any price, including clearing forest to plant cassava,upland rice, corn etc., on sloping land, resulting in severe erosion. Nowadays, the directionfor agricultural development following the current strategy is to develop all aspects ofagriculture based on national food security within the limits of resource availability. Thestrategy is also geared to increase within the short-term all sources of food and vegetables, inorder to improve quality of consumption patterns and to decrease malnutrition. It is alsoplanned to effectively change the structure of agriculture and the rural economy based on astable food supply with emphasis on rice production (National Political Publishing House,Hanoi, 1996). Some of the salient policies of this proclamation are given below.• The State has declared a policy on marketing economics from the end of the 1980’s,which enables food and agro-products to be freely circulated between regions in thewhole country, and even in the international markets. Farmers and companies are free tochoose markets and consumers to derive the best benefits. Such an approach haspromoted agricultural development, including a boost for crop diversification, whichhas helped to provide many commodities to consumers.153