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Cassava plants grow well on gray land in Phu Cat district. Photo H.X |
“Developing a policy for sustainable cassava production in Binh Dinh province” is one of projects implemented in the province by the Global Environment Facility/ Small Grants Programme (GEF/SGP). After being carried out for one year, it has showed initial results.
About the project
The project has been implemented since the fourth quarter last year with the capital of 1.4 billion VND of which GEF/SGP finances more than 800 million VND and the province contributes the rest.
Binh Dinh province with a large area of gray land(AC: Acrisols), which account for 70.7% of the total land area is quite suitable for a number of industrial plants including cassava.
Cassava area of Binh Dinh planned by the province was 10 thousand ha in 2010, but in 2007, it was 13 thousand ha with the capacity of 19 tons / ha. In 2008, the area of cassava will be kept stable at about 12.5 thousand ha, capacity of 21 tons / ha, yield 260 thousand tons, providing enough materials for starch producers.
To solve the problem of land degradation and wild land in mountainous areas and to increase economic efficiency, improve living standards, reduce status of land degradation by planting cassava cultivation, cassava should be sustainably planted.
Cassava plant requires little investment, simple technique of planting and care, allows active harvesting and planting on slopes of over 30 degrees and in dry regions, therefore, many farmers destroy sugar-cane, even forests without authority for cassava cultivation. However, cassava is making land poor quickly leading to the risk of land degradation.
The project aims to build policies for supporting sustainable development of cassava to contribute to limiting land degradation and wild land, increasing productivity, quality and increasing income for communities on poor gray land in Binh Dinh.
Farmers actively carry out the project
Some districts of Phu My and Phu Cat mainly have silver gray land. The project was implemented in communes of Cat Hiep and Cat Lam.
It has built models of sustainable cassava cultivation on silver gray land through cassava intensive farming to improve the productivity and cassava sub-products on the unit of ha cultivation and mixed farming techniques between cassava plants and covering bean plants.
GEF/SGP-financed projects are based on the community. Farmers will join to protect the environment and develop sustainable livelihoods.
“Farmers will plays the main role in cassava production by sharing experiences, basing on available model,” said Chairman of the Gardeners’ Association of Binh Dinh Tong Nhue. “Some initially hesitated about the project, but they then join to implement the project when seeing its success.”
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