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IDE Vietnam’s CARDEP Program:
Enabling Prosperity for Poor Families
in Upland Areas of Central Vietnam
IDE is applying the CARDEP approach to enable prosperity
for families in the poor upland areas of central Vietnam, which have been left
behind by Vietnam’s rapid economic growth. IDE has targeted the upland areas
of Thua Thien Hue, Quang Tri, and Quang Nam provinces, where 60% of the
population belongs to an ethnic minority group.
They are among the country’s poorest areas: 43% of families in the
upland areas of the three provinces are below the poverty line and malnourished.
Families in upland areas of central Vietnam are trapped
in the vicious circle of subsistence, investing little in their farms and
yielding insufficient rice and income to meet household food needs. Families
produce enough rice for an average of only six months of consumption, and must
spend US $65-$120 each year to purchase the remaining rice they need.
As its entry point to building the local private sector to enable small farmers to invest their way out of poverty, IDE is focusing on household food security through rice intensification.
This program will promote a proven set of rice
intensification strategies that will enable participating families to intensify
rice production until yields meet household consumption needs. Key strategies
include deep placement of compressed fertilizer, the core of IDE’s ongoing rice
intensification program.
With food needs met, families can invest cash and labor
in their farms to progressively increase their incomes. Families in the program
area have access to a local market in which to sell horticulture, fish, and
animal products, and will be able to sell some products to provincial city
markets. Based on its ongoing drip irrigation project in the program
area, assessments of fish farming and animal production, and participatory
meetings with farmers, IDE has identified several very promising, simple
opportunities to dramatically increase yields and incomes from horticulture,
fish, and animal production.
