Identification of potential agroforestry interventions in Northwest Vietnam

Annual crop cultivation provides the most significant source of food for people living in the mountainous areas of Northwestern Vietnam. This practice has caused serious erosion on sloping land which cover 75% total area of the region. Integrating agroforestry systems into these degraded landscapes has the potential to build more resilient livelihood systems. There are challenges with estimating the actual areas of land cultivated on slopes using existing land use data. This study used LANDSAT 8 satellite imagery, GPS ground truth points and Random forest classification algorithm to identify the probability of annual crops being present on sloping land in three provinces of Dien Bien, Son La and Yen Bai. Suitability maps were then developed for a range of potential agroforestry options. Tree species were selected from existing high value timber and fruit species including local apple (Docynia indica), Shan tea, plum, macadamia, Arabica coffee, teak (Tectona grandis), Acacia mangium, mango and longan (Dimocarpus longan). In addition, local knowledge studies were conducted in six villages of Kinh, Thai and H’mong groups to understand local aspirations and preferences for agroforestry options. The results doubled existing estimates of cropland on steep slopes (above 25o) in comparison with official reported data by Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) in 2015. Our study also suggests that 30% of actual cropland lies within forest designation suggesting forest cover was over estimated by 15%. The biophysical suitability analysis shows that the suitability areas cover approximately 85% of total area of croplands on slopes (above 15o), presenting significant potential for tree integration and expansion of existing systems. The local knowledge survey was conducted to provide more details about local preferences on agroforestry options (See Figure 1). Kinh people preferred fruit trees, Thai group like to have fruit trees or coffee while H’mong people want to have son tra and shan tea. The study identified challenges for adopting agroforestry varies among those three ethnic groups due to their location of origin, accessibility to market, and different cultivation tradition. This also contributes to increase the awareness of potential agroforestry interventions in the region and supports government policies on land use planning as well as smallholder farmers’ cultivation options. The findings of this study give insights into issues and variables to be considered at the micro level implementation of policies or programs. This study suggests that farmers’ specific social circumstances linked with their culture influence their preferences for agroforestry intervention and ignoring these elements is likely to adversely affect adoption.

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