LookAtVietnam – Le Thi Hoa, an ethnic Dao Tien woman from northern midland Phu Tho province, beamed with pride while showing off her brocade products,

Ethnic Bana people in central Binh Dinh province receive cattle provided by the Viet Nam-France Friendship Association. The work is an example of efforts to help people escape poverty by providing practical support.

“But those times have gone,” said Hoa. “Several years ago we were taught about how to diversify our income. We planted subsidiary crops along with the usual rice crops and we were taught to weave brocade, which brought in some money when there’s no work to be done on the farm.”

“We also received a loan of VND10 million (US$550) from the local Social Policy Bank to breed pigs and poultry. We recently repaid the loan and have started to make a profit from the breeding.”

Hoa has managed to escape poverty, but 17 per cent of the country’s population live below the poverty line. However, Hoa’s experiences may prove valuable for others who are still struggling to get by.

Hoa was one of nearly a thousand participants at the Fourth End Hunger Free Campaign, launched in Ha Noi on Friday to mark World Food Day as well as Viet Nam’s Day for the Poor.

The campaign was launched by ActionAid Viet Nam and the Civil Society for Inclusion in Food Security and Poverty Elimination Network (CIFPEN). With the theme of “Investment in Sustainable Agriculture and Protection of Small-holder Farmers,” this year’s campaign specifically focuses on increasing public awareness on sustainable agriculture and food security and promoting initiatives in developing resources serving agriculture.

Secretary General of the United Nation Ban Ki-moon, in his message on World Food Day, said a strategy to provide safety nets and assistance for small-holder farmers was required.

The UN head also urged for more efforts on supporting longer-term agricultural productivity and resilience, social protection schemes, market access and fair trade.

La Van Ly, head of the Department for Co-operative and Rural Development under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that while the nation had launched many projects to tackle poverty and managed to reduce the poverty rate by 2 to 2.5 per cent annually, Viet Nam still had a high poverty rate.

“It ranks 10th on the list of nations with the highest poverty rate,” he said.

Ly said that in addition to building a model of sustainable agriculture for small-holder farmers, it was also necessary to pay more attention to increasing people’s ability to cope with climate change and natural disasters.

However, there were always obstacles to getting poor farmers who operated on a small scale to take part in sustainable cultivation due to a shortage of land, capital and know-how, as well as a reluctance by poor farmers to risk changing their farming methods.

“We don’t just want to escape poverty, we also want to become wealthy,” said Nguyen Minh Tan, a Muong ethnic man from Su Ngoi commune in northern mountainous Hoa Binh province’s Hoa Binh City.

“We don’t really mind losing our land for industrialisation and urbanisation as long as we have new jobs.

“Modernisation has brought us electricity and clean water,” he added.

Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation Jacques Diouf noted that financial resources were not the only factors contributing to successful poverty alleviation.

“Beyond the factors that exacerbate the current crisis, there is a whole series of fundamental problems that need to be resolved,” said Diouf.

“In particular, how aid is channelled and how to make it reach small-holder farmers effectively, as well as how to reform the world food security governance system for more coherence in the action of governments and development partners.

“We must also work on the share of national budgets dedicated to agriculture and private sector investment,” he stressed.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News