The World Agroforestry Centre in Vietnam just completed a survey in the middle of January to the mountainous northwestern province of Yen Bai to understand how upland farmers cope with natural hazards.

Fish raised in rice fields, so-called “rice-fish cultivation” has the potential to be integrated with agroforestry systems and be rewarded for environmental services. While ICRAF talks about multifunctional landscapes the work in Vietnam has largely concentrated on the sloping land. Now we see that rice-fish connects the paddy fields and the surrounding sloping land in very interesting ways.

The remark was made by Elisabeth Simelton – a senior scientist working for the Centre in Hanoi early March. This is part of the findings from an in-depth study that Simelton has conducted over the past two years in To Dooc and Ha Vi districts in the northern mountainous province of Bac Kan. To cross-check her findings, the ICRAF-team interviewed over 200 farmers in the province, of whom 64 raised rice-fish while the remainder had not adopted the practice. The in-depth survey showed that farmers rated “rice-fish” as having higher economic and environmental values than those who did not put fish in the rice fiels. The survey confirmed that rice-fish farmers were more food secure, and that they were more willing to invest by themselves in tree plantation.

“Unfortunately we cannot say what is cause-and-effect between rice fish and household food security”, said Elisabeth. “Although, the economic and environmental flows between the paddy fields or the upland fields are clear, scientists and policymakers need to understand better what motivates farmers to add environmental functions in their landscapes. In rice-fish cultivation, the fish eats insects and weeds and provides natural fertilser, so that the need for synthetic chemicals is kept at minimum compared to paddy rice without fish. What makes me curious is: why are rice-fish farmers are prepared to do largely organic agriculture as well as putting more trees on their farms without rewards or payments, while those without rice-fish are not?, said Elisabeth. Household food security seems to hold part of the answer.

The post-doc study, funded by Swedish FORMAS, synthesizes ICRAF Vietnam’s research on payment for environmental services in Bac Kan, which was done through the projects Rewards for, Use of, and Shared Investment in, Pro-poor Environmental Services (RUPES) and Reducing Emissions from All Land Uses (REALU). The study shows that farmers consciously balance short-term and longer-term economic returns. Farmers rated natural and plantation forests high in terms of environmental values, but since exploitation from natural forests is prohibited and rewards for forest protection are very low, they have little economic value to them. “Both villages rated rice-fish as having the highest economic value,” said Elisabeth.

The findings of the study has been shared with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) of Bac Kan and the Pro-Poor Partnerships for Agroforestry Development (3PAD), who have takengreat interest in the study and developed an independent proposal on developing rice- fish models. With funding from Bac Kan province the rice-fish models will be implemented this year. This contributes to the Centre's work to recommend policies for improving the livelihoods of local people through multifunctional landuses.

Payment for environmental services (PES) is considered an opportunity for people to increase their incomes and have sustainable livelihoods. This can be achieved through quantifying the environmental values of forest to society (water, carbon sequestration, landscape beauty, etc) into monetary values so that poor people who work in or near forests will receive adequate payments for their management and protection efforts.

PES has been piloted in many countries around the world, and in Vietnam, the concept has been established and constantly studied by ICRAF Vietnam since 2002.

Bac Kan province was chosen as a site for PES research for many reasons, including its high forest cover (55%), limited agricultural land area compared to forest land, high poverty levels poverty and vast potential areas for reforestation. A main difference is that in Vietnam only forest environmental services are covered, while the rice-fish cultivation provides an excellent example of agricultural practices that produce clean water.