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Under the socialist system of collectivized agriculture, Viet Nam was a nation of chronic food shortages. Now, thanks to the dramatic doi moi economic reforms, Viet Nam has transformed itself into one of the world's leading exporters of rice, coffee, rubber, tea, and other agricultural products. This remarkable economic success has been concentrated in the lowland "rice bowl" regions, where farmers had the means to take advantage of the new doi moi policies. But in the northern mountains, poverty levels remain high and environmental degradation threatens the continued livelihoods of farmers. This volume presents a series of monographic and analytical studies vital to understanding the heterogeneity and potential of the mountains of northern Viet Nam. The Mountain Agrarian Systems Program (SAM) has used an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the needs and possibilities of farmers in the mountainous province of Bac Kan. The multiple-scale analysis showed that we need to create not only a spirit of "thinking globally and acting locally", but just as importantly, a spirit of "thinking locally and acting globally". The research provides a foundation for development practitioners and policy makers to identify the successes and failures of past policies and projects, and to target the groups most in need of development assistance today.

Animal husbandry is a component of almost all of the highly diverse production systems of the mountainous province of Bac Kan in northern Viet Nam. Some households only keep buffaloes for animal traction in lowland ricefields, whereas other households rely heavily upon income from cow and buffalo raising. Since decollectivization at the end of the 1980s, population in Bac Kan has grown substantially and the institutional and environmental contexts of agricultural production have changed dramatically, but animal husbandry systems have remained unchanged. Longstanding free-grazing practices are harmful to the natural resource base and engender conflicts among and within villages. This chapter describes an exhaustive study of 183 households in two villages in Ngoc Phai Commune that characterized household livestock strategies. The data from surveys on livestock practices were joined with a database on cropping systems and farm resource base. A typology was then developed, dividing farm households into ten types according to their crop-livestock strategies. The results are instructive in identifying household types as potential targets for organizational and technical innovations for improving croplivestock management. Innovations are proposed for systems in which animal husbandry activities complement crop production, rather than competing with it.