Evaluation multi-échelle des trajectoires de développement de l’élevage au Vietnam – REVALTER

The REVALTER project aims at promoting a new vision of livestock development in Vietnam, a country faced with extremely rapid intensification and industrialization of the sector. In order to respond to the challenges associated to this livestock transition, the project will review the past and current changes and build some foresight scenarios for the future. The project will assess in particular the changes that affect environmental, economic and social relationships between livestock breeding, agriculture and rural territories.

The project will conduct a systemic approach of livestock-ecosystems relationships that will be documented at 3 levels (multi-scale analysis): the farm level, the territorial level, and the value chain level. Four specific objectives will be followed: (i) to review the ongoing processes of change related to livestock transformation; (ii) to understand governance mechanisms related to these changes; (iii) to assess and compare sustainable indicators of livestock systems; (iv) to build prospective scenarios in partnership with policy deciders.

Field work will focus on 3 selected zones located in the provinces of Dong Nai, Hanoi and Son La. To address the complex questions related to sustainable livestock development in Vietnam, the project will take into account simultaneously the economic, social, and environmental implications of livestock transformations. Four major concepts will be used for that purpose: transition, governance, viability and sustainability. Recognizing that the transition of livestock-based production systems is multidisciplinary in nature, the project will work with a team composed of animal scientists, agricultural systems scientists, geographers, economists and anthropologists.

The project will be structured in 5 different work tasks that will contribute jointly to the specific objectives listed above. Synthesis will contribute to “collective scenario design” which will help to anticipate livestock development pathways in the next 15 years. Synthesis will contribute to discuss three main issues raised at the national and at the local levels: (i) the transformation of farms structures; (ii) the spatial re-organization of livestock activities; and (iii) the feed sector governance.

Five project partners will conduct the project in accordance to their knowledge and experience on the problem and specifically in Vietnam. Three French partners (CIRAD, INRA/Metafort and CNRS/CNH) will be associated to the relevant International Research Center (ILRI) and with one Vietnamese research center (RUDEC) involved in rural development policy advisory and strategic research. Two other Vietnamese research institutes (NIAS and CASRAD), specialized in livestock and rural development, will be involved as associate partners. The project will respond to a strong demand of the Direction of Livestock of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to contribute to monitor livestock changes in Vietnam, and to anticipate its future development pathways.