Temporal dynamics of dairy health and production in rural smallholder communities in Northern Vietnam

Abstract

The objective of this field study was to describe the temporal pattern of dairy cattle health and production and associated risk factors in rural small-holder communities in northern Vietnam, one of the target areas of the government's dairy development programme. A total of 99 dairy farms (11 per commune) were recruited from 9 of 32 communes in Ba Vi District, Ha Tay Province, using random two-stage cluster sampling. All dairy cattle present on the selected farms were included. After the initial questionnaire survey was conducted, farms were visited to collect follow-up information at 3-monthly intervals over a period of one year. The results suggest that offtake as well as mortality are important productivity indices because farmers sell or slaughter dairy cattle that are in poor health at low prices during summer months. Changes in relation to the farming operation suggest that for the farmers adopting dairy production it has become one of the main agricultural activities.

What shapes the governance of the dairy value chain in Vietnam? Insights from Ba‐Vì milkshed (Hanoi)

“…in Ba-Vì in the early 20 th century. he development trajectories of Ba-Vì's dairy sector correspond with the national trends in the periodized political economy (Figure 3): milk production concentrated on State farms (during the collectivism period), milk production on individual smallholder farms (during the Đổi Mới period)(Suzuki et al 2006), and industrialization of the private dairy sector (since 2008)(Duteurtre et al 2015).…”