Abstract
Competing models of innovation informing agricultural extension, such as transfer of technology, participatory extension and technology development, and innovation systems have been proposed over the last decades. These approaches are often presented as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. This article shows how practitioners in a rural innovation system draw on different aspects of all three models, while creating a distinct local practice and discourse. We revisit and deepen the critique of Vietnam’s “model” approach to upland rural development, voiced a decade ago in this journal. Our analysis of interviews with grassroots extension workers and extension managers reveals how they have received government, donor, and academic discourses on participation, user-orientation, and private sector involvement in innovation. Extension workers as well as managers integrate the reform discourses into the still-dominant transfer of technology model. We show how extensionists draw selectively on these diverse discourses to foster interaction with outsiders and clients, and bolster their livelihood strategies. We conclude that the conceptual framework suggested by the innovation systems (IS) approach is broadly appropriate for analyzing the Vietnamese case, but that the IS approach in the contemporary Vietnamese context requires adaptation for taking into account the blurred line between private and state sectors, and recognizing the hegemonic position of state-based networks. Improving extensionists’ ability to mediate between the conflicting principles of farmers’ self-organization and government control is identified as a key challenge for increasing innovative capacity in rural upland Vietnam.
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Notes
The author team has been involved in different roles in the Collaborative Research Programme into Sustainable Land Use and Rural Development in Mountainous Regions of Southeast Asia (SFB 564); see https://sfb564.uni-hohenheim.de.
For an in-depth discussion of embezzlement of development funds in the Vietnamese public sector, see Fritzen (2005).
Mass organizations, such as Farmers’ Union or Women’s Union, are a part of Vietnam’s Communist Party-controlled governance system and play an important role in articulating the government and Party apparatus with local communities.
In Sơn La province, the Black Thai are the biggest ethnic group, are well represented in official positions and hold a high status in comparison to smaller ethnic minority groups.
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Acknowledgments
The financial support of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft–DFG) for conducting the field research in Vietnam is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are also grateful for the very insightful and constructive comments by two anonymous reviewers and Harvey James on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Friederichsen, R., Minh, T.T., Neef, A. et al. Adapting the innovation systems approach to agricultural development in Vietnam: challenges to the public extension service. Agric Hum Values 30, 555–568 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-013-9433-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-013-9433-y