A survey of farmers and collectors in Vietnam

Study sites

In March 2022, we conducted a survey at 03 sites: (i) Van Hoi commune, Tam Duong district, Vinh Phuc province; (ii) Van Duc commune, Gia Lam district, Hanoi and (iii) Coi Ha village, Pham Tran commune, Gia Loc district, Hai Duong province. Van Hoi and Van Duc belong to the peri-urban areas of Vinh Phuc and Hanoi city. Meanwhile, Coi Ha is further from cities or urban areas. However, up to now, these areas have more than 30 years of experience in vegetable production.

According to the interviews with the village authorities and the Cooperatives, the vegetable production area in Van Hoi is about 300 hectares and there are 800 households involved in producing vegetables. These households are mainly located in 03 villages: Van Giua, Van Sau and Van Noi. In Van Duc, the agricultural land for vegetable production is about 200 hectares, distributed in 02 villages: Trung Quan and Chu Xa. Although the vegetable area in Van Duc is smaller than it is in Van Hoi, the vegetable households are higher, up to 1500. Finally, in Coi Ha, the area for vegetable production is 29 ha and there are 300 households producing vegetables.

Sample selection

To generate samples, the first attempt is to find the list of households producing vegetables in the study areas. In Van Hoi, the research team found this list from both the Green Van Hoi Cooperative and the village authority. In Van Duc, the research team accesses the list of households producing vegetables from Van Duc Safe Vegetable Cooperative only because all households are its member. Meanwhile, at the study site Coi Ha (of Pham Tran), this list was provided by the village authority because there are no cooperatives like in Van Hoi and Van Duc. To extract the list of samples, the research team used the Random sampling command in SPSS. Accordingly, we are supposed to generate 200 samples in Van Hoi, 189 samples in Van Duc, and 124 samples in Coi Ha.

Data collection

Due to regulations on Covid-19 prevention and control, it was impossible to conduct a direct interview vegetable households at their homes. After obtaining permission from the local authorities, the research team decided to conduct interviews with households producing vegetables at the communal hall of the villages to ensure social distancing. The cooperative and the village authorities send the invitation to the households defined in the sampling list to participate in the interviews. The research team asked the cooperative and the village authority to send invitations because they most accurately identify the interviewees who are directly involved in the household’s vegetable production.

However, many vegetable-producing households did not come to the communal hall at the first visited site, Van Hoi, for the interview, even though they had an invitation. The reasonable reason is that due to favorable weather, households take advantage of the time to do their work on the field, rather than pay attention to the interview. To archive the goal, the research team, thanks to village authorities and cooperatives, went to interview producing vegetable households in their fields instead of at the village communal hall.

In Van Duc and Coi Ha, the implementation of data collection has more advantages than it was in Van Hoi, the whole invited households have come to the communal hall for the interview. Cooperatives in Van Duc has sent interview invitations to vegetable-producing households through production teams (each residential cluster has a cooperative production team). Meanwhile, the village authority in Coi Ha has sent interview invitations to households through a mass organization (Farmers Union). Then, during the survey, the households that have not yet participated were directly recalled through the village’s public speaker.

In addition, when the survey in Van Hoi ended, we detected 3 households that were not on the selected sample list (maybe these households have heard about the survey from other farmers and came to participate). We decided to keep these 3 cases in the survey sample because we still ensure randomness, objectivity, and ensure sample size as planned.

While doing the survey, the research team also encountered households to send inappropriate members for the interview (for example, the child received an invitation but asked his father or mother to go instead). These people do not directly carry out vegetable production. For this case, the research team did not collect information. There exit 06 cases in Van Hoi and 03 cases in Coi Ha as mentioned above.

Dealing with obstacles for the questions using Likert parameter

Behaviour-reaction questions using a Likert scale (with 5 levels: 1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = neutral, 4 = disagree 5 = strongly disagree) are sometime generalized in the field (i.e. without a specific situation). Often, this makes it difficult for the interviewees to visualize the issues if the interviewers use the original questions in the questionnaire. In this case, we first use critical questions such as how, and why to determine the real implications of the interviewee’s answer. Based on that information, we reconfirm their answer options.

In case the interviewees do not understand the original question, the solution is to create sub-questions with a specific situation related to real life. This leads the respondent to easily imagine. Then the obtained information will be translated into the answer choices of the original question.

For example, with the question: “If there is something I should do, I will make sure it gets done before anything else,” it works into 02 situational sub-questions:

Q1. You are supposed to plan to go to spray pesticides on vegetables today, but your neighbour asks you to drink. If there is no one to ask to do, how will you handle it?

a) Decline the invitation of a neighbour and keep going to work in the fields

b) Not fixed: Depending on your mood, you can choose to work or drink.

c) Leave the farm work until the next day and accept the invitation of the neighbours

Q2. You are supposed to plan to do land preparation for the next vegetable crop today, but outside the temperature is so high. How will you handle it?

a) Still working even though it’s hot weather

b) Depending on the case

c) Put off the tillage for a day (or even more), and wait for the temperature cooling down.

The determinants of the farmer’s selection of local traders

We find that vegetable-producing households choosing local traders may derive from their social relationships outside the scope of economic transactions. Specifically, traders are relatives or neighbours, friends of the households. These people tend to receive a priority when households sell their products. Selling vegetables, in this case, carries the meaning of maintaining social solidarity and uniting the community through economic cooperation (between households and relatives or neighbours). This might make the relationship between members of the community become closer and more intimate.

It may also derive from mutual benefit between vegetable producers and local traders. Vegetable producers need a sustained market while local traders need a sustained supply. Therefore, whenever the price fluctuates (high or low), traders will still ensure the purchase of vegetables for households even if this action may lead to some economic loss. Reversely, vegetable producer will commit to selling their product to traditional local traders (not to others) when the price goes up. Given the limited information from the survey, we can not draw any further conclusions or judgements yet, we think we need more information for this.

Finally, the price of vegetables offered by local traders might influence on the choice of households. It seems that collectors often offer vegetable producing households the same price and they are not the man who decides the price of vegetables. This price, as observed by the research team, is determined at wholesale markets located outside the survey area. When the price of vegetables does not differ between the local traders, the vegetable producing households pay less attention to the choice for other collectors. These households still need to maintain social relationships with those relatives or neighbours.