Figure 1: Ly Seo Vu shared on site about eco-farming design and practice with Youth Organic Farmers in the Mekong (Towards Organic Asia August 28 2013)

Recently the Social Policy Ecology Research Institute (SPERI) hosts a visit from Norwegian Peoples Aid (NPA) representatives at Human Ecology Practical Area (HEPA), located in Ha Tinh province. Amongst the various observations, the most impressive one is the interaction with young ethnic minority students at HEPA.
Vietnam is a country known with many beautiful landscapes. Despite this, the rapid pace of development in Vietnam has brought about critical changes. Already areas in the upland have been used for hydropower projects and or converted to commercial plantations. These have caused unexpected impacts upon the lives of upland ethnic communities. Young ethnic minorities have already seen moving out of their communities to seek jobs in the city, urban towns; leaving the land that used to belong to them which is now sold to outsiders.

To address this issue, SPERI initiated the Farmers Field School (FFS) training program which aims to help young ethnic minorities to realize the importance of land and their rights, whilst encouraging them to maintain local farming practices, local wisdom and identity. The key approach is through facilitating an alternative way to farming ‘eco-farming’ as to stimulate the sustainable living style and provide an enabling environment where students enjoy the freedom to learn, to practice and to be empowered on their piece of land. The longer term vision is that upon graduation from the training, young ethnic minorities would be capable to be positioned at leadership level to contribute to change-making to their local communities. They would ultimately contribute to the Young Indigenous Ethnic Leadership Strategies (YIELD).

Ly Seo Vu is one of the most passionate students and has been engaged with FFS training program since 2007. Originating from Simacai district, Lao Cai province, Vu became knowing the FFS training from the branch program in FFS-Simacai. Vu joined the program while wasnt graduating from Grade 12 High School at the time. Vus basic farming knowledge only came from helping his parents.

After indicating further interests, Vu moved to HEPA for advanced learning and was trained for another two years in K1A class. The FFS training program at HEPA then provided Vu with a plot of land of about one hectare located in Thuong Uyen area. In the initial two-three years running the farm, Vu was given full autonomy to learn to design and manage the farm. Vu has tried to run the farm fully respecting and applying the eco-farming principles. During running each farm component now, Vu restricts himself and his wife to commit to practice sustainable living style. Through practising on farm, Vu has gained enormous experiences; and thus is able to contribute inputs in various local forums, youths’ exchanges, and training of trainers (TOT).

Figure 2: Ly Seo Vu shared with other youths his vision of Eco-farming Movement in the SEA

The eco-farm that Vu has ran has caught attention of many students and visiting groups. Vu had a dream of becoming a professional eco-farmer: young at heart, gain knowledge from experiences while enthusiastically engaging others to join practicing eco-farming. Despite there are challenges along the way, Vu has always performed an excellent young ethnic minority where his ethics, passion and practices have intertwined to inspire many other youth minorities. Vu has recently been appointed to be one of the youth leaders learn to run the FFS training program at HEPA.