A basic survey was successfully implemented in eight provinces of the developing world using a standard questionnaire. The survey focused on six areas: A. Farmers' opinions for the IPM program using ants as a key component, Two. The role of women in the cultivation, 3. The status of farming, 4. The impact of pesticides on the health of farmers and farm environment, Five. Farmers' knowledge on cashew insect pests and diseases and their natural enemies, and 6. Weaver reviews the state and farmers, their opinions | Ministry of Agriculture Rural Development Australian Government AusAID CARD Project Progress Report 029 05 VIE Implementation of the IPM program using weaver ants as a major component for cashewgrowers in Vietnam MS2 Baseline Survey Professor Dr. Pham Van Bien Institute of Agricultural Science of South Vietnam Dr Keith Christian and Dr Renkang Peng Charles Darwin University 28 August 2006 1 Summary A baseline survey was successfully conducted in eight main cashew growing provinces using a standard questionnaire. The survey concentrated on six aspects 1. Farmers opinion towards the cashew IPM program using weaver ants as a major component 2. Women s role in cashew cultivation 3. Current cashew farming status 4. Effect of pesticides on farmers health and farm environment 5. Farmers knowledge of cashew insect pests and diseases and their natural enemies and 6. Weaver ant status and farmers opinion of them. The results are summarised below. A total of 212 cashew farmers were interviewed and 206 farmers were keen to participate in our cashew IPM training. The FFS approach adopted by this project is very welcome and 90 of farmers expressed their preference of the FFS training over other methods. In current cashew production women have played a very important part and their role in cashew orchard management will be further promoted by this project. The majority of cashew growers are small holders having about 2 ha of orchards with an average tree age ranging from 6 years from grafted materials to 12 years from seeds . Cashew apples were generally not used. Cashew nut yield was about 1400 kg ha in 2005 and 1000 kg ha in 2006. For orchards with grafted materials costs were VND383 903 VND251 475 and VND1 500 250 for insecticides fungicides and chemical fertilizers respectively. For orchards grown from seeds costs were VND367 096 VND206 722 and VND 1 222 886 for insecticides fungicides and chemical fertilizers respectively. Fertilizers were used by 84 of farmers 1 to 3 times
