Vinh Trach village is located in the coastal area of Bac Lieu town. The population of the village in 2003 is about 13,964 inhabitants with 2,396 households, of which 525 households are Khmer, 156 households are Chinese and the remains are Vietnamese. Natural area of of the village is about 4,229 ha, of which the rice land area occupies about 2,855 ha, vegetables area about 232 ha and some 1,400 ha of rice land has been converted to shrimp culture this year | An Evaluation of A Participatory Research Approach in Rainfed Lowland Area of Vinh Trach Village, Bac Lieu Nguyen Duy Can1, Le Thanh Duong1 and Ryuichi Yamada2 1: Mekong Delta Farming Systems Research & Development Institute, University of Cantho, Cantho, Vietnam 2: Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Science Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8686 Japan Abstract This paper attempts to reaffirm the importance of the Site Working Group (SWG) and farmers participation in such group learning in Vinh Trach village, a rainfed lowland area of Bac Lieu. The SWG is the multi-disciplinary team-work and also multiple perspectives, plays an important role in the processes of participatory approaches. It serves as a liaison between the community and development agencies, facilitates the development process and as social learning. The Farmer Field School (FFS) is a type of group learning, building farmers’ skills, making decisions and taking action through experiment. Saving and Credit Women Group (S&CWG) is the first major step of the project, also building farmers’ skills, sharing experiences in farming among themselves, especially to manage and use their own finance effectively. The S&CWG helps poorers women are awareness of their roles and more participation in social activities. Key words: Participatory research approach, participation, group learning, site working group, sustainable, household farming systems Introduction Vinh Trach village is located in the coastal area of Bac Lieu town. The population of the village in 2003 is about 13,964 inhabitants with 2,396 households, of which 525 households are Khmer, 156 households are Chinese and the remains are Vietnamese. Natural area of of the village is about 4,229 ha, of which the rice land area occupies about 2,855 ha, vegetables area about 232 ha and some 1,400 ha of rice land has been converted to shrimp culture this year. 1 Most of the agricultural land of the village belongs to rainfed lowland and extremely .
