This research describes and analyses how smallholder crop livestock farmers in rural Ea Kar,
Vietnam, were able to take advantage of the rising demand for meat in urban centres and
transform cattle production from a traditional, extensive grazing system to a more intensive,
stall-fed system that supplied quality meat to urban markets. The traditional grazing system
produced low-quality animals that could only be sold for local consumption. Introduction of
the concept of farm-grown fodder production enabled farmers to produce fatter animals,
achieving higher sale prices, and reduce labour inputs by moving from grazing to stallfeeding.
These benefits convinced farmers, traders and local government that smallholder
cattle production could be a viable enterprise and so stimulated stakeholder interest. Within
10 years, the way that cattle were produced and marketed changed considerably. By 2010,
more than 3,000 smallholders had adopted farm-grown forages and stall-feeding, and many
produced high-quality beef cattle. Traders had been able to develop access to urban markets
as farmers were able to produce animals that satisfied the stringent quality requirements of
urban markets. In addition to the underlying driver of strong market demand for quality
meat, several factors contributed to this transition: (i) a convincing innovation – the use of
farm-grown fodder – that provided immediate benefits to farmers and provided a vision for
local stakeholders; (ii) a participatory, systems-oriented innovation process that emphasised
capacity strengthening; (iii) a value chain approach that linked farmers and local traders to
markets; (iv) the formation of a loosely structured coalition of local stakeholders that
facilitated and managed the innovation process; and (v) technical support over a sufficiently
long time period to allow innovation processes to become sustainable