irrigated. Consequently, agricultural activities in the Cambodian and
Thai sites were highly dependent on the monsoon cycle and only one
rice crop was grown per year, while farmers in the Vietnamese sites
tended to grow two or three crops per year.
Three villages in each province were selected based on the presence
of water resources, the level of economic development and village
population size. Districts were selected based on their physical
geography. A transect line was then drawn on a map traversing the
upland and lowland area of the district. Sets of villages were then
identified from the three parts of the line, and the final selection made
on the basis of the above criteria.
For simplicity, we refer to the study sites within countries by the
respective country names. This is not meant to imply that the sites are
representative of the respective countries as a whole. Indeed, all three
countries cover a variety of different rice agro-ecosystems and our
study covers only some of these. The aim was to explore FMAS under
contrasting agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions rather
than to provide a comprehensive survey