Bac Kan province lies in the north-eastern part of Vietnam. It is an ethnic and mountainous province. Most of its income is from agriculture, but this is primarily small scale household farming. Worldwide almost three-quarter of all farms are smaller than one hectare, but they produce 75% of world's food!

The translation of the text on the wall of the Vocation College in Bac Kan is: " Learn to know, learn to work, learn to live together and learn to prove yourself ".

PUM Netherlands Senior Experts received a request for advice Bac Kan Vocational Training Colleges for a programme on the subjects of Agro Forestry, Eco tourism and Organic Farming. The school team is inventing a new area of 12 acres farming land. This will be a pilot project of Organic Farming with the owners of the land and the students of the college.

Agro- Forestry is a land use management system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland. The combination of Agro-Forestry and ecotourism is sustainable and responds to climate change. The photo shows a tea plantation with new hybrid plant that is tolerant for light and valuable trees in the background

Minority people in Vietnam are living away from the mainstream settlements. The hill tribes and many other minority groups are closely associated with forests for centuries. Much of their household subsistence and part of the income is generated from the sale of a variety of non timber forest products. Among the products collected are fruits, berries, leaves, mushrooms, fish, bees honey, bamboo shoots, wild orchids and the list goes on.

The slash and burn approach involves cutting down all trees and vegetation and burning the debris to provide soil nutrients. Newly barren fields are then planted intensively. In this case it is a reforestation project. New trees are planted by hand. In Vietnam, planting holes are dug about 1 month before planting and two-thirds of the hole is filled with a mixture of top soil.

Seeds are sowm in germination trays or beds, and when seedlings have about three leaves they are packed into plastic nursery bags where they grow to a plantable size. The appropriate height for transplanting is 25–40 cm, which is reached when the seedlings have been in the nursery for 9–16 weeks. After that the young trees find their way to Governmental or private projects.

To make plywood you need several layers of wood veneer(thin sheets of wood). The photo shows the result of different veneer layers of Acacia, Manglietia and Styracaceae which are peeled in small family factories. For the production of veneer layers, the factory uses about 10 m³of tree trunks a day. One big enterprise in Bac Kan Province collects and consums the veneer packages to produce plywood.

Dragon fruit, which may weigh up to 0.5kg with pink or dark red cover, has recently been cultivated in Vietnam. Its cover can be peeled off easily when the fruit is ripe, revealing the white gelatinous meat. The pulp contains countless tiny black seeds that cannot be extracted, giving the sweet and sour taste. Dragon fruit’s harvest season is in October, November, April and May.

North Vietnam