Holding on against the odds: Buffalo raising along the Cambodia-Vietnam border wetlands

By Duong Van Nha (*), Le My Ly (**)

Figure 1: A buffalo herd on the banks of the Vinh Te canal, Tinh Bien district, An Giang province

For centuries, livestock raising has been a core component of rural livelihoods across the Lower Mekong Basin, including the Mekong Delta. Both animals have formed an iconic part of the wetlands landscape, especially the humble Asian water buffalo. Until a few decades ago, buffaloes were seen almost everywhere agriculture was practiced, integral to tasks such as ploughing the soil and taking the crop back to the village post-harvest. They provide meat, manure, hide and all manner of other useful products for farmers, while fetching a good price at market, so function as a “savings bank on legs”. They are perfectly adapted to wetlands habitats and can graze the wild grass of paddy fields or in swamps, so need little maintenance and get sick less often than cattle.

Despite formerly being a common sight in almost every village, the number of buffaloes on the Vietnam side of the border with Cambodia has decreased gradually over the last four decades. This has occurred for a variety of reasons. For example, due to widespread replacement of semi-natural wetland habitats with intensive, multi-cropped, high-yielding rice cultivation, there has been a decrease in available grass and wallow areas around villages. Associated with this agricultural intensification, farmers have replaced the slow, but reliable buffalo with tractors and other machinery that gets the job done much quicker, but also can be costly for small farmers to maintain, while not providing any valuable offspring. Thirdly, as farm-based livelihoods have decreased and off-farm work has grown, villagers have less time to care for buffaloes and have often sold the animals to pay for education or health costs. Despite buffalo raising being far less common than in the past, it has not died out altogether and a few families continue to keep them in certain communities.

One such community is Phu Tan hamlet, An Phu commune, Tinh Bien district, An Giang province, where over 20 households still raise buffaloes. In terms of ethnicity, Phu Tan Hamlet has 120 Khmer and 580 Kinh households. It is located just over a kilometer from the border line between Vietnam and Cambodia. One Phu Tan villager with experience of buffalo raising, Mr. Vo Van Bay (his nickname is Mr. Dau), 79 years old, is a farmer of Kinh ethnicity. He explained to us during an interview, “I have been raising buffaloes for over 20 years, together with growing two crops of rice like other farmers in the region. I like keeping buffalo because they are easier to raise than cows. I sometimes keep my buffalo on flooded land on the Cambodian side. After harvesting rice, there is both rice straw and abundant grass left in the paddy field which provides a source of food for buffaloes during the flood period from June to August every year. In the morning, I drive the buffaloes through the fields to Cambodia and return in the afternoon. When the flood water is high and the buffaloes cannot be moved, I take care of them here in the fields in Vietnam”.

Figure 2: Mr. Dau taking a rest by the canal after taking his buffaloes home from the fields

Several family members are involved in raising buffaloes, including Mr Dau’s wife and son. In terms of income, Mr. Dau has a total of 20 animals, which produce on average 20 calves annually. Each live buffalo calf can be sold at market for about 20 million VND/head (equal 842.815USD/head), but against these raising expenses of roughly 10 million VND/head (421.498USD/head [1]) are deducted, leaving a net profit of about 10 million VND/head (421.498USD/head). So Mr Dau family’s net profit from buffalo raising is approximately 200 million VND (8428.15USD/year). According to Mr. Dau, "raising buffaloes is easy. they provide a stable income for my family as they can be sold at any time when we need money. Common difficulties are the rapid rise of flood water which can shorten the duration that we are able to take care of buffaloes on the Cambodian side. Then I must find grass for my buffaloes in the fields and wetlands on the Vietnamese side. But grass is increasingly scarce, so I have to rent land to grow it.” The changing macro-environment in terms of the declining wetlands ecology on both sides of the border is making life difficult for buffalo farmers like Mr Dau.

Cow raising and trading has become a popular occupation in Tinh Bien district in recent years, in part due to the An Giang provincial authorities establishing the Ta Ngao cattle market in 2006. This market sells both live cows and buffaloes and has become famous in the Mekong Delta due to being considered a Khmer-themed market, with products from Cambodia. It is a busy place due to many traders congregating from other provinces within the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh city. Most of the stock are sought by Vietnamese traders who buy cows imported without health checks from Cambodian farmers. They buy the cattle to fatten them elsewhere in Vietnam and later sale. This cross-border commercial activity happens almost year-round, including the flood season. Cattle raising has been supported by state agencies to a much higher degree than buffalo raising. There are several livestock projects operating in the Mekong Delta, such as the “135” and Heifer programmes [2], which subsidise calves and female cows to be provided to poorer households. These programmes are supposed to improve family income levels, especially targeted at the Khmer ethnic community.

By contrast, buffalo farming is restricted to just a few farmers who receive no state support or subsidies, but persist under challenging conditions. According to Mr. Dau, buffalo farming was equally profitable to cattle raising, but buffaloes are less prone to disease and more adaptable to the wetlands environment, so long is not too intensively cultivated and some natural swamps remain. Conserving Delta wetlands would be good for biodiversity and local livelihoods for many other reasons besides. At the moment, there are far fewer households in Tinh Bien district involved in raising buffaloes (20 households) compared to keeping cows (252 households). This difference speaks to the way in which buffaloes have both fallen out of popularity with farmers, but also been squeezed out of the landscape by agricultural intensification and loss of natural wetlands.

Figure 3: A farmer carrying rice straw to feed buffaloes in the dry season. In the background is a local traffic bridge across the Vinh Te Canal towards the border with Cambodia, lying just over a kilometer distant.

A question arises whether buffaloes will disappear altogether from the upper Mekong Delta landscape in future, as a similar development paradigm occurs on the Cambodian side of the border and suitable habitat for grazing buffaloes diminish each year? The answer to this question very much depends on both state development policies and strategies in Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as local preferences and conditions. Given will and a vision, state agencies could opt to support local farmers’ choices, protect transboundary wetlands and create benign conditions for buffalo raising to continue.

Duong Van Nha(*) is a Dean of Faculty of Agriculture and Rural Development, Kien Giang University, Vietnam

Le My Ly(**) is A local government partner of BRIMOFOT project, she works in farmer extension with the Tinh Bien District Agriculture Department office, An giang province, Vietnam.

[1] 1 USD = 23,730VND

[2] The “135” project is a Vietnam government funded scheme, while the Heifer programme is funded by Heifer International, a United States non-profit organization, in collaboration with local government