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A simple street-side dinner in Hanoi costs about 30,000 dong. A few people, a couple of beers, and you're quickly into hundreds of thousands. A months rent is probably 5 million plus.  Sounds like a lot, but it's actually not, and while there is probably a reason, so far nobody has been able to explain to me very well the rationale for not just taking three zeros off everything and going from there.

After consistently mixing up my ten-thousand and hundred-thousand notes for the first few days after arriving (oh, yes, sorry, five zeros, not four ... xin lỗi, chị), it's been pretty easy to get into the hang of the denominations and converting back to euros. (At the moment, 1 euro is somewhere around 25,000d, so your noodle-soup dinner sets you back just a little over a euro.)

The wad of notes and squinting at zeros in the early hours dim-lit back of a taxi may soon be a thing of the past though as Vietnam has set its sights on becoming a (almost) cashless society by 2020. That seems like a big leap to make. Until quite recently many people here didn't have bank accounts, and it is still a common practice to buy gold for the hidden stash in the back yard as a way of saving (outside of the banking system and sidestepping inflation losses).

A growing number of farmers in Vietnam have access to smartphones.

The rate of smartphone use in the country is rising rapidly and this will be a big factor in enabling the transition. It also introduces huge potential in the area of agricultural innovation - whether in relaying weather and pricing information, or providing access to practical knowledge on cultivation techniques or husbandry. Examples of how ICT can have a transformative impact on the lives of farmers are already being seen around the world:

ICT based agro-advisory services in Climate-Smart Villages in Nepal

M-Farm

In fact, if agriculture is going to have any hope of playing its part in reaching the 2 degree target of the Paris Agreement, it is widely acknowledged that an improved knowledge dissemination infrastructure will be an essential part of the process. In writing on the huge challenge, Eva Wollenberg et al say that:

Strong technical assistance for farmers, including farmer innovation hubs, two-way technical support via cell phones, web-based information portals, and farmer-to-farmer exchange, will be essential to foster changes in behavior and locally relevant options.

The photovoice project in My Loi strives to be a small part of this (farmer-to-farmer exchange, locally relevant options) but it is clear that major innovations are required if the roll-out of CSA practices introduced to climate-smart villages is to take place on an impactful scale.

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(Note: Since I posted this, I learned that the heat index in central Hanoi reached 55 degrees over the weekend. Heat index is calculated using a combination of temperature and humidity.)

I spent more time than usual on a motorbike taxi today while going round trying to find a replacement air-con remote control for the one I broke yesterday. It was hot hot hot, and I wasn’t going home until I found one.

High of 41, 35 and smoke at 8pm.

The quality of the bike-taxi drivers in Hanoi is pretty variable. With some you think, as you unlock your fingers from the grab rail and free your sunglassses from the back of the driver's helmet, ‘I would’ve sweated less if I’d just walked’. With others, you can relax in the presence of a master. Today it was mostly the latter, and I got to thinking about how the traffic system here works. On one level, it all seems a bit random and indefinite. Traffic flow directions and red lights seem to function more as suggestions than outright rules. The result is that the drivers – bikes and cars alike - are in a constant state of negotiation with everyone around them.

A lot of the bikes - mostly something like a 110cc Honda Wave – don’t even have mirrors fitted. Drivers cross lanes, squeeze into tiny gaps, stop short of junctions suddenly to avail of the shade offered by a street-side tree, and hop kerbs at busy times, all the while using the horn for communication in what might be called, in a pretentious moment, ‘a mobile, polyvocal negotiation of shared space’. Basically, it’s noisy and people go around each other.

Surprisingly enough, it seems to work. And interestingly, that notion of a ‘shared space’ for traffic is something that has been tried in the Netherlands and some UK and US cities aiming for less car-centric and more pedestrian-friendly streets. The pedestrian-friendly bit still has room for improvement in Hanoi, and maybe the effect hasn’t quite been planned, but it’s an interesting change from the more straightforward and less-pliable traffic of most western cities where the car is boss – ‘This is my lane and I have a green light and I will go’.

Anyhow, I got my remote and happily have cool air again in which to sit listening to the negotiation outside.

For more, check out the link and videos below:

Where the Sidewalk Doesn’t End: What Shared Space has to Share

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz5uxAsrbwI

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This week revolved around the photovoice training in My Loi and the collection of the first questionnaire data.

Despite the efforts over the previous couple of weeks, there was still plenty to get done on Monday for the training – updating questionnaires with minor last-minute changes and localisation adjustments not the least of it. In the afternoon, we dropped the equipment – cameras, tablets, stationery, pens, snacks - at the ICRAF office ready for travel the next morning.

The next day, a blindingly hot Tuesday morning in Hanoi (we hit 39C today and look set to go into the 40s over the weekend), seven of us piled into the ICRAF jeep and set off on the 8-hour trip to Ha Tinh province. It turns out that the back seats of a Ford seven-seater are made for people with short legs or shorter journeys. My knees were happy when we finally climbed out in Ky Anh town, 20km from My Loi climate-smart village.

Evening in Ky Anh

Of course, we weren’t all there for the photovoice training – the trip doubled up as an information gathering trip for a colleague from CIAT and a visiting student from the US, and an information delivery trip for some colleagues from ICRAF.

Landscape around My Loi, Ha Tinh province.

Another early start on Wednesday had us in My Loi for just before seven. There were already some participants there and as we unpacked the gear and lined up the various materials for the day, the rest of the crew arrived. We got started just before 8. That put our schedule out of whack a little bit but we had planned a removable activity and as it transpired that’s what we did.

No need to go through the whole schedule here – suffice to say the day went well and before we left for lunch all the participants had practiced taking a variety of shots with their new devices and had also brainstormed some of the local issues that they felt would be appropriate to highlight while they have the cameras.

They'd also filled in the first set of questionnaires that I need for the thesis. These won't make full sense until we get follow-up data in a few weeks but an initial look points to a strong feeling that farmers should be makers and distributors of knowledge alongside a fairly consistent trend that they are not always the most confident of communicators, even when willing. If this turns out to be the case it is hopefully a shortfall that the photovoice process can help to bridge.

Acknowledgements:

Trung (IRRI), Ha My (ICRAF), and Hoa (Farmers' Union) did a great job in delivering the training in Vietnamese - wouldn't have happened without them!

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Here's an interesting interview with Jason Hickel of the London School of Economics touching on the climate movement, moving beyond the capitalist structure, questions about the aid narrative, and more.

As a follow on, I'd recommend taking the opportunity to hear Wendell Berry, Paul Kingsnorth, and Kate Raworth touch on some of the same topics here.

From the folks at Upstream.

https://soundcloud.com/upstreampodcast/jason-hickel