Yard-Long Beans

In Vietnam, rapid growth in the use of pesticides started with economic liberalization in the mid-1980s when the private sector was allowed to import and distribute pesticides and when farmers were given rights for pesticide use over their agricultural land, allowing them to make independent farm management decisions. From 1991 to 2007, the volume of agricultural pesticides as formulated products (i.e. active ingredients as well as inert ingredients such as solvents, emulsifiers and adjuvants) increased from 20,000 to 77,000 tons.

“This study uses the case of yard-long bean; it is one of the most important vegetable legumes in Southeast Asia, and consumed as a green vegetable, eaten raw or cooked in a variety of dishes. Using farm-level survey data for 240 farm households growing yard-long bean in Thailand and Vietnam, this study shows that the farmers’ main problem is the legume pod borer. Farmers rely exclusively on the use of synthetic pesticides to manage this pest, and no other control methods are generally applied. Small cultivated areas for growing yard-long bean (particularly in Vietnam), a high level of satisfaction with the use of pesticides and a lack of market demand for pesticide-free produce are formidable challenges to the introduction of integrated pest management (IPM).

Farmers in Vietnam felt that the available insecticides provided an effective means of control, and 95% of the respondents perceived that harvest losses due to pod borers were below 10%…. Therefore, it is possible that the pod borers could cause about one-third of marketable yield losses in the unprotected crop.

For an IPM strategy to succeed, it will be important that these methods do not increase on-farm costs and preferably increase profits. These monetary incentives are essential because farmers do not see their use of synthetic pesticides as a problem that needs to be solved… A further challenge lies in the fact that most growers appear to be very satisfied with the synthetic pesticides that they currently use.

Most growers are satisfied with the level of control offered by synthetic pesticides, and feel that their use improves the marketability of their crop and the price they receive.”

Authors: Schreinemachers, P., et al.
Affiliation: AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center, Taiwan.
Title: Safe and sustainable management of legume pests and diseases in Thailand and Vietnam: a situational analysis.
Source: International Journal of Tropical Insect Science. 2014. 34[2]:88-97.