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Executive Summary
What the report is about:
This report examines the impact on the Vietnamese farming community around Sydney during the employment of a Bilingual Officer fluent in both English and Vietnamese. The project improved communication between the Vietnamese grower community and Government agencies and this lead to significant improvements in a range of social, financial and environmental areas for this Vietnamese grower community. This is known as the Bilingual Extension Model. It is proposed that the results from the evaluation of this model will serve as a basis for future decisions for initiating and funding larger scale communication projects to growers from Non-English Speaking Backgrounds (NESB).

Who is the report targeted at?
This report is applicable to all organizations that need to communicate and work closely with NESB farmers in Australia, particularly government agencies.

Background:
The Australian Asian vegetable industry is a growing horticulture sector whose products have become increasingly acceptable to Australian consumers. Since 1995, the industry has more than doubled in both production value and grower numbers (Hassall et al. 2003) and the current estimate of gross value of production is $150 million.  Asian vegetables and herbs are mainly grown by Asian NESB growers who are located close to metropolitan areas while a lesser number of commercial holdings operate in regional areas of Australia. While the latter group of producers is well equipped with knowledge and modern technology, they are only involved in producing a few leafy Asian vegetables, usually of the brassica type. The majority of Asian vegetables, more than 78 different varieties, are produced by NESB growers whose production is often plagued with difficulties.  NESB growers are disadvantaged in being unable to access information, resources and services compared with English speaking growers. They are disadvantaged largely because of the language barrier and to a lesser extent, cultural barriers. Language difficulties include oral communication as well as reading and writing and, the level of difficulty varies with the individual.  Despite NESB growers often being industrious and resourceful, communication difficulties often lead to isolation and reduced competitiveness. This limits the opportunities of many growers to learn, understand and progress. The language barrier is considerably increased when technical information is involved. This is especially so when technical information is required by growers to implement basic farm practices, such as reading chemical labels or complying with OH&S guidelines in the preparation and application of chemicals. Language difficulties on such issues can cause hardship for growers and lead to practices that are harmful to themselves, others and to the environment. Moreover, lack of understanding of cultural differences often leads to mistrust between NESB growers and English speaking extension staff, agents and input providers, along with fellow English speaking farmers and other sectors of the industry.  It was anticipated that the employment of a person fluent in both English and the same language as the growers would enhance two way communications and improve the delivery of services between extension staff and growers thus leading to quicker adoption of best practices in agriculture.

Aims/Objectives:
The overall objective of this project was to achieve the following outcomes

1. Adoption of best practices by Vietnamese growers.
2. Increase economic stability due to improved production and/or market value.
3. Increase consumer confidence in the quality of Asian vegetables.
4. Increase in understanding of the information requirement and priorities of a specific NESB grower group.
5. Socially more empowered and less isolated Vietnamese vegetable growers.
6. More environmentally sustainable vegetable production.
7. Verification of the transportability of the Communication and Extension Model first piloted in Northern Territory

Although the community as a whole benefits from this work the major beneficiaries of this research are NESB communities and, government agencies who wish to work closely with NESB growers.

Methods used
In this trial in NSW, Dr Ho Dang, a person fluent in both English and Vietnamese, an entomologist with background in horticulture and who also has qualifications in adult education, was appointed as a Communication Officer (CO). The project started with a benchmark survey that found that near Sydney;

• There were about 42 Vietnamese farmers on about 30 farms
• Average age of those farmers was more than 50 years
• More than 90% of those farmers rented the land they farmed
• Average farm size was less than 2 hectares
• All the farmers had received recognised training in the use of pesticides, either

SmartTrain or ChemCert, prior to the start of this project

• Although the majority of farmers were able to read and write in Vietnamese, less than 10% could communicate well in English

The CO conducted farm visits and informal interviews to collect information on current farming practices, skills, attitudes and needs. Frequent farm visits were a major focus of the project and allowed the CO to develop close working relationships, based on mutual respect and trust, with individual growers. During the first year of the project, regular farm visits and phone contact were seen as occasions to assess grower needs and problems, attend to their requests and where possible resolve problems. Through out the project, the CO maintained close working relationships with individual growers, organized many training events and demonstrations on Best Farming Practices and related topics and, acted as an interpreter at such training activities. The project concluded with a final survey which assessed changes in farming practices and grower attitudes over the duration of the project.

Results/Key findings
The Bilingual Extension Model adopted in this project was helpful in assisting Vietnamese farmers and by reducing the language and cultural barriers, it brought the Vietnamese farming community closer together thus reducing social isolation.  Changes in farming practices were high among four innovative growers where significant adoption of good agricultural practices with regards to water, chemical and fertilizer use, the management of crops and soils, farm safety issues and post harvest practices were documented. However in the overall community, changes were generally rather modest. Here the major changes were; an increase from 7% to 93% of the growers keeping spray records, 46% of growers making improvements in  their storage of farm chemicals and, 30 % of growers reducing their reliance on potable, reticulated water from Sydney Water, by their use of water pumped from farm dams.  Whether the more modest changes in the wider community compared with the four case study growers was due to the age structure of this particular community, limited financial means or, the short duration of this project, is unclear.  However, the outstanding achievement of this project was that about a third of the Sydney Vietnamese growers gained their Certificate III in agriculture as a result of formal training organized and/or provided by the Bilingual Communications Officer or, as the result of recognized prior learning facilitated by the Bilingual Communications Officer.  It was found that not only were the services provided by Bilingual Communications Officer extremely popular with the Vietnamese farming community who considered the project to be particularly beneficial, but it was also greatly appreciated by individuals, private companies and organizations, as well as Local, State and Federal government agencies who were better able to communicate with the Vietnamese growing community.  The issue of grower numbers can sometimes be problematic, particularly when it comes to project funding and publicity purposes. This project found that the actual number of Vietnamese growers was less than half the number originally estimated at the start of the project. Grower numbers can be swollen by including all family members, sometimes several generations, who have an interest in the farm. Similarly membership of grower/industry associations can also be swollen by multiple memberships from the one family /farm and also by interested parties who are not actively farming. When considering project proposals, grower numbers need to be treated with some caution, especially when they are based on hearsay evidence which cannot be backed up by independent surveys and/or by unbiased information sources (Chapter 10.14.2.).  This project has been extremely popular with all stakeholders and has been successful in assisting Vietnamese speaking growers to start adopting better farming practices. It has shown that positive results can be obtained by identifying grower needs and issues and, by the employment of a Bilingual Officer working closely with growers, to resolve the identified issues in a bottom up process. The Bilingual Extension Model has not only been useful in solving some of the immediate problems of growers, but also in delivering social and educational outcomes that might not have been possible using other extension methods.

Implications for relevant stakeholders:
If industry, the wider community, policy makers and Government agencies, wish to effectively communicate with NESB farming communities, it is essential that a Communications Officer, fluent in both English and the appropriate language, culturally aware and, with a background in agriculture, be employed to work closely with growers/farming communities on a personal level.

Recommendations
Based on this project, four recommendations have been made;

• All relevant material originating from RIRDC as well as from other Government agency projects, particularly that of a technical nature, should be translated into the languages spoken by the larger NESB groups, preferably by someone with a strong background in agriculture.
• In order to expand the Asian vegetable industry in Australia, the authors believe that RIRDC should fund specific projects which benefit industry (and consequently the grower) by solving particular problems and / or improving industry efficiency and / or industry competitiveness and / or industry intelligence (Chapter 10.14.1) e.g. Examination of techniques / practices to overcome the  low germination, poor trueness to type and, poor fruit quality originating from the seeds of some Asian cucurbits, particularly hairy melon and bitter melon (Chapter 5.3.1).
• As an essential component of all RIRDC funded projects, all key stakeholders, including NESB farmers should be kept fully informed of the results of such projects. In some instances this may mean the employment of a Bilingual Officer on a temporary basis, to personally communicate with such groups. Such a approach would not only keep NESB growers informed, but it will have the added benefits of providing favourable publicity for RIRDC and assist community development and cooperation within such groups.
• RIRDC should facilitate a process by which the long term appointment of a Bilingual Communications Officer, with a background in agriculture, to assist Vietnamese growers nationally, be funded by a number of agencies. This could be financed by Federal agencies such as Immigration, Ministry of Multicultural Affairs; State regional development agencies such as Office of the Minister for Western Sydney or other State agencies such as NSW DPI, DEC etc. and, local councils such as Fairfield City Council within whose boundaries there are Vietnamese growers (Chapter 10.14.3).
 

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