HANOI /Yen Lac Village, Ha Nam - For visitors to Viet Nam, the lush green rice fields with stooped workers wearing conical hats and grazing buffalo in the distance can be a stunning photo opportunity. But for the people doing the work it's a different story.
Nearly 70 per cent of Viet Nam's 81 million people make their living through agriculture. While the country has won international praise for its poverty reduction record, working conditions for millions of people remain at best basic and at worst, sometimes fatal.
The introduction of new technology, products and machinery into a traditional farming culture has come at a price, and it is easy to see how serious accidents and injuries happen.
"Farmers have many problems in safety", says Dr. Tsuyoshi Kawakami, one of the authors of the workbook and checklist designed for the Work Improvement in Neighbourhood Development (WIND) programme.
Bent backs a lot of the time, long exposure to sunlight, parasitic infection, and animal bites are just some of the hazards, according to Dr. Kawakami. "The introduction of machinery - often second hand and without instruction manuals or training - means that accidents and fatalities occur with alarming regularity", he says.
Electricity is an all too frequent killer, with the media in Viet Nam reporting agricultural farm deaths through electric shocks with depressing frequency. A common practice in many parts of Viet Nam is to use electricity to stun fish reared in paddy fields. Sadly, people's lack of awareness about safe electrical practices results in deaths. Similarly, electric rat and mouse traps set up to protect crops frequently kill.
Safe use of electricity along with correct use of machinery and chemicals are three focus points in the WIND programme, according to national project coordinator Ngueyn Van Theu.
The WIND programme was first developed by the Center for Occupational Health and Environment, Cantho Province in collaboration with the Institute for Science of Labour, Japan in 1996. Learning from their achievements, the ILO and the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) designed a new project applying the WIND programme along with 660,000 dollars of Japanese funding provided in May 2004. This has led to the launch of successful trials in four provinces.
The aim is to train farmers in best work practices, and show how significant improvements can be made at little or no cost. The trained farmers will then train others back in their villages.
"The beauty of the WIND programme is that it is geared towards very small incremental changes that are usually made with locally made resources. You don't need hi tech for any of it and you show that it is affordable", says RoseMarie Greve, the ILO country director for Viet Nam.
Tran Tri Cuong, a 42 year old farmer from Yen Lac village in northern Viet Nam seems to be convinced of the benefits of making changes around the home and farm to improve safety. With the lithe build of someone who has done hard physical work all her life, but barely looking her age of 42, Cuong doesn't have the time to stop working to chat.
"Out of 24 hours a day, I need to work 20", she says, laughing. "I am up five and off to the market, then out to the rice fields, then make feed for the pigs and then I start on the tofu."
Cuong completed the two-day WIND farmers training course last year, and appreciates the experience.
"It's all very easy to apply in my house, and it's very useful. It costs next to nothing because we used stuff we already had lying around. It has made an impact on my thinking, even in the kitchen I have made work surfaces higher so I am not squatting all the time", she says.
In the neat outbuilding she uses for making tofu and grinding rice and corn, the rubber- drive belt on her rice grinder has been covered with a guard made from pieces of scrap wood. Electrical wires are neatly stowed, and switches are clearly labeled, and she sits on stool made from an old heater, instead of squatting.
"If a neighbour sees an improvement, we explain what we did to them", Cuong explains.
Trainers are given a work book with a clearly illustrated action check list of practical suggestions for improving conditions in the home and farm. The illustrations and safety advice plainly show how improvements can easily be made in everything from the way to transport heavy loads ergonomically to using the right protective equipment for the job.
"It's not a top down kind of thing, its more of a participatory kind of thing", adds Greve, Viet Nam's ILO representative. "We look at it and say, 'This is the kind of thing that has worked somewhere else in Viet Nam, you might want to try it. What do you have in your locality that could be used, and can you do it differently?'"
To date, 276 farmers have received training in the eight pilot courses in Can Tho, Nghe An, and Hau Giang in the south and Ha Nam in the north of the country. A further 300 volunteers will be trained this year according to the WIND project coordinator Nguyen Van Theu. "Hopefully it will be expanded throughout the country", says Theu.
Despite what appears to be a frenetic worklife, Cuong has clearly taken the lessons from the WIND project and applied them, and as the project spreads, hopefully more farmers can benefit.