Evaluating Profitability of Agroforestry Systems in Northwest Vietnam with Cost-Benefit Analysis
Zy, Elmo (2026)
2026
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202604277956
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202604277956
Tiivistelmä
Agroforestry has made a recent comeback in many parts of the world thanks to its proven ecological and socio-economic benefits. However, the actual implementation of different agroforestry systems needs to have proper field trials to evaluate its feasibility.
This thesis worked on part of the dataset of agroforestry system trials in the Northwest Vietnam. The dataset was granted access to by researchers of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and the Centre for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry Vietnam (CIFOR-ICRAF Vietnam).
With cost-benefit analysis as the research method, this thesis aimed to 1) evaluate the financial viability of fruit-based agroforestry among the farming systems in the Northwest Vietnam, 2) examine how the labour use costs impact the profitability of the agroforestry systems to improve the labour use efficiency, and 3) review other factors that may affect the profitability of the agroforestry systems, and 4) extract relevant knowledge from this study and relevant research to support agroforestry development in Finland.
The findings of this thesis include a) agroforestry systems can be sustainable alternatives to their monocropping counterparts while still generating incomes from the early stage after establishment; b) labour accounted for up to 80% of the total cost, with weeding/pruning and harvesting covered half of these costs, so utilising simple tools and tarping may help to cut these costs in the short term; c) agroforestry systems diversified farmers’ income to withstand the fluctuations in yields and their unit prices, and more income streams such as agrotourism and carbon credits should be explored to optimise economic gains of these systems; and d) research of agroforestry in Finland has witnessed increasing effort in the past decade, and elements of theoretical framework, research design and research method of this thesis can be adapted for future field experiments and evaluation.
While proving its profitability in early stage, follow-up evaluation of these systems in the long run can provide a complete understanding of their profitability, and various research gaps should be addressed to solve the challenges of implementing agroforestry.
This thesis worked on part of the dataset of agroforestry system trials in the Northwest Vietnam. The dataset was granted access to by researchers of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and the Centre for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry Vietnam (CIFOR-ICRAF Vietnam).
With cost-benefit analysis as the research method, this thesis aimed to 1) evaluate the financial viability of fruit-based agroforestry among the farming systems in the Northwest Vietnam, 2) examine how the labour use costs impact the profitability of the agroforestry systems to improve the labour use efficiency, and 3) review other factors that may affect the profitability of the agroforestry systems, and 4) extract relevant knowledge from this study and relevant research to support agroforestry development in Finland.
The findings of this thesis include a) agroforestry systems can be sustainable alternatives to their monocropping counterparts while still generating incomes from the early stage after establishment; b) labour accounted for up to 80% of the total cost, with weeding/pruning and harvesting covered half of these costs, so utilising simple tools and tarping may help to cut these costs in the short term; c) agroforestry systems diversified farmers’ income to withstand the fluctuations in yields and their unit prices, and more income streams such as agrotourism and carbon credits should be explored to optimise economic gains of these systems; and d) research of agroforestry in Finland has witnessed increasing effort in the past decade, and elements of theoretical framework, research design and research method of this thesis can be adapted for future field experiments and evaluation.
While proving its profitability in early stage, follow-up evaluation of these systems in the long run can provide a complete understanding of their profitability, and various research gaps should be addressed to solve the challenges of implementing agroforestry.