The majority of the cooperatives were formed in 1978 after the war to overcome the food stortage. Membership was mandatory and the cooperatives had little autonomy. In 2003, a new cooperative law was passed to give the cooperatives more power and to enable them to operate more like the international cooperative structure - similar to the way cooperatives are run in Canada and many other countries. Since the new law only a few of the cooperatives have taken initiative to become more service oriented to the members and run as an independent, profit generating entity.
The cooperatives offer services to members such as irrigation, fertilizer sales, supplying quality seeds, soil tiling, equipment rental and electricity. With both irrigation and electricity services the coops only act as intermediaries connecting the service provider with the coop memeber which only generates a small commission for the cooperative. Often the coops just break even or are operating in the red. Very few coops are successfully able to offer marketing services to members or have developed business plans.
Here is a tilling machine used to service members fields. This cooperative has 3 machine like this.
Many farmers have been cooperative members since 1978. They do not completely understand the role of the cooperatives or their benefits. All they know is, if it was a succesful year, they will recieve some of the profit in the form of dividends.
The majority of the farmers have rice paddies and grow some fruits and vegetables for their own consumption. Other farms include maise, peanuts, sesame, leafy vegetable produce, mushroom production, frog raising, and some pig farms.
Frog Farm. 
Seseame Field. 
Green Leafy Vegetables. Very important to the Vietnamese diet. Some Major Issues
Human Resources
Many farmers and coop leaders are age 60 and over. Young people are finding jobs which pay better in local factories and construction projects so there is a lack of human resources to continue the agriculture lifestyle.
With urbanization growing rapidly in the DaNang region farmers are loosing land to development and construction projects. Lack of Marketing Knowledge or Developed Distribution Channels
Most farmers do not have a stable distibution channel for their products. Often they have the capacity to produce more but are satisfied with growing enough for their family needs and enough to exchange for some fertilizers.
Annual Natural Disasters
This region is prone to annual floods. Many of the farmers must deal with both thier homes and crops flooding to over 1.5m. If you look closely in the photo below of a coop leader and myself, you can see the water stain just behind our heads to where the flood waters rise every year. If the residents are lucky enough thier house is 2 levels and they move the family and all the valuables to the 2nd floor during the flood season. This coop office also moves up to the second floor during the floods which can last anywhere from several days to several weeks. CECI has worked previously in this area to assist with disaster mmitigation to reduce the affects of the flooding. (see links below) 
These are just some of the issues the cooperatives and farmers are facing. My assignement is to help identify the issues and develop training sessions to help improve the leadership of the cooperatives. For the next 2 months I will be developing a marketing workshop for the coop leaders. The cooperatives would like to assist the members in developing their distribution channels and develop a brand for their coop which will be recognized in the markets. The problem is many of the leaders do not have any business planning or marketing experience. Ideally one of the employees from the bureau will assist me with the development and delivery of the workshop so that once I am gone they will be able to hold future training sessions and work with the members individually to help them develop their marketing strategies. Stay tuned for more updates - both successes and challenges!
This is a short video of Nhung and I driving through the rice paddies to meet with some local farmers.
