Safe Vegetables Production in Cambodia and Vietnam Project
Challenges and Objectives
The rapid economic and population expansion of Cambodia and Vietnam within the greater Southeast Asian region presents opportunities for impacting the livelihood of many people, where horticulture remains an important undeveloped business sector supported by small farmers. In 2010, the project was launched with the fund by USAID HORT-CSRP, led by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) in collaboration with Hanoi University of Agriculture (HUA, currently named Vietnam National University of Agriculture), Nong Lam University (NLU) in Vietnam and Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) in Cambodia. The project is located in two communes in Hanoi, two communes in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and one commune in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The project’s goal is to empower small farmers (59% of whom are women) with integrated experiential education and training for sustainable vegetable production that limits postharvest losses, increases food safety, increases market access, and, importantly, increases income.
Collaboration Partners and Roles
Playing the role of the lead university, the University of California Davis provided leadership and expertise for research and development teams. UC Davis Co-PIs will lead research teams composed of faculty and young researchers from Cambodia’s Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) and two Vietnamese universities: Hanoi University of Agriculture (HUA) and Nong Lam University- Ho Chi Minh City (NLU). These three universities collaborated to form the project activities and manage research. With UC Davis, RUA, HUA, and NLU leadership, project partners will bring together small farmers, local governmental officials, government ministry staff and policymakers, extension staff, private vegetable marketing firms, Viet-telephone (Viettel), and other stakeholders in a process to build local scientific and technical capacity. Furthermore, the HARE-Network is partnering with the HAPRO–Safe Vegetable and Fruit Joint-stock Company, AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center, the Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute (FAVRI), and the FAO Program for IPM in Vegetables in Southeast Asia to increase project impact. The communes were chosen based on local surveys and meetings with MARD and governmental offices at the district and commune levels. In the commune, cooperatives were the bridge between farmers and between farmers and stakeholders.
Revitalisation Activities
The project team was implemented from 2010 to 20214 with a wide range of activities. In the field of economics, the project team worked with farmers to survey current practices and feed this information into the FFS design, do FFSs and farmer field studies using alternative production techniques (e.g., drip or tape irrigation, biopesticides, new cultivars, etc.), and support farmers with equipment and supplies. The project holds FFS on financial literacy and food-related health education for local women, develops savings and lending organizations, holds workshops on the PhotoVoice data collection technique, and collects data using photovoice. The project also contracted private firms to determine areas for vegetable shortages and develop contracts, meet with Viettel officials, purchase signage for demonstration sites, develop a brand logo, and work on a marketing campaign. Besides, the project team helped farmers to develop educational materials to increase consumer awareness of and demand for safe vegetables. In the case of the environmental aspect, the project conducted environmental assessments of communes. Do the FFSs on sustainable production and environment protection. Moreover, regarding social aspects, the project activities focused on working with farmers to survey current practices, defining product quality and frequency of enteric pathogen contamination, and conducting a HACCP analysis with farmers throughout the commune. Many followed activities for social aspects were done, such as partnering with farmers to prioritize vegetables where post-harvest and food safety research can have an immediate impact and those where research is most practical, conducting a baseline study of health indicators in treatment and control groups, implementing FFS to provide food safety education, used to partner with farmers to implement sustainable education and training programs managed by the farmer communes with assistance from Vietnamese and Cambodian universities.
Revitalisation Outcome
Some key outcomes of the project are Some key outcomes are two community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance, 20 producers organizations receiving USG assistance, 30 additional hectares under improved technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance, 3400 rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions - Male Headed Household, 4300 farmers, processors, and others who have adopted new technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance.
The community outcomes positively changed after the project was completed. Such as, in 2015, safe vegetable production in community continued to develop and wider the market. In 2021, the safe vegetable cooperative still worked well and diverse it’s products, safe vegetable production in community gained the OCOP (One commune, one product) certificate for super sweet muskmelon product.
This is the abridged version of a case prepared by AIRI Fellow Tran Thi Nhu Ngoc. For further information, please email Dr. Thi Phuoc Lai Nguyen at phuoclai@ait.asia.