An Australian-funded project is helping vegetable growers in the Moc Chau region of northwest Vietnam market certified-safe products in Hanoi.
The programme has established direct trading relationships between the producers, supermarkets and specialty safe vegetable stores in the city.
The economic and social benefits of the project are already apparent. In 2015, 68 project farmers in the Moc Chau villages of Tu Nhien, Ta Niet and An Thai, produced about 800 tonnes of certified-safe fresh produce over 22ha.
Participating farmers from the Tu Nhien village earned an average net income of A$18,000 per ha, a considerable improvement on the average net household income of A$7,560 per ha for non-project farmers in the village.
“Farmers who are working in the new value chain are no longer poor, they do not have to borrow money to grow their next crop,” said the project leader of 38 farmers in the Tu Nhien village.
In the neighbouring project village of Van Ho, farmers have been producing vegetables for only one season, yet they have already recorded an average net income of A$7,300 per ha for their crops, an 480 per cent increase on what they can earn from rice, according to a release from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
The project has been funded by ACIAR and is led by Applied Horticultural Research.
