Vietnam - Country Strategy

1. Overview [1]
2. Country Strategy [2]
3. Priorities [3]
4. Key Program Managers [4]
5. Current Projects [5]
6. Concluded Projects [6]
7. Achievements [7]
8. Relevant Publications [8]
9. Country News and Stories [9]
10. Project Locations [10]
11. Country Office [11]
12. Country Portfolio [12]
13. AusAid and Other Briefs [13]
14. Fellowship Statistics [14]

Country Strategy

ACIAR's Vietnam strategy emphasises technical and agribusiness research to enhance smallholder incomes from selected areas of high-value agriculture, aquaculture and forestry. From 2008 onwards, there will be an increasing focus on two regions of Vietnam, where poverty has persisted and where Australian agricultural technical skills have a clear ability to assist in development:

• the south central coast, with an emphasis on research to underpin profitable but sustainable crop cultivation and livestock production systems in challenging environments (poor, sandy soils under water-limiting conditions), and research on the development of sustainable mariculture systems for high-value species
• the north-western highlands, where opportunities exist for selected horticultural products (high-value temperate fruits, flowers and vegetables), livestock and forestry products.

Fisheries and forestry, while differing in regional focus, have a common emphasis on improving incomes for farmers and the processing industry by targeting higher value products and markets. The fisheries program focuses on mariculture and aquaculture, emphasising nutrition and high-value species. The forestry program will have an increased emphasis on genetics, silviculture and processing technologies for higher value wood products.

New linkages to the programs of AusAID and other donors working in these regions will be developed, and there will be a particular focus on linking central research institutes with provincially based research and extension departments and mass organisations. Cross-cutting themes include: a particular emphasis on applying Australian expertise in crop protection and biosecurity to prevent product losses and improve quality; agricultural economic studies at various scales (linking with the work of AusAID and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)) to back the application of technical research; development of targeted communications strategies appropriate to each ethnic group of particular farmers and other beneficiaries.