Overview
This project aimed to effectively and sustainably link vegetable suppliers in northern Vietnam with modern retailers.
Vietnamese love vegetables, but Hanoi's scorching summer temperatures mean local farmers cannot grow popular crops such as tomatoes, cabbage and beans. Instead, such produce is imported from China or brought in from the south.
The solution could be found in highland Moc Chau region, which is just four hours by road from Hanoi, sufficiently cool to grow temperate vegetables there in summer, and has 40,000 hectares of good farming land.
Project staff were working with research institutes, regional government and private sector organisations in Vietnam to train farmers to engage effectively with retailers in Hanoi.
86 project farmers from four villages in Moc Chau supplied more than 1,240 tonnes of accredited safe vegetables to retailers in Hanoi, in a new industry that benefits all sectors of the value chain.
Farmers could earn 300 million VND (AUD$18,000) per hectare from accredited safe vegetables, which is 150% more than from conventional vegetable cropping, and 14 times more than the 20 million VND (AUD$1,260) per hectare they could expect from growing maize or rice.
