Insights

How to scale up initiatives that build trust between actors in the food chain, while at the same time ensure the full participation of smallholder farmers? This blog post shares some key reflections from the workshop “Scaling up the trust networks for food safety with small farmers” where VECO Vietnam and its partners shared their experience on Participatory Guarantee Systems.

In November, communication officers from VECO’s 8 offices across the globe met in Arusha, Tanzania, for VECO’s very first international communication workshop. During this 10-day event, each of them had the chance to participate in a “Learning Journey”, a two-day visit to discover some of VECO East Africa's past or current projects. This blog from VECO Vietnam's Communication Officer shares some key insights and learnings from Tanzania's very active horticultural business association.

Between April 2015 and June 2016, VECO Vietnam and Duy Tien district’s Women’s Union supported farmers in Trac Van commune to strengthen a Participatory Guarantee System for organic vegetables and to improve their business, production and organisational skills. The project has now come to an end but the results of this pilot experience demonstrate the benefits of PGS for farmers and consumers and call for the upscaling of this successful model.

Changes in Vietnamese people’s food consumption patterns over the past decade are fuelling the country’s ever-growing environmental footprint. But a simple change in diet can drastically lower an individuals’ greenhouse gas emissions.

In Vietnam, farmers generally apply chemicals improperly; they even use banned and restricted pesticides leading to cases of food poisoning. VECO Vietnam, together with its partner VINASTAS, is piloting and scaling-up a consumer education programme on safe vegetables. This initiative consists of the following key activities.