Da Nang and Rikolto have a collaborated journey toward a more sustainable, inclusive and smart food system started in 2017, when a 5-year Memorandum of Understanding on Food Smart City development was signed. At the first stage, the collaboration focused on developing safe food value chains, raising consumers’ awareness of safe and sustainable food, and rolling out Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) to guarantee the quality of safe vegetables.
Vietnam National University of Agriculture and Rikolto were selected by Da Nang’s Food Safety Management Authority to conduct an analysis of Da Nang’s food system and policy environment, and to support to develop a draft of a food smart city strategy in 2018. Three important food value chains were mapped as a part of this assignment including vegetables, pork, and seafood chains. Early 2019, The People’s Committee of Danang city-issued Decision 995/QĐ-UBND dated 05 March 2019 approving the vegetable chain development projects by Rikolto. This project aims at enabling interventions that will involve DANUSTA (Danang Union of Science and Technology Association) and the Da Nang’s Crop and Plant Protection Department, in order to support 03 vegetable production farmer organizations in the city's peri-urban area.
This project seeks to improve production and business capacity including market development for the vegetable chains. Best practices would be documented for sharing/learning and advising decision-makers for a broader food system vision in Danang as well as contribute to international agendas.
Dr. Hoang My Lan, Regional Director, on behalf of Rikolto to receive this Certification on January 10, 2020.