On January 16th, 2023, the group of specialists of the Safe Food for Growth Project (SAFEGRO) had a meeting with the Working Group of Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development on vegetable value chain assessment and recommendation for developing sustainable vegetable value chains in Hanoi. The SAFEGRO project is funded by Global Affairs Canada and implemented by Alinea International. At this meeting, the representative of the GBVCA group presented the survey results of the selected vegetable value chains in Hanoi and proposed the approaches to improve food quality and safety. That adds value to vegetable products.
Talking to the SAFEGRO projects staff and GBVCA working group, the representative of Hanoi Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Sub-Department highly appreciated the research results, which reflected many outstanding features of Hanoi surveyed vegetable value chains including high average working age of the farmers, limited accessibility to new technologies, and conservative mindset. Given those characteristics, the project initiatives need to consider suitable intervention approaches when introducing new technologies, developing supportive measures, training content and interventions to improve the food safety and quality of the vegetable value chain.
Although Hanoi has many agricultural commodity value chains, there is not yet a complete value chain that can be considered as fully integrated and enhanced-value added supply chain. Therefore, the project’s support on upgrading traceability systems can be valuable to the existing simple traceability systems along with capacity building activities for stakeholders.
The Hanoi Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Sub-Department and the Hanoi Plant Protection Sub-Department will coordinate with SAFEGRO project through a working group to develop a realistic approach so that Hanoi can build a pilot model of vegetable value chain that are sustainable and effective in food safety and good quality.