On June 7, 2024, in Hanoi, the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), VietDHRA, and the important partners of the project Agroecology and Safe Food System Transformation (ASSET) such as Gret, Cirad, Rudec, ALiSEA Vietnam Network organized the National consultation workshop to promoting Agroecology in the context of ASEAN in Vietnam.
As one of the workshops supported by FAO, it received the attention and participation of 60 delegates representing government agencies, local authorities, embassies, research organizations, domestic and international NGOs, the private sectors, farmers came to participate for stakeholders to discuss agroecology development policies within the framework of their unification of ASEAN countries and the suitability of each country.
In the morning session, relevant presentations on policies and plans to promote the development of Agroecology in Vietnam and the region were shared such as the Government of Viet Nam’s Policy on Promoting Agroecology, the ASEAN Master Plan on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication, ASEAN Guidelines on Sustainable Agriculture. Besides, our six speakers representing six pillar fields discussed state management, research organizations, local governments, enterprises, agricultural extension agencies, and project consultants under the Vietnam Farmers’ Union. In particular, the participants in the workshop supported the view and agreed that to promoting agroecology following Vietnam, “it is necessary to implement integrating the agroecology development strategy in all dynamic plans from the central to local levels, in a synchronous, farmer-centric manner and cooperatives, ensuring the participation of all stakeholders, establishing producer-consumer relationships”
In the afternoon session, representatives of ALiSEA Network Vietnam shared about the project on the application of agroecology in Vietnam, and the agroecology development projects of the French Republic. The participants had the basis to observe and discuss the main challenges to promoting agroecology in Vietnam in the general context of ASEAN. During the discussion group, the workshop recorded the comments of all participants, which is an important basis for developing an action plan and transforming the next phase of agroecology in Vietnam.
At the end of the seminar, Associate Professor. Dr. Academician Dao The Anh, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Agricultural Sciences summarized and emphasized that “Vietnam is a member country of ASEAN, after synthesizing all the opinions and suggestions of the participants, Vietnam needs to come up with a draft Guidelines for the transformation of Agroecology for its country, seek consultation from relevant ministries and sectors and submit to the ASEAN Secretariat for consultation with countries. For the agroecology transformation plan, it is necessary to closely associate it with the National Action Plan on the Food System (Decision No. 300/2023 of the Prime Minister on Transforming the Food System to Ensure Transparency and Sustainability) and Sustainable Consumption Transformation, he also emphasized that when acting must approach from the bottom up. He highly appreciated the direction of developing the Guidelines for Agroecology, not the Agroecology processing, because the applicability and replication need to be suitable for each locality with different conditions, inputs, cultures, living and production traditions”.
Thank you for your participation, contributions, sharing opinions and experiences of all delegates at this workshop
The presentations: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HZ93Gz5QbKbJ7THCC3MvujtpH26OhxTH
Video recording: