At the meeting (Photo: baomoi.com) Tra Vinh (VNA) – A meeting took place in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh onApril 25 to introduce the project“Smart Agro-ecological Transformation of Farming Systemstowards Resilience and Sustainability in Middle and Coastal Zones of theVietnam Mekong Delta (STAR-FARM)”.
Theevent was co-hosted by theMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Food and AgricultureOrganisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the provincial Department of Agricultureand Rural Development.
On the occasion, consultationswere held with the provinces of Dong Thap, Kien Giang and Tra Vinh regardingthe selection of district-level locations and models for the implementation of the project this year.
NguyenDo Tuan Anh, Director of the MARD’s Department of International Cooperation, saidthe project has a total funding of nearly 4.2 million EUR (4.66 million USD), fundedby the European Union (EU) through FAO. It was approved by the MARDin April 2023 and launched in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang province onDecember 13, 2023 at the Vietnam-HauGiang International Rice Festival.
Carried out from2023-2027, the project consists of three components, including supporting the enforcementof policies related to the transformation of smart food systems in climatechange, supporting the development and improvement of ecological agriculturalvalue chains, and enhancing the adaptive capacity of stakeholders in monitoringand evaluating the transformation of food systems, promoting innovation andcreativity. This encourages equitable, healthy, sustainable agricultural valuechains that are climate and environmentally friendly.
Partners of the project include the FrenchAgricultural Research Centre for InternationalDevelopment (CIRAD), the French National Research Institutefor Sustainable Development (IRD), the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture andRural Development (IPSARD), the Vietnam Academy of AgriculturalSciences and Can Tho University.
The project aims to help improve production, business administration and marketing capacity for at least 24 cooperatives and cooperative groups, and establish 8 cooperatives of youth, women and ethnic minority people. It will also assist 15 agricultural SMEs to access green financial sources, build three support packages for innovative agricultural schemes and eco-agricultural models./.
