Producing safe vegetables is labour-intensive, and a lack of affordable labour in rural areas leads smallholder farmers to buy and use harmful agrochemicals for pest management and soil preparation. Farmers often lack the means to communicate that vegetables have been produced safely, and many consumers are unable to pay a higher price to compensate farmers for the extra labour costs associated with safe production. Meanwhile, innovative labour-saving techniques and marketing measures are not widely known in Vietnam, and have not been fully adapted to local conditions.
Membership of a voluntary sustainability standard, such as participatory guarantee systems (PGS) with an associated label is an important mechanism for knowledge sharing and for communicating the safety of vegetables. PGS initiatives experienced early successes in attracting participants in Vietnam, but the numbers of PGS certified farms is not growing as quickly as expected, and is even decreasing in some areas. This decline could be reversed if techniques to reduce labour and measures to communicate the safety of vegetables to consumers are adapted to local conditions and communicated in a way as to reach as many farmers as possible.
This project aims to provide farmers in Vietnam with the knowledge and skills they need, while also developing strong local value chains. A second aim is to provide policymakers with a sound evidence base to promote the scaling up of such initiatives.
Project manager
