Collaboration for Agriculture and Rural Development
(CARD)
Program
64
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF AGRIBIZ PROJECT
Project title:
Enhancing smallholders’ access to A
gribusiness in the Central region of Viet
Nam
Project c
ode
: CARD 055/04 VIE
Author(s):
Assoc. Prof.
Dr. Mai Van Xuan
1
,
Dr. Sandra Martin
2
, Stewart Pittaway
2
Project Implementing organisations:
1
Faculty of Economics and Development Studies, Hue College of
Economics
2
Lincoln University, New Zealand
1.
Introduction
This project, implemented from 2005 to 2009,
aiming at developing the agribusiness capacity

FEDS with an improved agribusin
ess teaching,
research and consultancy skills, HCE with an
improved agribusiness curriculum; ii)
Provincial agency staff with enhanced
agribusiness skills and able to deliver courses
for smallholders then they with better
agribusiness skills and supported
by more
effective provincial agencies; iii) Smallholders
with better agribusiness skills and supported by
more effective provincial agencies in order to
improve their livelihood.
Overall goal of this project is enhancing
smallholders’ access to Agribusines
s Services
in the Central Region of Viet Nam in way of
providing smallholders necessary skills in
Agribusiness so that they can improve their
livelihoods.
The expected outputs of the projects are (1)
FEDS with improved applied research skills
and agribusin
ess training, teaching, research
and consultancy skills; (2) FEDS with an
improved agribusiness curriculum; (3)
Provincial agency staff with enhanced
agribusiness skills and able to deliver
agribusiness training courses for smallholders;
and (4) Smallholde

women) and
the provincial extension and
service agencies. This will provide the basis for
the development of subsequent project
activities. Our overall approach has the
following features:

Development of the farm agribusiness
resource at FEDS
–
through staff trainin
g
and an associated training resource (course
curricula and notes etc);

Curricula must be based upon an
assessment of the needs of the sector
stakeholders;

Project inputs are phased to allow ideas
and concepts to be absorbed;

Facilitation of FEDS project l
eadership
through mentoring by Lincoln University
(LU);

Linkages with rural development
initiatives in the Central Region.
The project’s communication strategy will

(DARD);

Development of the FEDS agribusiness
curriculum;

Presentation of findings at regular
seminars and workshops as well as through
publications.
The original methodology has been modified. It
was decided by both partne
rs to make the
survey of Thua Thien Hue province into a pilot
study before committing significant staff and
financial resources to the survey of the 3 other
provinces. The survey method and results were
evaluated in association with Lincoln
University staf
f in November 2005. This
evaluation included a workshop and as result
the surveys in the other 3 provinces were
modified.
3.
Research results and discussions
According to the objectives and methodology of
the project, activities classified into 4 areas:
i)
building capacity for FEDS staff in research
and training about agribusiness; ii) Training
need assessment (TNA) about agribusiness of
extension staff and farmers of 4 target

organizations and companies… that is way in
order to transfer skills and knowledge on
agribusiness into farmers. The following are
main activities of the project to gain this
objective.
Mai Van Xuan,
Sandra Martin & Stewart Pittaway
66
3.
1
.1
Deve
loping agribusiness curriculum
in the FEDS is an important issue
The study visit to Lincoln University, New
Zealand (February 2006) was an important
capacity building activity that occurred just
prior to the reporting period. The FEDS staff
that joined the
visit have learned much
knowledge and skills in agribusiness analysis,
curriculum and training course design and
training methods. They had a good chance to
visit farms and cooperatives activities in New
Zealand. Thanks to Lincoln University experts’
atte
ntions, the FEDS training curriculum was
revised and amended better.
3
.1.2

3.1.3
Research activities and publicity
FEDS staff have conducted many province and
ministry
projects, many papers have been
published on domestic and international
journals related to agribusiness area (more than
40 papers in which 30 in domestic and 10 in
international journals); participated in several
international conferences.
Developing s
kills and knowledge on
agribusiness for FEDS staff is among of
important achievements. Many FEDS staff are
invited to be consultants on agribusiness and
rural development for DARDs in recent years,
they have been conducting more than 15
consultancy contrac
ts and 9 projects funded by
international organizations.
Working with Lincoln University experts, 4
training modules for extension staff and farmers
have been completed, including: i) Training
farmer: course design and training methods; ii)
Farm analysis
; iii) Marketing and supply chain
analysis; iv) Farm agribusiness planning. These
training modules have been developed into 2
level, level 1 for extension staff and level 2 for
farmers. Thanks to good cooperation and

Carrying out researches and
publishing;
-
Conducting projects with provinces
and inter
national organizations;
-
Being
consultancy
in the field.
3.2
Improve skills and knowledge on
agribusiness for extension staff
In fact, extension staff of DARDs have been
well organized and well operated in long time.
Obviously, extension staff is an impor
tant
bridge that transfer skills and knowledge of
agribusiness to farmers. We carried out the
training need assessment of extension staff and
farmers in order to know their demands about
skills and knowledge of agribusiness. Based on
the survey results, we
developed 4 training
modules as mentioned above. Extension staff
of 4 target provinces have participated on
seminars, training workshops, conducted case
studies, built up farm agribusiness planning
with FEDS staff. In addition, they attended
many training

This is one of the important goals of the
project. The project has provided farmers
with
Mai Van Xuan,
Sandra Martin & Stewart Pittaway
68
agri
-
business skills to help them estimate
resources, to analyse supply chain and to
design production plans. More than 3000
farmer participations, in which 25% of them
were women, around 3% were ethnic
minorities, were trained to become more
busines
s
-
minded. Farmers interviewed by
CARD evaluation team reported that through
making production plan and supply chain
analysis, they could calculate net benefit of
their production and know how to invest in
their businesses. Farmers trained by the
Agribiz pr
oject are now more capable in
controlling their farming systems as well as
their enterprises and gain more stable incomes.
The project also selected 12 farm households
(three households per province)
–

4
.
Lessons learned
Several lessons have been learnt over the
course of the implementation of the Agribiz
project. The Agribiz project was the first major
bilateral donor project undertaken by the
FEDS where it worked closely with an
overseas in
stitutional partner. Lessons from the
Agribiz include:
4.1
Project organization and
management
The project management board have
constructed project strategies, managements
and close collaboration with stakeholders such
as Lincoln University, CARD program
,
provincial DARDs… so that project activities
have well conducted and managed .
4.2
Building good relationships with
Partners
–
Lincoln University and
CARD program
FEDS and LU developed a close working
relationship and were able to meet regularly to
re

activities in each province.
Agribiz also had a wide scope involved
working in provinces from Hue to Nghe An,
Kon Tum and Quang Ngai, to which takes at
least one day travelling by road. This means
log
istic challenges and requires close liaison
with the provincial agencies. Furthermore, the
rainy season in the Central Vietnam makes it
very difficult to travelling and operations that
need to be considered in the implementation of
such projects as Agribiz
.
CARD 0
55/04 VIE
–
Agri
-
business
69
4.4
Encouraging new ideas
Agribusiness was a very new discipline and
concept for many of the FEDS staff. They
were also unfamiliar with the case study, based
upon research methodology that was used in
the provincial field work. The team working
method
was implemented to deal with this
problem and the work schedule allowed time

timing of these strategic activities to ensure
they were coordinated with the overall work
program. Thanks to flexibility in planning and
implementa
tion; timing of strategic activities
and supporting from provincial DARDs,
project activities were carried out successfully.
5
T
owards the future
-
orientation
activities
With achievements of the Agribiz, in the
future, FEDS will focus on several main
mi
ssions as
the following
:
5.1
Incessantly enhancing teaching
and research capacity is the most
important mission of FEDS

Through Agribiz project, 3 lecturers
have been admitted to pursue PhD in
Agribusiness in Lincoln University,
New Zealand;

Through the

–
Finance having high quality;

Strengthen research collaboration with
other international universities an
d
organizations (MICRODIC, EEPSEA,
IUCN ).
5.3
Collaborate
with localities in
transferring
technological
scientific achievements

Complete and publish training modules
for extension staffs and farmers of the
Central provinces;

Continue to transfer the p
roject’s
achievements to the provinces through
training courses of HCE (short
-
term
training, in
-
service training…);
Mai Van Xuan,
Sandra Martin & Stewart Pittaway

With such achievements, it is hopeful that
FEDS will enhance and promote fruitful
collaborations with other domestic and
foreign
partners in the near future and seize
opportunities to become one of the leading
teaching and training center in Viet Nam.