Following several food poisoning scandals in Vietnam, both consumers and the government are becoming increasingly aware of food safety problems and the damage caused by pesticide residues. This has led to an increased interest in producing “safe” food and the formation of “safe” vegetable farmers’ cooperatives.
These cooperatives mainly sell their produce to intermediaries and company canteens. Farmers who are members stand a good chance of being paid a higher price for their “healthier” products. This is a promising development, but much more coordination between farmers, assemblers, wholesalers and retailers is still needed to increase the demand for safe vegetables at all levels in society.
Market forces
When Vietnamese farmers returned to their family-based farming systems in the 1980s after long years of working in a centrally planned economy, their farming practices changed dramatically. Responding to market demand rather than planning orders from the government, the area under vegetable production has increased from an estimated 274 000 hectares to almost 600 000 hectares.
Dangerous toxins
Today, vegetables provide small-scale farmers with a higher income than rice. Farmers, whose land holding averages 0.25 hectares, rely on cheap and accessible but often hazardous chemical pesticides to maintain intensive vegetable production.
In 2002, a twelve-month study by the VEGSYS project amongst 64 farmers in two villages close to Hanoi showed that they had used 152 different pesticide formulations, three percent of which were highly hazardous, 33 percent moderately hazardous and 20 percent slightly hazardous.
Food safety and the environment
Toxic pesticides have caused many food poisoning scandals in Vietnam. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of food safety problems and the damage caused by pesticide residues. However, although interest in buying safer vegetables is growing, little is known among the public about the environmental effects of agro-chemicals. At present, a team of VEGSYS researchers from Wageningen University and Research Centre and Hanoi Agriculture University are carrying out risk assessments to establish the effect of using combinations of pesticides on irrigated crops. Translating these studies into economic impacts will hopefully make stakeholders more aware of the hidden costs of pesticide use.
Certification
In 1996, Hanoi’s Department of Science, Technology and Environment (DOSTE) developed a protocol for “safe” vegetable production and set up a “safe vegetable” certification programme which allowed farmers and cooperatives to supply state-run “safe” vegetable shops and supermarkets. A “safe” vegetable is still produced using agrochemicals, but farmers take care not to use forbidden pesticides and to follow pre-harvest interval prescriptions of the pesticides. “Safe” vegetables should also be produced with ground water and not with irrigation water.
However, DOSTE did not monitor whether the “safe” vegetable cooperatives followed the protocol and consumers did not have much confidence in these so-called safe but very expensive products. The DOSTE programme ended in 2003 and has been replaced by a new certification scheme supervised by the Vietnamese Plant Protection Department (PPD). The Plant Protection Department has the equipment to carry out pest residue tests and can certify producers of “safe” vegetables.
“Safe” vegetable cooperatives
One of the most interesting reactions to these developments has been the formation of farmers’ cooperative groups and New-Style farmers’ Cooperatives (NSC) known as To Hop Tac. This was made possible by the introduction of new legislation that allows farmers to establish their own cooperatives and provided for the transformation of old state cooperatives into Transformed Cooperatives (TC).
Below are examples of three types of cooperatives.
1. New-Style farmers’ Cooperative
The most successful cooperative is Phuc Tinh, a NSC cooperative established in 2002 by a female farmer who took the initiative to invite the farmers in her village to form a “safe” vegetable cooperative. Twelve farmers, mostly relatives or good friends, got together and applied for official registration. They presented their management plan and regulations to the local Commune and the Department of Agriculture. Once approval had been received, they registered their cooperative with the tax office and were issued with official business documents. Each member of the cooperative pays an annual fee and five percent of the turnover is used to pay a very small salary to the cooperative’s management team and to service a fund that members can use in cases of personal emergency.
The Phuc Tinh cooperative advertises itself as a producer of “safe” vegetables. It follows Integrated Pest management (IPM) principles, does not use banned pesticides and adheres to the pre-harvest intervals prescribed for any agro-chemicals it does apply. Farmers who have been unable to cultivate according to these principles do not sell their vegetables through the cooperative.
The cooperative’s chairperson is responsible for finding new clients, making production plans and deciding which vegetables member should produce. The “assembler” of vegetables collects vegetables from members, processes them and delivers them to the cooperative’s clients. For this he receives transport and processing costs. Currently, the cooperative has five institutional clients who buy 700 kg of vegetables daily for their canteens. This assures cooperative members of a steady turnover, and on average members sell 50 - 80 percent of all their vegetables this way. Any extra produce is sold through normal market channels, although usually for a lower price.
2. A Transformed Cooperative
A transformed cooperative in another local village – formerly a service cooperative supplying inputs to farmers – has also been registered as a “safe” vegetable cooperative. All 600 households in the village automatically became members and no fees were required. Today, although most members use and pay for cooperative services, only 50 farmers have committed themselves to “safe” vegetable production. Social control in this large organization is low and the TC is not registered at the tax office, which means it cannot operate as a business. The active members sell about 600 kg of fresh vegetables per day to three clients: two state companies that supply vegetables to supermarkets, shops, schools and companies in Hanoi, and a privately owned “safe” vegetable shop. One of the companies has provided the TC with a detailed production protocol. It also supplies the TC with “safe” pesticides and takes samples of the produce for pesticide analysis.
So far, the quality supplied by the TC has always been good. Like the Phuc Tinh cooperative, the TC has no complete internal quality control system to monitor whether the members follow the “safe” vegetable production protocol. However, the TC has developed a simple tracking and tracing system. When farmers pack their vegetables for market at the designated post-harvest centre, they enclose a paper with their name, date of packaging and the name of the product.
3. Farmers’ Cooperative Groups
In addition to the TC, the village also has three “safe” vegetable farmers groups supported by the HFU/ADDA Vegetable IPM programme. They work within the TC but unlike TC farmers, group members pay an annual fee. Because the groups have only about ten members each, social control is strong – an important safety guarantee for existing and potential clients.
Conclusion
New and profitable markets are the incentive most farmers need to convert to safer more sustainable vegetable production. The present marketing system in Vietnam makes it difficult to develop a 100 percent watertight “safe” vegetable supply chain but the efforts being made in this direction are clearly benefiting some small-scale vegetable producers. Farmers who work through the newer marketing channels of “safe” vegetable cooperatives and sell to canteens, restaurants, shops and supermarkets, stand a good chance of getting a higher price for their products. This provides an incentive for farmers to be more careful with the use of agro-chemicals.
Currently, most of the safe vegetables are sold through direct contacts between cooperatives and large institutions or company canteens. Much more coordination and cooperation between farmers, assemblers, wholesalers and retailers is needed to increase the demand for safe vegetables at all levels in society.
An increase in demand from supermarkets, for example, might provide a strong incentive for farmers to produce high-quality and “safe” vegetables. This is already happening in neighbouring Thailand and China, where supermarket chains concerned about their image and brand are increasingly demanding food products free of pesticide residues. In order to win the confidence of consumers and retailers, however, contracts accompanied by strict protocols, internal control systems, input record keeping and simple tracing systems, as well as strict social control within the cooperatives themselves, will be needed.
LEISA 2005
Original article written by
Maarten Siebe van Wijk
Wageningen University Project Office for SE Asia
Hanoi Agriculture University
Trau Quy
Gia Lam
Hanoi
Vietnam
Email: siebe.vanwijk@wur.nl
Tran Huu Cuong, Nguyen Anh Tru and Pham Van Hoi
Hanoi Agriculture University
Trau Quy
Gia Lam
Hanoi
Vietnam
Email: phamhoi@hn.vnn.vn
Acknowledgement
The VEGSYS project is funded by the EU-INCO programme and the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Safety. Their support is gratefully acknowledged.
