AsiaDHRRA joined the Start-up workshop for project “Building VNFU staff’s capacity of using right tools in supporting the development of collective economic forms in agriculture.” The workshop was held last February 25-27, 2013 at the VNFU Headquarter in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The project entitled “Building VNFU staff’s capacity of using right tools in supporting the development of collective economic forms in agriculture” aims at equipping VNFU staffs with the fundamental tools on supporting the development of collective economic forms in agriculture that enhance market power of small farmers and producers, develop a tailored – made guiding materials on the use of right tools to support the development of collective economic forms in agriculture; creating a potential resource of VNFU staffs that can be selected to be trained to become trainers/facilitators who later conduct training workshops for grass-roots level; thus, improving farmers’ capacity on marketing.  The project is supported by the Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA), a Belgium-based NGO, with funds from DGD Belgium through Agricord.  AsiaDHRRA has been dekegated by CSA to serve as focal point in providing advisory services to VNFU for the project. Both CSA and AsiaDHRRA are members of Agricord.
Dr. Nguyen Duy Luong, Vice- Chairman of VNFU presided the opening ceremony participated by representatives of VNFU Departments at Central level, representative of Farmers’ Unions in Hanoi City, Ha Nam, Bac Giang provinces, AsiaDHRRA, SRD and VietDHRRA.

Dr. Nguyen Duy Luong, Vice- Chairman of VNFU said that: “there are various forms of collective economy, mainly cooperatives and cooperation groups. By now, VNFU has implemented many diversified activities to provide services of supporting farmers in developing collective economic forms in agriculture. VNFU at all levels established 72,000 cooperation groups, initially, some Farmers’Unionat provinces converted gradually cooperation groups to agricultural cooperatives. Besides, VNFU at all levels have actively realized in mobilizing and disseminating farmers and supporting in building up cooperation groups and common interest groups, inter-groups or cooperatives to develop collective economy in agriculture, to help farmers to develop household economy and improve farmers’ livelihood.”
Mr. Florante Villas, Program Manager of Linking Small Farmers to Market of AsiaDHRRA, expressed that: “Market power or bargaining power can be defined strictly as the ability of an enterprise or any producer to negotiate and succeed in getting better marketing terms. Single farmers do not have market power. The concentration on economic, technical and financial leads to the existence of increasingly large and powerful firms. Some valuable strategies for farmers include contract farming, supply management to match agricultural output to the demand, collective marketing; product differentiation, shortening the supply chain.
Collective economy plays an important role in promoting socio-economic development of the country. In the actual situation, collective economy and cooperative economy development is one of the ways to promote agricultural production, to contribute to generating income for farmers and promote sustainable agricultural development.
Read more on the VNFU website…