The Vietnamese Platform conducted a two-day workshop session for the National Sustainability Curriculum (NSC) with more than 90 participants, key stakeholders in Buon Ma Thuot city and Dak Lak province. The initiative seeks to improve the quality of the NSC modules as well as promoting the production of sustainable practices among farmers.
The consultation workshop was divided in two different sessions:
A more effective assurance system for NSC implementation
More than 40 participants took part or this event, among them were the Vietnam Coffee Coordination Board, Sub-Department of Crop Production, Provincial Agriculture Extension Centre, Women Union, coffee companies, and outstanding farmers. GCP Vietnam enabled the participation of the Western Highland Agricultural Science Institute (WASI), who chaired the event aimed at collecting the feedback of the representatives of both public and private sector in developing the indicators to monitor the progress of farms towards NSC implementation and improve the adoption rate of sustainable practices by farmers. Those indicators will be firstly tested in one district of coffee provinces before rolling out to other relevant areas.
After the workshop, WASI is responsible for revising the NSC assurance indicators and consult relevant partners further via email. This initiative of developing the indicators and testing them through information system has been highly appreciated by both public and private sector, as it will help improving the sector management in the long term. During the workshop, some big coffee companies, such as Nestle, have shown their great commitment in using the indicators to monitor the impact of the NSC.
The NSC will adapt to new farmer’s needs
With more than 50 participants, the workshop gathered several observations regarding the improvement of the information and material for the NSC. The activity has various key recommendations, including the need to develop the guidelines on irrigation technique for coffee and inter-cropped trees; revise previous measures and experiences in defining the appropriate moisture of coffee in the dry season for irrigation; evaluate NSC’s focus on how picking up the green bean impacts the quality and loss of weight for post-harvest planning and processing and analyse best management practices for new pests found by farmers
The resulting information should point out the important errors which influence the quality of coffee in planning and processing, and propose recommendations for farmers so that they can be better prepared and take mitigation measures. The audience’s engagement and their comments have been highly appreciated by the experts. As a common agreement, the current material and information will be revised after and consulted via email before completion.
The NSC has been revised with the financial support of GCP and the Vietnam Sustainable Agriculture Transformation Project (VnSat) supported by the World Bank for sustainable coffee and rice production in Vietnam. This workshop has marked an important milestone in promoting further collaboration between GCP and VnSAT/WB program for sustainable coffee production with the focus on private sector involvement, and paved the way for further cooperation in the future.
As part of the Sustainable Coffee Program (SCP) in Vietnam, the National Sustainability Curriculum was developed in 2013 to tackle the sustainability issues in the coffee sector. The Global Coffee Platform has been continuously working on improving this material with the help of the public and private sector in Vietnam.
Do you want to find out more about GCP and Vietnam? Check out the Platform’s page.