Dr. Peter Ooi, Regional Director, AVRDC-ARC and the new National Expert, Dr. Le Thi Thu Huong participated in a Seminar and Inception Workshop to discuss planning for the new IFAD grant No. 937 –AVRDC on “Integrated Safe and Off-Season Vegetable Production with Market through Information, Education and Training in Ha Tinh and Tra Vinh Provinces, Viet Nam” - SOVP. The Seminar and Workshop was held in the office of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Ho Chi Minh City, from 5 to 6 June 2007. It was attended by 12 representatives of six partner agencies from the north and south of Vietnam. The output included an adoption of activities for the four components of the project which facilitated the development of corresponding funding for the partner agencies.

The Regional Director and three staff members of the ARC Training Center in Kamphaeng Saen participated in a meeting with the Research and Development Institute of Kasetsart University, Kamphaeng Saen (RDI-KPS) on 8 June, 2007 to discuss the possibility of jointly developing three project proposals, viz. mungbean breeding, biochemical functionalities of native vegetables and tropical organic farming. The meeting was held in the library of the ARC Training Center. Dr. Peter Ooi is attending to the seminar on “Policy Support for Cross Border Contract Farming” in Bangkok from 13-15 June 2007. The Seminar is jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives of the Royal Thai Government and the Asian Development Bank with the cooperation of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The paper presented by ARC is on “Empowering farmers with advanced vegetable production to encourage safe and off-season vegetables in GMS countries”.

Source: Dr. Peter A.C. Ooi/AVRDC-ARC