Proposing JICA assistance for the expansion of Nam Dinh Agricultural High School

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan honored and congratulated Shimizu Akira, who has spent years working and promoting Vietnam's agriculture as the Chief Representative of JICA in Vietnam and welcomed his successor, Sugano Yuichi.

"I got the opportunity to visit cooperatives throughout Japan, including Oita Province, where the One Village, One Product movement began. I stood there wondering how this province had managed to live, build, and market its products. Since then, I've been thinking about how to expand the OCOP (One Commune, One Product) program in Vietnam and how to encourage young participation in agriculture," said Minister Le Minh Hoan.

The leader of the agriculture sector hoped that JICA's representatives would continue to collaborate, assist, and advise in the development of OCOP products, agricultural landscape models as well as the realization of Japan's agricultural training obligations.

According to Minister Le Minh Hoan, the two sides have created and implemented a Medium and Long-Term Vision for Agricultural Cooperation (phase 1 in the period of 2015-2019; phase 2 in the period of 2020-2024). This is an essential foundation for the two sides to use to guide the development of strategic priority cooperation in agriculture and rural development throughout time.

In the future, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development would like JICA to assist in new rural development areas such as community tourism, smart villages, agricultural tourism; OCOP product development; digital conversion; strengthening capacity, and directing disaster prevention and mitigation administration; and capacity building for fisheries and forest rangers.

Moreover, Vietnam's agriculture sector seeks JICA's assistance in meeting its promise to reduce emissions at COP26, as well as a number of financing projects to boost irrigation infrastructure in the Mekong Delta and North Central areas.

Shimizu Akira, representing JICA, expressed gratitude towards MARD for its assistance in fulfilling his mission as Chief on a part-time basis, particularly in some projects that are to be completed, such as the Improvement of the Irrigation System in North Nghe An Province and the Project for Enhancing Laboratory Capacities of the Reference Testing and Agrifood Quality Consultancy (RETAQ) Center for Ensuring the Safety of Agricultural and Fisheries Foods. Mr. Akira asked help from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to expedite the project to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic ties between Vietnam and Japan.

Akira recommended that MARD deploy extra workers to help the project run smoothly. JICA representatives also agreed with Minister Le Minh Hoan on agricultural training and OCOP.

Mr. Akira proposed starting at the lowest level, such as the district level, and then upscaling to the provinces, in order to expand the model of Nam Dinh Agricultural High School, the first and only high school in Vietnam that teaches students agricultural techniques along the value chain from production to processing agricultural products and food according to the Japanese model. JICA will interact with and assess Japanese resources and skills.

“We will consult and consider resources and capabilities from the Japanese side. I think we can refer to how to spread this model more widely, but besides that, it is also necessary to make efforts to implement the model successfully in Nam Dinh, to become an example for other places. From there, we track the results and come up with a plan or come up with a specific idea to develop this model,” Akira said.

Mr. Akira expressed excitement that OCOP products appeared more frequently and were known by more people while discussing the OCOP issue. Yet, he stated that the agriculture business needs a plan to generate better goods, specialized branding, and a target market identification.

The Japanese representative for JICA stated that while the organization has many huge loan and infrastructure projects, local development is also highly essential. JICA wants to collaborate with MARD on this topic.