July 2022 – Fresh Studio

Mango Business School is an initiative of “Strengthening The Mango Value Chain In The Mekong Delta” – a component of the GIC Viet Nam aims to enable stakeholders throughout the value chain to successfully implement identified innovations to enhance their business in terms of sustainability, climate change resilience and profitability.

The purpose of Mango Business School is to increase the knowledge capacity of key staffs of cooperatives, companies, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, and other actors in the mango value chain on key subjects including production, harvesting, packing, post-harvest management, quality assurance, sales, marketing, and management.

On 26 July 2022, the first training of Mango Business School was organized in Cao Lanh city, Dong Thap province with the participant of 43 trainees coming from Cooperatives, Companies and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The participants of the 1^st training of Mango Business School

The full-day training provided trainees with informative approaches to value chain development in the Vietnam context. This introduction course provided a solid basis to start or further develop the mango value chains by discussing the 4 main topics:

What is value chain?
Introduction to value chain thinking
Mapping of the value chain
Value chain analysis

The Value Chain is a business-oriented approach that aims to capture the best value at all stages of production, processing, and trading from farmers to consumers. The value chain approach can provide a holistic view of the production process, from raw materials to final consumption. This allows learners to identify areas for improvements in product and information flows via strategic alliances and networks, as well as relationship management. With this approach, producers can improve their market access while buyers access more reliable and improved raw materials.

Trainees are required to map the basic value chain based on their assigned role in the mango production process

The value chain approach can help government officials identify bottlenecks in the production process and which policies are needed to address these bottlenecks. The purpose of the training is to spark the understanding of the value chain approach and its importance as well as explain the principles and scope of the value chain and examine the priority areas for value chain development.

Group discussion on the value chain analysis

The training will carry out the 2nd part of Value Chain Development in September 2022 which will focus on getting to know Rapid Diagnostic Appraisal (RDA); how to apply these tools to specific cases; and ways of translating the value chain analysis into value chain development.

The OKP project is a Dutch-Vietnamese knowledge partnership project to promote the development of a climate-resilient nursery sector & value chains in An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho, Soc Trang, Tien Giang and Vinh Long, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands and managed by NUFFIC.

This project introduces scalable water technology pilots for the aquaculture and horticulture sectors to develop climate-smart value chains. The project international partners including Aeres University, Has University, Fresh Studio Innovations Asia and Nong Lam University work with local governments and educational institutions to enhance capacity so that adaptations to cope with transformation in the Mekong Delta can be accelerated at the local level.

After a successful two-day kick-off workshop and first training sessions in April 2021, unfortunately the training activities were limited to online sessions due to Covid-19 restrictions. Although in-person meetings were restricted, Fresh Studio set up its fish nursery with an advanced water filtration system (RAS) from Alpha Aqua—an improvement over previous methods that greatly increased fingerling efficiency and water usage.

Fingerling R&D nursery established by Fresh Studio

At the Nong Lam University, irrigation systems were installed. These systems enabled the university to train its students in applied research related to irrigation strategies and water use efficiency.

Irrigation system installed at Nong Lam University

As the Covid-19 situation has eased the project partners are pleased that in-person training and other project activities can take place again in Vietnam. During the last 2 weeks, the groups focused on aquaculture and crops resumed training activities related to didactics and technologies related to climate-smart agriculture. The training was provided by experts from Aeres and HAS, focusing on didactics in combination with the local teams of Nong Lam University and Fresh Studio, focusing on technologies.

Aquaculture training week

Didactics training activities during the training in Can Tho

*Irrigation strategy at Nong Lam University demonstration farm*

The project resumed training activities were met with enthusiasm by the trainees, especially the training exercises in which the trainees were actively involved themselves.

In the coming period the project will continue to roll out the planned project activities starting with another training session on irrigation in June and the 2^nd value chain development training in September.

Month: July 2022

Mango Business School officially start the first training on Value Chain Development

OKP Project resumes training activities in Vietnam

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