ILRI presents at the 28th International Conference of Agricultural Economists

Cattle being watered at the Ghibe River in southwestern Ethiopia. The country's livestock sector supports the livelihoods of a large proportion of rural households (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

On 18-24 August 2012, some 1000 agricultural economics experts from around the world met in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil for the 28th triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists. The conference was organized by the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE).

Under the theme, The Global Bio-Economy, the conference discussed several global challenges affecting the bio-economy, including food insecurity, natural resource management and food price crises, and possible ways of addressing these challenges.

A team of researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) attended the meeting and presented papers on various aspects of agricultural economics in developing countries, including the role of livestock in the Ethiopian economy, the competitiveness of smallholder pig producers in Vietnam and economic impact assessment of avian influenza control measures in Nigeria.

Other presentations covered the opportunities for intra-regional trade in staple food crops in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region, the effects of decentralized forest management on household farm forestry in Kenya and the Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project, a research initiative jointly led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and ILRI aimed at better understanding gender and asset dynamics in agricultural development programs.

Training program on microbial risk assessment in Vietnam strengthens national food safety policies

Selling pork at a 'wet' market in Vietnam. A new training course on microbial risk assessment is helping to reduce public health risks and improve the management of food and water safety in Vietnam (photo credit: ILRI).

A collaborative training course on microbial risk assessment in Vietnam has provided policymakers with scientific evidence for decision-making towards better management of health risks in food and water.

Environmental health risk assessment in general and microbial risk assessment in particular are still at a very early stage of development in Vietnam.

With its rapid urbanization, industrialization, agricultural development and population growth, Vietnam faces increasing risks from microbial hazards contaminating its water and food supply.

In early 2010, the Swiss-based National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South piloted a project that developed a training curriculum in microbial risk assessment as part of national interventions aimed at better managing food- and water-borne health risks in Vietnam.

The project was led by the Hanoi School of Public Health in partnership with the National Institute of Nutrition, the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, the Preventive Medicine Centre of Ha Nam Province and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute.

Experts from the Market Opportunities theme of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) provided the team with technical support to ensure the quality of the curriculum which covers water, sanitation and food safety.

The collaborative process of developing the training course helped the concerned groups in Vietnam to work together, culminating, in January 2011, with a final training workshop attended by representatives from universities, research institutions and government ministries to discuss areas of future collaboration in research and capacity strengthening in risk assessment.

The course has led to the setting up of a local network on health risk assessment, enhanced the quality of training at the Hanoi School of Public Health, and developed a book-length manual of microbial risk assessment guidelines for food safety.

The development of the training course and its policy impact in tackling issues of water, sanitation, and food safety in Vietnam are described in these NCCR North-South Outcome Highlights, available in English and Vietnamese.

You may also be interested in:
Ecohealth approaches can improve food safety management in Vietnam

Participatory risk analysis: a new method for managing food safety in developing countries

A Vietnamese pork seller in a traditional 'wet' market: Participatory risk assessment can help to manage risk in food value chains in developing countries (photo credit: ILRI).

Food safety is a major concern in many developing countries where the informal ('traditional') sector dominates production and sale of food products and there are generally high levels of unsafe food.

Risk analysis – comprising risk assessment, risk management and risk communication – has emerged as a novel approach to assessing and managing risks in food value chains within developing-country contexts.

As opposed to the more 'traditional' approach of food safety management that focuses on food-borne hazards, participatory risk analysis focuses instead on risk, that is, the likelihood of occurrence of a hazard and the economic consequences, and how best that risk can be mitigated to provide consumers with assurance of food safety and quality.

At the recently concluded seventh international conference of the Asian Society of Agricultural Economists held on 13-15 October 2011 in Hanoi, Vietnam, the subject of participatory risk assessment featured during a parallel session, Food safety policy in developing country context: examples from case studies in livestock value chains, organized by agricultural economist Dr Lucy Lapar of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

The parallel session featured three presentations by scientists from ILRI's Market Opportunities theme on participatory risk assessment studies of the pork value chain in Nagaland, India; the dairy supply chain in Assam, India and the pork value chain in peri-urban Hanoi, Vietnam.

While each of the three studies had different objectives, they all used the common framework of participatory risk assessment to examine the risks to human health in livestock product value chains.

Risk-based food safety policies and regulations; increased consumer awareness on risk-mitigating practices (for example, boiling of raw milk before drinking it); and training and certification of informal sector pork and milk sellers are among the recommendations drawn from the studies. The Nagaland study also recommended the assessment of the economic impact of pork-borne disease on people and the pork sector.


You may also be interested in:
Risk assessment in the pork meat chain in Nagaland, India (Poster)

Innovative and participatory risk-based approaches to assess milk-safety in developing countries: a case study in North East India (Conference paper)

Participatory risk assessment of pork in Ha Noi and Ha Tay, Vietnam (Research Brief)

Bird flu fear in Asia: IFPRI and ILRI offer research-based disease control options for developing countries

Amid fears of resurgence of avian influenza in parts of Asia, researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Livestock Research Institute are helping governments in developing countries to make informed decisions on how to control the spread of the disease and minimize its economic impact on the poor. (Photo: IFPRI)

The H5N1 form of avian influenza that has recently swept through Asia and into parts of Europe and Africa poses an extraordinary challenge for the international community.

And now the United Nations has warned of an imminent resurgence of avian influenza in parts of Asia, following the detection of a mutant strain of avian influenza in China and Vietnam. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has urged "heightened readiness and surveillance against a possible major resurgence of the H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza".

While a strong global response is necessary to control the spread of this disease, efforts in developing countries have shown that conventional approaches to disease control and prevention may not always work in the case of avian influenza.

There is considerable uncertainty throughout the developing world about the disease’s spread mechanisms, as well as the timing, extent, and severity of potential outbreaks.

This gap in knowledge, however, does not change the fact that developing countries are faced with critical decisions about how to defend against and recover from a potential outbreak of avian influenza.

Researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Market Opportunities theme of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are spearheading a new research program to study the patterns and determinants of the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the economic impacts of an HPAI outbreak on different populations, and cost-effective HPAI control and prevention strategies.

The goal of the project, which is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID),  is to help governments in developing countries make more informed decisions about how to control the spread of HPAI and how to minimize the impact on different populations, particularly the poor, of both the disease and the measures taken to control an outbreak so as to ensure optimal compliance.

The project is implemented in Ethiopia,Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria.

For more information and to download the project publications, please visit the project web page.

ILRI project offers viable solutions to rising pork prices in Vietnam

Farmer Ma Thi Puong feeds her pigs on her farm near the northern town of Meo Vac, Vietnam: Policies that address supply constraints faced by both small and large pig farmers in Vietnam can help in long-term solutions to the rising prices of pork and live pigs. (Photo credit: ILRI/Mann).

Rising consumer demand for pork, high cost of animal feed and ineffcient value chains have led to skyrocketing prices of pork and live pigs in Vietnam. Within the first half of 2011 alone, the cost of pork and live pigs doubled in the principal urban markets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

As policymakers seek long-term solutions towards boosting domestic supply of pork to meet the sustained consumer demand, research findings by scientists from the Market Opportunities theme of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) can help in pointing the way to viable solutions to the current food price crisis.

Findings from a three-year (2007-2010) Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)-funded ILRI-led collaborative project, Improving competitiveness of smallholder pig producers in an adjusting Vietnam market, suggest that both small-scale and large-scale pig producers should be targeted in a strategy for expanding domestic pork supply in Vietnam, considering that prices are likely to remain high in the long run on account of pork being a key ingredient in the Vietnamese diet.

These and other findings are highlighted in an article by Nguyen Do Anh Tuan of Vietnam's Centre for Agricultural Policy and Lucy Lapar of ILRI published in the 22-28 August 2011 issue of Vietnam Investment Review, Vietnam's leading weekly international business newspaper.

Previous interventions by the Vietnam government have tended to ignore small-scale farmers, focusing instead on developing large-scale farms to address supply constraints such as rising feed prices, losses from diseases and inefficiencies in pork value chain.

However, research findings based on a pig sector model for Vietnam suggest that large-scale pig farms will make a minimal contribution to supply in both the short- and long- term. Indeed, the majority small-scale farms were found to be better able to adapt to volatile prices in feed markets, hence creating efficiencies in these systems.

Therefore, focusing on large-scale farms and ignoring the majority of small-scale farms and their constraints will not result in long-term efficiency gains, the study concluded.

"The focus should be on addressing causes of constraints to productivity growth, such as disease outbreaks, rising feed prices, efficient system for replacement of breeding stocks and improving pork value chain performance," the article's authors suggest.

"Policies that will provide incentives to generate new technological breakthroughs and appropriate institutions to support these would likely to be more effective options," the authors add.

The project collaborators were the Centre for Agricultural Policy - Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (CAP-IPSARD), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Oxfam Hong Kong and the University of Queensland.

Read the complete article from the Vietnam Investment Review

For more information, please contact Dr Lucy Lapar of ILRI (l.lapar @ cgiar.org), visit the project website or read the project publications.

You may also be interested in these past blog posts on Livestock Markets Digest

• In the news: Director of ILRI's market opportunities theme interviewed on Vietnam agriculture TV channel (December 2010)
• ILRI project poster wins top prize at European College of Veterinary Public Health annual conference (October 2010)
• In the news: ILRI-led research on smallholder pig producers features in Vietnam News (October 2010)
• Vietnam pork sector study featured in New Agriculturist (February 2010)

Ecohealth approaches can improve food safety management in Vietnam

Pork seller at a market in Vietnam: One Health and Ecohealth approaches can improve the management of food safety and zoonotic diseases in Vietnam. (Photo credit: ILRI).

Food safety is a major concern for the government of Vietnam. According to the World Health Organization Representative Office in Vietnam, the human costs of food-borne diseases, lost production from diseases and related market losses surpass USD 1 billion per year, an amount equivalent to 2% of Vietnam's Gross Domestic Product.

The topic of food safety management in Vietnam featured at the Second Food Safety and Zoonoses Symposium for Asia Pacific that was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand on 21-22 July 2011.

A presentation by Dr Hung Nguyen-Viet of the Hanoi School of Public Health, Vietnam and researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) considered the challenges, costs and benefits of One Health and Ecohealth approaches to food safety in Vietnam.

Ecohealth and One Health approaches assume that human, livestock, wildlife and environmental health are integrally related.

The presentation also highlighted a number of food safety research projects by ILRI in Vietnam, including the project on ecosystem approaches to the better management of zoonotic emerging infectious diseases in Southeast Asia which is coordinated Dr Jeffrey Gilbert, a veterinary epidemiologist with ILRI’s research team on animal health, food safety and zoonoses.

Linking research and management of food safety within One health/ecohealth context in Vietnam: Concepts and applications

View more presentations from ILRI

Citation
Nguyen-Viet H, Grace D, Lapar ML, Unger F, McDermott J and Gilbert J. 2011. Linking research and management of food safety within One Health/Ecohealth context in Vietnam: Concepts and applications. Presentation at the 2nd Food Safety and Zoonoses Symposium for Asia Pacific, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 21-22 July 2011.

ILRI research report features case studies on consumer demand for livestock products in Africa and Asia

Rising developing country demand for livestock products propelled by income and population growth, and by urbanization offers poverty reduction opportunities to actors in the supply chain.

The increase in volumes demanded also features diversification and increased demand for quality attributes. Reliable food safety and information on animal husbandry and geographic origin have long been recognized as value-adding differentiation mechanisms in the developed world.

Anecdotal accounts suggest that this is also the case in developing countries.

However, little consistent rigorously researched evidence has been published on this subject.

This report presents results based on case studies conducted in a number of developing countries in Asia and Africa: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Tunisia, and Vietnam.

An overview of the theoretically consistent methods used and a synthesis of the results obtained in the various case studies are presented first followed by the case studies each describing a study of specific commodities in specific developing country locations.

A consistent set of results emerges, wherein consumers exhibit willingness to pay for quality and safety in animal-origin foods, and within which this willingness to pay is strongest amongst the wealthy and the urban dwellers.

However, the intricacy and variety of quality definition and measurement are demonstrated fully, as they occur between and within countries, commodity groups and other settings.

The key message from the results is the evidence that quality and safety considerations in products of animal origin food provide commercial opportunities for developing country producers, market actors and industry participants.

Access the report here.

Citation
Jabbar MA, Baker D and Fadiga ML. (eds). 2010. Demand for livestock products in developing countries with a focus on quality and safety attributes: Evidence from Asia and Africa. ILRI Research Report No. 24. ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya.

Informal contract arrangements are an economic boost for Vietnam’s small-scale pig farmers

Farmer Ma Thi Puong feeds her pigs on her farm near the northern town of Meo Vac, Viet Nam. (Photo credit: ILRI/Mann)

The rapid growth in demand for pork in Vietnam presents an opportunity for rural pig-keeping households to improve their incomes. This project on contract farming for equitable market-oriented smallholder swine production in northern Vietnam sought to characterize the ‘true’ costs and benefits of contract farming of swine in northern Vietnam.

The ultimate objective was to understand the barriers to participation of smallholders in contract farming and other market arrangements and to identify a set of policy and intervention options that would facilitate profitable market-oriented livestock farming partnerships.

The project was carried out in four provinces of northern Vietnam that supply slaughter pigs to the Hanoi market: Bac Giang, Ha Tay, Thai Binh and Thanh Hoa. Selected case studies assessed a variety of institutional arrangements and provided information on marketing arrangements for pigs and pig products under different institutional forms, and on contractor strategies for targeting and selecting producers in Northern Vietnam.

Below are a few key highlights of the project findings.

Scale of production is a barrier to smallholder participation
Smallholder farmers keeping only a few pigs tended to be locked out of participating in formal contract arrangements primarily because contractors preferred to engage farmers with more than 50 sows and large-scale farms that generated outputs of more than 5 tonnes live weight per year.

Informal contract arrangements benefit smallholders
Informal contracts with co-operative societies can help small-scale farmers generate better returns in short-duration pig production systems such as production of crossbreeds under farrow-to-wean and grow-to-finish systems. However, for longer production cycles (farrow-to-finish), independent producers had higher returns to labour. The benefits of contract farming arrangements included lower transaction costs, protection from production and market risks, and access to quality inputs, services, financing, information and markets for outputs.

Informal contract arrangements are effective
Based on the comparison of returns to labour between farmers with and without contracts, informal contract arrangements were effective in facilitating economic returns from pig production by providing farmers with a number of benefits and services such as price discounts, technical assistance, market information, delivery of inputs to farm and collection of outputs from farm.

The project was supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Initiative (FAO-PPLPI) and administered by the Market Opportunities theme of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in collaboration with staff from Hanoi Agricultural University and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

For more information, please contact Dr Lucy Lapar of ILRI (l.lapar [at] cgiar.org).

In the news: Director of ILRI's market opportunities theme interviewed on Vietnam agriculture TV channel

Agricultural economist and director of the Market Opportunities Theme at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Dr Steve Staal, was interviewed on the Weekend Agro-Products Market programme on VTC-16, Vietnam’s Agriculture and Rural Development television channel.

Dr Staal was speaking during a workshop for an ILRI-led project aimed at improving the competitiveness of pig producers in an adjusting Vietnam market. The workshop was held on 5 October 2010 at the Melia Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam to mark the end of the project and to present research findings to stakeholders.

He highlighted the key findings of the project, noting that smallholder pig producers in Vietnam are indeed competitive and are likely to remain so, especially in light of projected future increases in consumer demand for fresh pork.

The three-year project (2007-2010) was sponsored by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The project collaborators were the Centre for Agricultural Policy - Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (CAP-IPSARD), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Oxfam Hong Kong and the University of Queensland.

More information is available on the project website http://www.vietpigs.com.vn/

ILRI project poster wins top prize at European College of Veterinary Public Health annual conference

A poster based on work by an ILRI-led project aimed at making Vietnam's small-scale pig producers more competitive won the Best Poster Award at the annual scientific meeting of the European College of Veterinary Public Health, held in Nottwil, Lucerne, Switzerland on 7-8 October 2010.

Titled Risk assessment in the pork meat chain in two districts of Vietnam: A residency training project in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute, the poster was prepared by scientists from the Veterinary Public Health Institute, University of Berne, Switzerland; the National Institute for Veterinary Research, Hanoi, Vietnam; and ILRI.

Citation
Fahrion A, Toan NN, Thuy DN, Lapar L and Grace D. 2010.  Risk assessment in the pork meat chain in two districts of Vietnam: A residency training project in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute. Poster presented at the European College of Veterinary Public Health AGM and Annual Scientific Conference, Nottwil, Lucerne, Switzerland, 7-8 October 2010.

Risk assessment in the pork meat chain in 2 districts of Vietnam. A Residency Training Project in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute

View more documents from ILRI CGIAR.

In the news: ILRI-led research on smallholder pig producers features in Vietnam News

The 09 October 2010 issue of the Vietnam News highlights the collaborative research project, Improving the competitiveness of pig producers in an adjusting Vietnam market, which was led by scientists from the Market Opportunities theme of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

The three-year project which ran from April 2007 to March 2010 aimed to identify an appropriate policy and institutional framework that would best improve the competitiveness of smallholder pig producers in Vietnam in light of rising consumer demand for pork.

The project collaborators were the Centre for Agricultural Policy - Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (CAP-IPSARD), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Oxfam and the University of Queensland.

Here's the link to the article, Small pig producers bring home the bacon.

For more information about the project, please visit the project website at http://www.vietpigs.com.vn/

Vietnam pork sector study featured in New Agriculturist

A collaborative study led by ILRI's Markets Opportunities theme to map the supply chains for pigs and pork products in Vietnam is featured in the January 2010 issue of the online bimonthly newsletter New Agriculturist.

The project, Improving the competitiveness of pig producers in an adjusting Vietnam market, is aimed at generating research evidence to inform policymakers on the appropriate policy, technological and institutional frameworks that will allow Vietnam's smallholder pig producers to competitively increase their incomes through enhanced access to market chains for high-value pork products.

"Smallholders could play a much greater role in pork production but there is a need to generate appropriate technologies to maximize the potential of these systems, to improve the breeds and to provide better and more cost-efficient feed rations," the article quotes Lucy Lapar, a scientist with ILRI's Market Opportunities theme scientist and the coordinator of the project.

The project is due to end in March 2010 but it is hoped that the outputs of the study will be taken up by policymakers and sector stakeholders to inform dialogue towards formulation of pro-poor policies in support of Vietnam's smallholder pig producers.

The project is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in collaboration with the Centre for Agricultural Policy - Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (CAP-IPSARD), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Oxfam and the University of Queensland.

Here's the link to the New Agriculturist article, Vietnam: taking a pig to market.

Vietnam pigs project launches website

A new website has been launched for the project "Improving the competitiveness of pig producers in an adjusting Vietnam market".

The project is working to identify an appropriate policy and technology framework and forms of market and institution coordination that will allow smallholder pig producers in Vietnam to competitively raise their incomes through better access to higher value market chains.

The project is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), and is a partnership involving ILRI, the Vietnam Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (IPSARD), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Oxfam and University of Queensland.