VWB/VSF-Canada: Volunteers for Healthy Animals and Healthy Communities Project (April 1-June 30/2016)

From Farm to Chopstick: Strengthening Food Safety in Vietnam 

In 2016, I had the honour to be volunteer for VWB/VSF-Canada for a period of three months, as a Food Safety Advisor in Vietnam.

Vietnamese consumers generally prefer lean rather than high-fat pork and are willing to pay a premium for meat with guaranteed quality. Consumers also prefer fresh to frozen or chilled pork and prefer buying pork in open or wet markets for convenience and freshness.

Pig production systems are broadly categorized by scale and type. Smallholder pig producers are estimated to supply at least 80% of total pork production.

The goal of this placement is to build the capacity of CENPHER ( Center of Public Health and Ecosystem Research) to understand the food safety issues and health issues for smallholder pig producers and to develop, test and promote pro-poor incentive-based risk management approaches.

The following objectives were put in place to reach the placement goal:

1.     Training /Education on Food Safety and policy

2.     Supporting CENPHER staff to design and effectively manage and implement food control programs at the small pig slaughterhouses (slaughter areas) through an ILRI PigRisk project.

3.     To support CENPHER staff and other beneficiaries to design and apply policy formation principle in food safety using the FAO template for developing countries.

To reinforce the capacity building within CENPHER staff, I took the initiative to slice and dice  the ILRI  project (identification of Food Safety Hazards, Dangers and Risks all along the PigRisk value chain and come up with potentials interventions to mitigate the food safety risk all along the value chain by using existing PigRisk and harvested materials during the visit) and to present it on June under my supervision.

The team worked on the design of the food safety policy using Codex template for developing countries and this part aimed to cover the third core element of the National Food Control System- Policy, Guidance and Standards.

The team worked as food safety advisor evaluating two different reports on Food Safety from the situation analysis study to the strategic plan and finishing by proposing a draft policy brief and comments on each document.

In the overall during this placement the team had learnt and applied some news tools such as the Logic model and frame, factsheet, problem tree, evaluation matrix, risk pathway graph, policy design pathway etc. 

All along the placement the gender equality, environmental sustainability and the good governance have been promoted.

The placement allowed me to challenge myself and to understand what’s most valuable for me and as well as to see the real impact each of us could accomplish even in such short time.

I would like to thank VWB-Canada, HSPH, CFIA and my family for this unique opportunity given to me to realize my life dream- Share my expertise and experience in food safety with developing countries.

 I also would like to thank all my colleagues from CENPHER and other Vietnam institutions for their wonderful collaboration.