Ha Noi, Viet Nam - In light of the 10th year anniversary of the Department of Livestock Production within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (DLP-MARD), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Viet Nam received a certificate of merit from the Minister of MARD in recognition of significant contributions to improving Viet Nam’s livestock sector. In order to celebrate this occasion, an award ceremony was held at the Department of Livestock Production in Ha Noi, attended by the staff from FAO Viet Nam and DLP-MARD.

Mr. Hoang Thanh Van, The Director General of DLP on behalf of the Minister of MARD, awarded the certificate of merit to Mr. Jong Ha Bae, the FAO Representative of Viet Nam for FAO’s contribution to the development of the livestock sector in Viet Nam in 2010-2015. During the ceremony, Mr. Hoang Thanh Van specifically acknowledged and thanked the FAO Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases program in Viet Nam (FAO ECTAD VN) for supporting DLP on; (1) poultry value chain studies (2) biosecurity standards for hatchery and parent flock farm (3) poultry traceability and food safety work FAO and DLP have successfully implemented in the past 5 years.

Since 2010, FAO ECTAD VN has been collaborating with DLP-MARD in various projects to support a healthy livestock sector in Viet Nam. Starting from an avian influenza risk assessment on poultry value chains in 2010, additional value chain studies within Viet Nam and across borders have been conducted to advise the government on disease and food safety risk management. The poultry pilot traceability project in Ho Chi Minh city and surrounding Provinces continues to support a public-private collaboration that can potentially be expanded nationally.

Throughout the successful FAO ECTAD VN and DLP-MARD collaboration, biosecurity guidelines for both small and medium scale hatcheries and parent flock farms were officially published by MARD (No: 1057/ Decision-MARD-DLP and No: 713/ Decision-DLP) and was integrated into the Vietnamese circular (No: 45/2014/Circular-MARD). Furthermore, recently, two parties have launched its training manual on based on the guidelines in the goal of reaching out to stakeholders to ground level and implementing a more sustainable solution for the future of poultry production and disease control in Viet Nam.

Recently, FAO ECTAD VN has supported work on antimicrobial resistance in collaboration with DLP-MARD and this focuses on the safe and responsible use of antimicrobials in livestock sector.

“Just as crop production has impressively increased in the recent years in Viet Nam, and helped to improve livelihoods in rural areas and generate profits, we believe that livestock production has the same potential. We hope to further continue the great collaboration between FAO and DLP-MARD to keep Viet Nam safer from zoonotic diseases, but to also improve the quality of livestock production” stated Jong Ha Bae upon receiving the award.