Policy change requires the support from all levels of stakeholders, starting from the grass-root level to the decision-making authorities. With the financial aid from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), FAO Viet Nam’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) is supporting the Department of Livestock Production (DLP) to improve risk management along the market chain by closely collaborating with all levels of stakeholder.  

DLP is implementing the project “Evidence-Based Risk Management along the Livestock Production and Market Chain” in Vietnam to strengthen capacity of local authorities on poultry hatchery and farm registration, auditing, and certification. However, the current legislations of auditing on veterinary hygiene conditions are not suitable at small-scale levels. This causes each province using different standards for hatchery auditing and certification.

To improve risk management along the market chain at a national level it is necessary to have one national harmonised registration, auditing, and certification standard. Therefore, FAO ECTAD Vietnam has supported Bac Giang sub-Department of Livestock Production to develop and pilot a checklist for auditing veterinary hygiene conditions to certify small hatcheries in Bac Giang province. The checklist and application guidelines were based on MARD’s decision on minimum bio-security measures for small hatcheries. FAO ECTAD Viet Nam also rolled out a training for livestock manager officialsof Bac Giang Province. The training consisted of a six-day training in auditing skills and two days teaching good hatchery biosecurity and good management practices. During the training, the trainees - provincial managers - discussed, commented, and agreed to use the Hatchery Biosecurity Checklist developed by FAO to practice auditing at small hatcheries.

“By incorporating comments and corrections from trained provincial managers and having them test it through practise audits in actual hatcheries, the checklist improved its technical contents and practicality. With their full awareness of the technical knowledge and ownership of this initiative, we can increase policy support from the province for MARD’s official approval of the checklist and its application guideline. This will contribute in improving the existing auditing system for hatchery certification on veterinary hygiene conditions and contribute to improve risk management along the market chain.” said Pawin Padungtod, the Senior Technical Coordinator of FAO ECTAD Viet Nam.

As a follow-up activity, the trained provincial managerswill participate in the next project activity, auditing 50 hatcheries in Bac Giang Province before and after biosecurity interventions. The trainees will use the newly developed checklist and application guideline for the audits.