Hanoi, Viet Nam. A FAO project is helping authorities to better manage livestock sub-sector in Viet Nam. The FAO-funded “Development of a livestock policy analysis and monitoring system in Vietnam" project is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) to build capacities for relevant agencies within and outside MARD to design, implement, and upscale effective livestock policy analysis and monitoring system contributing to improved policy choices based on thorough assessment of social, economic, health and environmental implications of alternative policy choices, programs and projects.

One of key features of the project is to strengthen skills and capacity at MARD and relevant agencies in collection and analysis of relevant information to better enable the government to balance multiple goals and aspirations within the context of smallholder livestock production systems. To support this endeavour, FAO in collaboration with the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD) and Department of Livestock Production under MARD organized a four-day training course held at the Green One UN House in Ha Noi on Data envelopment analysis (DEA) with focus on analyzing the economic efficiency of livestock production at household (farm) level.

Training course participants include government officials, researchers and lecturers from research institutes and universities that are the Viet Nam Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Livestock production, General Statistics Office, Centre for Informatics and Statistics, IPSARD, National Institute of Animal Science, Viet Nam National University of Forestry and Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry.

After the training course, participants are able to master the DEA method for efficiency assessment of production units and particularly evaluation of the effectiveness of a livestock breeding base (households, farms) for various types of livestock (pigs, poultry, beef, ..).