Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) as a vehicle for transformation to sustainable citrus production in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

Pressure from the emerging Vietnamese middle class for access to “safe food” has prompted changes in the traditional food supply chain from: individual farmer → middle man → traditional markets (formal, informal and hawkers) to: farmers organised in cooperatives or less formal farmer groups → supermarkets. This process has gained significant government support resulting in the introduction of policies and support for “safe vegetable production” and recently the establishment of Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practice (VietGAP) standards. VietGAP is a government decree laying out the principles for sustainable and safe agricultural production supported by certification and auditing systems. These consumer driven market transformations together with government policies has increased the pressure on farmers to adopt more sustainable production practices. This paper examines GAP as a framework to secure food safety and sustainable production, and farmer field schools (FFSs) as a platform for GAP learning and establishment of GAP collective action and practices under specific Vietnamese smallholder conditions where the GAP process is strongly driven by government. Our results indicate that a participatory approach to GAP implementation resulted in successful joint government‐private sector intervention in citrus production. It is, however, too early to draw conclusions about the sustainability of GAP certification since the economic benefits for the GAP certified farmers in comparison to non‐certified farmers are not yet clear. Regardless of the sustainability of GAP certification, improvements in economic, social, human and environmental capital as a result of citrus FFSs conducted in the GAP implementation process will have long term positive effects on sustainable citrus production in the Mekong Delta.