A Denmark-funded community development project, which is designed for ethnic minority groups in Vietnam's northern region, will continue its second phase in Hoa Binh, Son La, Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces from 2010 to 2014. An agreement on this phase was signed in Hanoi on March 5 by the Agricultural Development Denmark-Asia (ADDA) and the Vietnam Farmers’ Association (VFA). Apart from developing farm communities to help farmers map out plans to promote production and business, the project in this phase will educate them on issues related to climate change to enable them to adopt proper farming methods. Under this phase, 300 more groups of farmers will be established and 600 training courses will be held. With a total in funding of $1.8 million, the Community Development project launched the first phase in June 2006 at the six above localities, focusing on helping ethnic minority farmers improve their living conditions and at the same time assisting officials working for VFA chapters to enhance their capacity. In the first phase, from 2006-2010, the project management board has coordinated with the Hanoi-based ADDA and provincial VFA chapters to train 78 farmers to become instructors who teach their peers technical advances and sustainable farming methods. Training courses have helped ethnic minority people in the targeted localities partly change their awareness on sustainable farming practices and apply technical and scientific advances in their household-based production.
