UNDP assists Vietnamese farmers to sell on e-commerce sites

This is part of a project supporting sustainable dragon fruit development and e-commerce in Binh Thuan.

A three-week campaign to assist Vietnamese farmers in the northern province of Binh Thuan in using live stream for selling clean dragon fruits will be launched by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in collaboration with the Vietnam E-Commerce Association (Vecom) and the Binh Thuan Agricultural Extension Center. 

The pilot campaign will help the farmers access new markets, improve transparency in the dragon fruit supply chain as well as increasing consumer awareness of the sustainable ago-industry and the quality of green and clean products.

The campaign aims to improve the livelihoods of farmers as well as dragon fruit cooperatives that have been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and lost income due to significant disruptions in the global value chain.

“The Covid pandemic has significantly plunged the purchasing power. We want to support the farmers to sell high quality products, thereby helping them stabilize their life,” Bui Viet Hien, Program Officer at UNDP Vietnam said. 

Mr. Hien said the results from the pilot campaign will be carefully evaluated by other cooperatives of Binh Thuan province to expand the model into other areas, as part of a plan to support the dragon fruit supply chain in the province.

The pilot campaign will be implemented in three cooperatives of Hoa Le, Thuan Hoa and Ham Minh 30 until February 28. These cooperatives have met criteria including green and sustainable production, and their products have been certified according to VietGAP and Global GAP standards.  

In addition to the training course on live streaming and e-commerce, the three cooperatives will be mentored by Vecom's experts in building promotion activities on social networks, websites and sales on e-commerce sites, thereby helping the cooperatives step by step actively expand their sales channels.

This activity is part of a three-year project between UNDP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to promote the role of the private sector in implementing priority measures for agriculture under the Nationally Determination Contributions (NDCs) of Vietnam. The project is part of UNDP's Support Program on NDC funded by the European Union and the German government.