On 30 May 2017, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA) co-hosted a stakeholder workshop in Hanoi, Vietnam to assess the competitiveness of smallholder pig farming in the changing landscape of northwest Vietnam.

The workshop brought together 40 agriculture experts from research centres, academia and the local authorities in Son La and Hoa Binh provinces. They discussed research findings from a scoping study on improving pig value chains in the region and the objectives of a new research project which will assess how smallholder farmers in northwest Vietnam can add value to pig production by using maize grains as feed.

The new ILRI-led project will develop and test approaches for improving the productivity and market competitiveness of pig farmers. In the preliminary proposal presented at the workshop, ILRI shared three objectives of the project which are (i) to assess demand…