AALP Class 16 celebrates Canada’s Agriculture Day in Vietnam

Our AALP class woke this morning in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 12 hours ahead of our families and friends at home in Ontario and the inaugural Canada's Agriculture Day.

We are celebrating and sharing our passion and knowledge of Canadian agriculture today with two other Ag leadership groups from the US, LEAD New York and Rural Leadership North Dakota.

We started the day by splitting into mixed groups and partaking in different activities around the city. Many of the groups visited the War Remnants museum, while other groups took part in a traditional Vietnamese cooking class:

visited local temples and markets:

One group experienced a new mode of transportation, the Vietnamese rickshaw and the chaos of Ho Chi Minh City traffic.

We then returned to the hotel for an afternoon of speakers. Up first was Matthew Wall, Public Affairs officer at the US consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. He spoke on economics and trade between Vietnam and the US. He said that even though there has been conflict and history between the two countries, ties have never been stronger and Vietnam is the fastest growing export market for the US. He also mentioned that they use Facebook as their primary communication channel to promote American products, as 42 million people in Vietnam are on Facebook and Twitter is not available in Vietnam.

The next speaker, was Dr. Vo Mal from the Vietnam Gardening Association (VACVINA). VACVINA was the first Vietnam NGO and has one million members and more than 18,000 base organizations all over the country. She shared the message that their goal is to help gardeners become rich farmers. They assist farmers with training, promotion of products and access to set-up local markets.

Antony Nezic spoke next about his role as the President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CanCham Vietnam). Can Cham Vietnam consists of ~150 corporate members; 30% Canadian, 30% international, and the remaining is made up of Vietnamese companies. They host Canadian events, such as Canada Day, Canadian Thanksgiving, and the largest Terry Fox run in the world! He shared the message that as Canadians we need to do a better job of promoting our agriculture products and services to the world.

Our final speaker of the day was Vu Le Y Voan, Vice Director of International Cooperation Department of the Vietnam Farmers Union (VFNU). She said that more than 70% of the population of Vietnam are farmers, and the VNFU assists farmers with everything from creating policies, advocating for farmers, organizing training courses for technical and scientific progress and technology, as well as providing input services such as seed, fertilizer, pesticides, to loans and credit to their members and promoting products and introducing farmers to markets.

We finished off our day with a dinner with the three ag leadership groups. It was a great day of learning about Vietnam and celebrating Canadian Agriculture Day from half way across the world.

Comment

You need to be a member of Ontario Agriculture to add comments!

Join Ontario Agriculture

Welcome to
Ontario Agriculture

Sign Up
or Sign In

Agriculture Headlines from Farms.com Canada East News - click on title for full story

Climate change worries Canadian farmers: poll

A poll released Dec. 11 suggests that Canadian farmers worry more about the impacts of climate change than they do about input costs and market prices for canola, corn, wheat and cattle. The poll of 858 producers from coast to coast determined that farmers rank climate change as their No. 1 concern. “When farmers and ranchers were asked an open-ended question—at the very beginning of the poll—about the top challenge for the agricultural sector for the next decade, climate change was the number one answer,” says Farmers for Climate Solutions, a group, that as its name suggests, is focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation within Canadian agriculture. The organization hired Leger, a market research firm, to conduct the survey. It was done by phone from Aug. 8 to Sept. 8. The headline question from the poll asked farmers to identify the top challenge for the agriculture sector over the next 10 years. The results? 17.9 per cent said climate change. Input costs were 17.2 pe

Livestock producers are warned to watch for a larval disease

A disease that lives off the flesh of living mammals has been confirmed in Chiapas, Mexico. New World screwworm (NWS) is a parasitic larval disease of warm-blooded animals where the female fly will lay eggs near an open wound and the larvae can infest the wound and cause significant infections. NWS can infest livestock, pets, wildlife, occasionally birds, and in rare cases, people. Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton said the confirmation comes on the heels of a report in October from Guatemala where the first case was identified. “This larva and the fly were identified at the Mexican border in cattle that were coming through in Guatemala and so this is a very significant concern of especially grazing animals but really of any warm-blooded animal,” she said. “It does cause destruction when a wound gets infected.” Animals can exhibit very painful draining wounds that don’t heal. It has a negative impact on production and can include mortality o

Durum Ending Stocks Tighter from November

Agriculture Canada has whittled down its 2024-25 durum ending stocks estimate from last month, although it remains up from a year earlier. Monthly government supply-demand estimates released Thursday showed durum ending stocks at 650,000 tonnes, down 150,000 from the November forecast but still well up from the previous year’s 407,000. The reduction reflects Statistics Canada’s Dec. 5 crop production report which put this year’s Canadian durum crop to 5.87 million tonnes, down from the federal agency’s previous estimate in September of just over 6 million. However, this year’s durum crop is still 44% larger than the 2023 harvest, 20% above average and the sixth largest on record. Ag Canada trimmed its domestic use estimate slightly to reflect this month’s downward revision in the durum crop, but left its export forecast unchanged from last month at 4.9 million tonnes, up from 3.558 million in 2023-24 but still below over 5 million in 2022-23. At $325/tonne, the average expecte

Alberta Canola Seeks Grower Support for First Service Charge Increase in 20 Years

Alberta Canola is urging canola growers to approve its first service charge increase in over two decades. The proposed change—from $1 per tonne to $1.75 per tonne—will be put to a vote at the organization’s Annual General Meeting on Jan. 22, 2025. The increase is critical to addressing financial challenges and ensuring Alberta Canola can continue supporting farmers amid rising operating costs, declining production, and evolving industry pressures. A Challenging Landscape “Alberta Canola was built by farmers, for farmers, and that hasn’t changed in our 35 years,” says Karla Bergstrom, Executive Director of Alberta Canola. “What?has?changed is the world we operate within.” Bergstrom highlights the dual challenges of reduced public research funding and increased regulatory demands. Meanwhile, consumers, increasingly removed from farming, are demanding greater transparency in food production. With over 90% of its operating revenue coming from its service charge, Alberta Canola has face

BMO underscores trends affecting Canadian agriculture

The Bank of Montreal has published an in-depth analysis of nine key trends. Here’s a topline of several economic indicators and what to expect in 2025. ???????

More…

Badges | Report an Issue | Terms of Service