Cross country learning on combine harvesters commenced in Viet Nam

Binh Dinh, Viet Nam- 11 Private and public sector officials from Cambodia flew in to Viet Nam to visit a combine contest organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Binh Dinh province from 5 to 12 April 2011 and to attend the “Round Table Discussion on Rice Combine Harvesters” last April 10, 2011. This was initiated by the ADB Project “Strategic research on sustainable health and nutrition in Asia” to link the Cambodian project partners to the Vietnamese project partners and combine manufactures. Participating through this event would foster learning from two countries, establish links between the Vietnamese Combine manufacturing industry and combine users in Cambodia and help the Cambodians ramp up their postharvest initiatives.  

The team was led by Mr. Alfred Schmidley from IRRI and Dr. Meas Pyseth from MAFF in Cambodia who linked the Cambodian collaborators to the Vietnamese organizers led by Dr. Pham Van Tan. Viet Nam is one of the countries who are in the forefront of promoting postharvest machinery development and commercialization in Southeast Asia. The activities included sharing of information on the Vietnamese combine harvesters, Viet Nam machineries and their mainstreaming efforts to leverage their postharvest initiatives in and outside their country.

Aside from being the ADB project collaborators, Cambodia and Viet Nam are also part of the Postharvest Learning Alliance member countries. .