IFAD President meets farmers in the Bac Kan province

Rome, 5 November 2010 – Kanayo F. Nwanze, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will arrive in Hanoi tomorrow, to hold bilateral meetings with senior officials from Viet Nam’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Agriculture, to discuss ongoing rural development projects supported by IFAD in the country.

Nwanze will meet smallholder farmers in the Bac Kan province, where an IFAD funded Agro-forestry Development Project (3PAD) is currently being implemented. The area has a high percentage of Viet Nam’s indigenous people who are faced with the challenges of climate change. These communities of mostly Nung, Dao, Mong and Tay minority people are heavily dependent on agriculture, forestry and livestock production on sloping land and rice production is limited on small, partially irrigated upland valleys. The project area, including the districts of Pac Nam, Be Be and Na Ri, have been selected as target districts, due to their high levels of household poverty.

During his stay in the country, the IFAD President will address the third International Rice Congress on 9 November. The theme of this year’s Congress, Rice for Future Generations’ recognizes that the young people of the developing world is crucial to sustainable poverty reduction and food security. The Congress will provide a forum for representatives from the public and private sectors including researchers, scientists, professionals, traders, and policy makers, to discuss latest rice research, future technologists, trade issues and policies that will define the future role of rice in supporting millions of the poor rice-dependent communities.

Prior to leaving for Viet Nam, the IFAD President said: “In our efforts to ensure food security and eliminate hunger, rice is absolutely crucial. IFAD’s experience from the New Rice for Africa programme (NERICA) – which combine the high productivity of Asian rice species with the hardiness of local African rice species - in Western and Central Africa is a successful example showing that innovation, coupled with infrastructure, can dramatically bring more crops to harvest and more food to the table anywhere on earth”.

While in Hanoi, Nwanze will sign a new US$ 19.90 million loan and grant for the Sustainable Economic Empowerment of Ethnic Minorities Project for the Dak Nong Province, which will help to increase the incomes of poor ethnic minority households in the province.

“The nations of the world – developed and developing – can no longer afford to view agriculture and infrastructure as superfluous investments. They must dramatically increase their investment, and they must do so immediately”, Nwanze concluded.

To date, IFAD has financed 10 projects in Viet Nam for a total investment of US$ 209.20 million, directly benefiting 539,270 households.

Press release No.: IFAD/71/2010

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes and determine the direction of their own lives. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$12 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering more than 360 million people to break out of poverty. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized UN agency based in Rome – the UN’s food and agricultural hub. It is a unique partnership of 165 members from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), other developing countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).