A discussion took place in Da Nang on Tuesday about strategies on building Da Nang into a smart food city in the 2020-2025 period, with a vision towards 2030.

A farmer working at the Tuy Loan organic vegetable cooperative

The event was within the framework of a non-refundable support project funded by the Belgian-Vietnamese Study and Consultancy Fund (SCF), and Belgium’s Rikolto non-governmental organisation.

According to the project, Da Nang is one of the six cities worldwide to have been selected to build a safe and smart food chain for consumers.

In his remarks at the discussion, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Trung Chinh highlighted the significant of the event in laying a strong foundation for issuing policies and developing orientations for food safety management in the city in the coming time.

He also took the opportunity to ask the municipal Food Safety Management Board to continue closely working with experts, and acknowledging their opinions and suggestions before completing the project and put it into practice.

Ms Charlotte Flechet, a coordinator from Rikolto’s Food Smart Cities network, noted the smart food city model has been applied successfully in some Belgian cities and elsewhere in the world.

“This model helps to create a chain to supply safe food, reuse wasteful food, raise consumers’ awareness, and provide active support for sustainable food production and consumption”, she added.

Mr Bui Dung, Director of the Tuy Loan organic vegetable cooperative, pointed out that its members were finding it very difficult in seeking consumption markets for their products.

Sharing the same opinion with Mr Dung, Ms Quach Thi Xuan from the municipal Institute for Society and Economic Development, suggested that more effective measures should be taken to help organic agricultural production cooperatives to operate more effective in the city.

Dr Thai Thi Minh, Regional Director of the Rikolto in Viet Nam, proposed that relevant agencies should increase their checks over organic agricultural production facilities to ensure the food safety and hygiene, as well as establish a traceability system for seafood, pork and vegetable products.

She remarked the building of a smart food city would help to create more job opportunities in the culinary field, and minimise negative impacts on human health.

Mr Nguyen Tan Hai, the Head of the Board, said since the smart food research project was approved by the municipal authorities in 2018, his unit has cooperated with SCF and Rikolto to point out opportunities and challenges for the city in implementing the project.

He underscored his board was currently deploying a common database on food safety in order to help customers take the initiative to identify and choose products.