The Business Development Exchange programme aims to ‘inform the strategy of other donors and selected companies for business engagement to achieve specific development objectives’. This study on agriculture in Vietnam falls under the strategic objective of ‘sustainable economic development’ and examines opportunities for business engagement in order to ‘increase benefits to smallholder farmers from agricultural production’.

This initial scoping report focuses on the three central Mekong Delta provinces of Dong Thap, Can Tho and An Giang. It examines options for more in-depth research and field work. It is based on a review of secondary sources, including a commissioned overview report prepared by the Mekong Delta Development Research Institute at the University of Can Tho. It is also informed by a number of stakeholder interviews and a two day visit to the DANIDA Global Competitiveness Facility project sites in Can Tho and An Giang provinces in July 2013.

The report has four sections providing information on: 1) the Mekong Delta region and its economy; 2) agriculture in the Mekong Delta, focusing particularly on rice and pangasius, as well as some information on fruit cultivation; 3) Existing donor engagement with business in agriculture in the Mekong Delta; 4) discussion of future research directions.

William Smith