“You (Australia) have been good partners for us.”
July 17, 2025
This headline is just one quote of many from Vietnamese partners during the most recent Crawford Fund journalist visit. For those who missed the stream of social posts during the visit to Vietnam, and the week of national features that followed, here’s a report from our Director of Special Projects, Cathy Reade. Cathy organised this second visit as part of three being supported by the DFAT ASEAN Australia Council (now Centre) to highlight agriculture for development partnerships between Australia and Vietnam, the impact of the work in country and benefits to Australia. Chris McLennan, Walkley Award winning journalist from the Australian Community Media Agriculture group, published a feature series of stories in all their rural outlets from the visit, and they are listed below.
After more than 30 years of journalist visits, it still amazes me how accommodating, helpful and engaged agricultural researchers and their institutions are when I first approach them to be involved in a Crawford Fund journalist visit. Then there’s the researchers’ passion when you get in-country, and the special relationships with farmers involved. It was no different with this visit to Vietnam with Chris McLennan from ACM, Australia’s leading regional and rural digital media company.
ACIAR has been operating in Vietnam for 32 years, has supported over 250 projects (worth around ~$180m) as well as supporting around 125 scientists and researchers in capacity building, so the relationships are long and strong. And with 24 active and 2 pipeline projects currently underway, there was certainly a lot of possible work to include in our visit.
But over the years, I’ve found the trick with our journalist visits is not about finding wonderful ag for development projects and people to include. It’s about being able to find a time when it’s possible to engage with a range of projects, and with their Australian and in-country research leaders who can explain the work and the impact for an Australian audience. For the trip to Vietnam, we were so lucky that in just one window of a little over a week, it was possible to include projects across livestock, agribusiness, various crops and forestry.
It was a busy few days in Hanoi. Our first day at the Vietnam Academy of Forest Science introduced us to ACIAR work around forestry and biosecurity. Chris’s resultant story kicked off with the crux of the work – “Biosecurity is top of mind when it comes to keeping pests and diseases out of island Australia, but fast developing countries across South-East Asia do not have the same sea protection.” It was a special opportunity to see Dr Madaline Healey in her element! Madaline was a foundational member of the RAID network, a Crawford Fund mentor in Laos and a former Fund conference scholar. She is now a member of our Queensland Committee and leads two ACIAR forest biosecurity projects. Another bonus was that as part of the forestry visit, I met the Crawford Fund’s 2024 Fellowship awardees, Ms Nguyen Thi Loan and Mr Tran Xuan Hung, both soon to come to Australia for their fellowships.
Our visit to the National Institute of Animal Sciences (NIAS) and then on to the institute’s Ba Vi Cattle and the Forage Research Centre covered work to assist Vietnamese livestock farmers to benefit from the rapid transformation underway around meat consumption and trade. In addition to key staff at both the institute and the centre, we were able to talk to Dr Rodd Dyer, former senior ACIAR staff member, to discuss livestock trade issues and implications for both Vietnam and Australia, and to meet Ms Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa, one of the leaders of Vietnam’s cattle breeding program.
Dr Tran Thu Ha, a speaker from our 2024 Conference, leads the DFAT supported “Transforming Rice Value Chain (TRVC)” project, and she explained to Chris the work to improve the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta, with a focus on rice and climate resilience. And CIFOR-ICRAF economist Dr Estelle Biénabe, introduced us to the ACIAR project on improving the sustainability of robusta coffee and black pepper farming systems and value chains.
We were then on to Ho Chi Minh City and travelled with Australian Dr Jono Newby, cassava program leader at the Alliance of Bioversity International and International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, who oversees research across Asia, Latin America and Africa. Along with researcher Cu Thi Le Thuy and their wonderful team of young researchers, we visited a cassava processing factory and new cassava variety trials in the Tay Ninh province, north-west of Vietnam. They are doing globally important work in the efforts to fight off new diseases and pests, and boost farmers’ incomes and yields for a crop little known in Australia but a significant food crop in other parts of the world.
Another benefit of journalist visits is the time spent with the research teams and farmers associated with their work. It’s not the sometimes-difficult climate or travel conditions that remain. The researchers’ passion, the farmers’ stories, the many interesting discussions and wonderful meals in restaurants we definitely would not otherwise have found or dishes we would not otherwise have tried, are the memories we will take away!
We particularly want to thank the wonderful ACIAR staff in Canberra and Vietnam and their many partners in Vietnam and Australia for their assistance, patience and humour!
Chris’s articles below appeared in the stable of ACM rural press. They are behind a paywall but the titles provide a good idea of the range and focus of the stories for those who are not subscribers:
Australia backs Vietnam’s small farmers in climate-resilient rice push – 11 July 2025
Growing pains for Vietnam’s world-leading coffee and pepper crops – 11 July 2025
Australia joins a biosecurity battle being waged across South-East Asia – 10 July 2025
Learn how an Aussie is working to rescue one of the world’s biggest crops – 9 July 2025
Meet the woman helping shape a nation’s cattle future – 8 July 2025
Vietnamese ag official learns aussie farming via unique TV show – 7 July 2025
Green arrow or red flag | Are we dropping our biosecurity guard? – 30 June 2025
Coverage from the Philippines visit by our Food Security Journalism Award winner Pip Courtney included two features on ABC TV Landline on more climate resilient and nutritious rice and keeping ASF out of Australia.
We look forward to third DFAT supported journalist visit to Indonesia!
