What is Malica?

Malica is a consortium including the French Center of International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD-Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement), the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VAAS) (specifically the Centre for Agrarian Systems Research & Development- CASRAD, belonging to the Food Crops Research Institute- FCRI, and the Fruits and Vegetables Research Institute- FAVRI), and the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD) (more specifically the Rural Development Center- RUDEC and the Department of Rural Institution- DRI)

Its main objective is to reinforce the capacity of researchers, students, administrations as well as private groups in analysing food markets and city/country relations. These methods are applied to projects which aim at a correlation between local production and local market demand, in terms of both quantity and quality, such as the regional periurban agricultural project, SUSPER, or the project about food behaviour and risk perception. Stakeholders information and cooperation mechanisms are taken into consideration as a complement to classical technical and economic efficiency analysis for different stages in the commodity chains. Methods of consumption and commodity chain analysis are applied to two priority research fields: increasing quality in the food sector; and the comparative advantages of periurban and rural flows.

The main activities over the past years have focused on the application of these methods to the vegetable, pork and maize commodity chains and the impact on the poor of various distribution chains.

Members
o CASRAD (Centre for Agrarian Systems Research and Development), part of FCRI (Food Crops Research Institute),
o FAVRI (Fruits and Vegetables Research Institute),
both members of VAAS (Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Vietnam);
o RUDEC (Rural Development Centre)
o DRI (Department of Rural Institution)
both belonging to IPSARD (Institute of Policy and Strategies for Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam)
o CIRAD (Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement), France

MALICA is now coordinated by Mr. HOANG Vu Quang, Vice- Director of RUDEC

The advisory committee prioritises and finalises the topics to be dealt with and the projects to be designed. It meets twice a year. Its members are directors of the member institutes:

The technical committee assists the advisory committee. Its members are:
• Nguyen Thi Tan Loc (FAVRI)
• Pham T. Hanh Tho (CASRAD)
• Hoang Vu Quang (RUDEC)
• Nguyen Mai Huong (RUDEC)
• Denis Sautier (CIRAD)

MALICA was created in 2002 by CIRAD, VASI and FAVRI. CIRAD was the coordinator from 2002 to 2006. Then, after the memorandum of understanding signed in 2006 by VAAS, IPSARD and CIRAD, CASRAD was in charge of the coordination up to the year 2008. In 2009, this mission is transfered to RUDEC.