AgResults Milestone Award Ceremony
AgResults is excited to announce the Milestone Prize Winners for Phase 1 of the Vietnam Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions Challenge Project (AVERP). AVERP incentivizes private sector enterprises including rice producers, fertilizer producers, input suppliers, and others to test and scale improved rice growing technologies that increase yields and decrease GHG emissions versus the conventional rice production.
The Project is being conducted in two phases. Phase 1, which began in the Summer of 2017, occured over two rice cropping seasons during which eleven competing organizations tested their technologies. Phase 2, which begins in Spring 2019, consists of four consecutive cropping seasons during which organizations that have proven their technology in Phase 1 will attempt to scale that technology to the greatest number of smallholder farmers. Both Phases include interim and grand prizes. For Summer crop in 2017, out of the 11 participating competitors, 9 were awarded a proportional prize amount relative to their GHG reduction and yield increase results out of a total prize purse of US $55,000. The nine competitors received their awards at a workshop and awards ceremony held on December 6, 2017 in Thai Binh City.
For Spring crop in 2018, the Phase 1 Milestone prizes are awarded to the top three winning technologies that fully meet the eligible requirements and achieve the highest aggregated percent on GHG emissions reduction and Yield increase.
First winner: Food Plant and Rations Plant Institute Plant Seed Joint Stock Company (Vietnam), Amount of Ward: USD 50,000
Second winner: Binh Dien Fertilizer Joint Stock Company (Vietnam), Amount of Ward USD 28,000
Third winner: An Dinh Technology Development and Investment Company Limited (Vietnam), Amount of Ward USD 22,000
A total of 4 competitors have been selected to move on to Phase 2 based on their Phase 1 results. In Phase 2, competitors will demonstrate and expand use of their technologies at scale in Thai Binh beginning in the Spring crop in 2019.
At the Prize Award Ceremony workshop held in Thai Binh in 15 August 2018, Professor Dr Nguyen Hong Son, General Director of Crop Production Department made a remark“This is an innovative project as we allow enterprises and organizations to test technologies by themselves. Only when the technologies prove their advantages they can be accepted for spill-over and still further tested by the voluntary adoption of SHFs. This innovative method allows the enterprises to fully take the initiatives to demonstrate their technologies and prove its preeminence before transferring them to farmers.”
The AgResults Vietnam GHG Emissions Reduction Challenge Project is a four-year, US $8 million pay-for-results project that aims to test and scale up innovative technologies, tools, and approaches to reducing GHG emissions while increasing yields in rice cultivation. The Project is operating in Thai Binh province in the Red River Delta, and will award prizes to those actors who are successful in testing and scaling technologies across two phases. The Project is managed by SNV Vietnam.