For the Vietnamese people Japan is a highly developed country with huge economic potentials, long-standing and rich culture, clever, creative, hard working citizens. Being same hard working people, Vietnamese people would like to bring their country out of heavy losses of the wars, catch up the advanced countries in the world. To make the wish come true and to make the short cut to the target Vietnamese people should learn the valued experiences in all over the world. The willingness of the Vietnamese people in learning and sharing experiences with the aim to develop the country and improve leaving standard is supported by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in granting the program “Promoting Exchange between Non-govenmental Organizations at Local Level of Japan and Vietnam”.

After study visit to Japan in 2006 of the leaders of three Vietnamese provinces (Ha Tinh, Quang Nam, Vinh Long), which are considered as poor and disadvantaged places for nongovernmental aid in Vietnam, many areas of exchange were found possible and usefull such as maternal and children health care, dental care, cleaning seawage water from leaving quarter with micro-biotechnology before putting flow to the rivers, waste collection and management, cleaning stagnant water by raising fresh water perl and planting water grass, digging wells with Kazusabory technich, producing and marketing organic agriculture products, constructing and operating Michinoeki system etc.

In three years of project implementation the successful exchange between nongovernmental, people organizations of the two countries was carried out with 3 study tours to Japan of 25 Vietnamese participations and 3 delegations to Vietnam of 12 Japanese participations. The delegations’ members had field trips to Japanese organic farms in Chiba, Nara, Ehime prefectures or Vietnamese vegertable areas in three involved in project provinces, visit to Michinoeki stations in Chiba prefecture or spontaneous private road-side stations in Vietnam.

For more effective exchange with Japanese delegations in Vietnam the two sides proposed to focus project activities only in one of three Vietnamese provinces involved in project. Quang Nam province was chosen as the place for exchange in Vietnam in the second and the third year of the project with the participation of representatives from Ha Tinh and Vinh Long provinces. In the meetings with people, respective agencies of Vietnam the Japanese people realized that the direct exchange with nongovernmental organizations in Vietnam without support from local goverment will not ensure the success. Many related issues should be common effort of the people and local government such as implementation of peoples’ experience, knowledge of the two countries in organic agriculture production can be done only on the planed special areas, where the local authority provide irrigation and electricity system for production activities. Local authority also plays very important role in involving respectives agencies in creating marketing labels and qualitry certification for the products, etc.

The interesting and very basic simple thing that Japanese successful farmers would like to share with the Vietnamese farmers is the awareness of the farmers about their responsibility for the society. The agricultural and rural development is very improtant in the process of urbanization and migration from rural areas to the cities. Recently the food security, environment disasters and threat to the health is the burning question of all human kind. The agriculture development should be started from social resposibility of each farmer. Farmers should provide the society the same product that they consume in daily life, they should preserve fresh, clean environment which is the dream of the people leaving in big cities. Farmers should make people love their places and contribute to the home place development instead of migrance to the big cities.

After field trips and discussing with Vietnamese farmers Japanese counterparts realize that Vietnamese farmers has certaint understanding about safe and organic vegertables. They plant saparately vegertable for their family, they do not eat vegertable they sell in the markets though it looks much better because of the effect of pestisides and freshness mainternance chemical elements. Unsafe vegertable brings farmers more profit than safe vegertable because of the low production cost. In the poverty farmers are trying to get more profit from their product rather than health of the consumers. Major part of consumers in Vietnam are people with low income, so though they know about the danger of unsafe vegertable they can not affort them selves to consume expensive clean product. A mainor part of the consumers prefer fresh and save agriculture product but there is no trust among the producers and consumers. For profit some people can sell unsafe vegertable with the high price as for safe vegertable, and the result is “loosing money for gaining illness”. That is the dilema Japanese counterpart would like Vietnamese people overcome. There is a demand and supply. How to make them met? How to ensure more profit for farmers producing safe vegertable and how to find trust safe vegertable provider. After studing the role of women the Japanese counterparts show in details how can create the marketing system for safe vegertable in Vietnam starting from the activities of people organizations such as the Women Union and Farmer Union at local level. Women at the same time are the producers and consumers, they actively participate in these organizations and with the support from the local government they can help people in raising awareness on clean environment and safe food. Local media can explain people how important to preserve nature and health by producing and consuming safe product. Local authority in Vietnam can mandate the respective local agencies prepare and publish safe standarts for agriculture products in their place based on the standarts instruction from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development of Vietnam and based on Euro GAP and global GAP. Local government can create favorable condition for saparated land areas for safe vegertable with appropriate irrigation systems and provide places for marketing and selling the products.

The trial “Farmer shops” for safe vegertable in Quang Nam running by local farmers will be set up with consultation from Japanese counterparts during the project activities. The “Famer shops” will be pilot model of trust relationship among the producers and consumers and will be multiplied in Vietnamese provinces involving in the project.

Japanese counterparts see the big need of Vietnam in organizing the stations along the main roads. The stations now in Vietnam are constructed as the result of demand of the traverlers and drivers for safety drive and refreshment. They are private, pro-proffit stations which are not providing quality service. Michino-eki system in Japan is very good example of successful combination of the effort of local people and local government for economic, tourism and cultural development of the area. Japanese local governments support this development models by providing infrastructure and some tax exception. Japanese local people participated from the beginning of the construction. Identification of the products for selling in these Michinoekies has been done before making design for construction. So in experience sharing activities with the Vietnamese local people Japanese counterparts always imphasize the importance of the sofware and they show how did they overcome difficulties and failure. Learning on mistakes and failure is also very good and short way to the success. The visit of the Vietnamese delegations to several Michinoekies in Chiba prefecture show that not always huge investment ensures the success and profitt, the more important thing is how to run the business maintaining the unique charactors of each locality and supporting also local product. Where people take more initiatives there will be bigger success. By putting investment together with local government money in these Michinoekies people will be more responsible and creative in the business activities. Each Michinoeki should have its own unique product or way of service that can attract more visitors. In general each Michinoeki should find out and maximize its own competetiveness advantage making business profitable avoiding competition with local small retaillers.

The main objective of the project “exchange between people at local level of Japan and Vietnam ” is highly achieved. Japanese people are very frank, honest in sharing with the Vietnamese friends their failure and success in producing and marketing safe organic agriculture product and Michinoekies construction and management. Japanese people would like Vietnamese people develop their country fast to go out of porverty. The experience sharing has been done in the simple language and frienship asmosphere. Vietnamese people show the Japanese their willingness in having more chance for exchange and learning from each other. The exchange is valuable also in understanding the culture of the two countries. People participating in the project will maximize their ability to develop the relationship and put basic for the relationship among the localities of the two countries.