PROJECT ASSESSMENTS - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 209

SEARUSYN *

Seeking synergy between urban growth, horticulture and the environment in Asian
metropolises

A) Project setting

1) What was the background and motivation of the project?

The project was built upon a mission to Vietnam that examined the situation in the
rural area around Hanoi. One of the conclusions was that urban growth rates in East
and South-east Asia are often faster than what governments and city planners can
manage. Consequently, the developments in the urban fringe are hard to control.
Quality of spatial planning and agro-ecological aspects hardly play a role in the
decision-making process. Fertile agricultural land, often used for valuable horticul-
tural production (market gardening), is allocated to urban functions. Not only land,
but also the local expertise on agricultural production and marketing gets lost, a
waste of human capital in particular in a knowledge intensive sector such as vegetable
production.
Such a process is, to a certain extent, inevitable but it is expected that the
allocation of land to various functions could be improved by means of an integrated
approach that brings together researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders in
city planning, waste management, food production food safety and marketing. For
that purpose, the SEARUSYN project has been initiated in order to explore the
possibilities for an economically and environmentally sustainable horticulture in
the urban fringes of Hanoi and Nanjing in consultation with researchers and
stakeholders in these areas.

2) What was the institutional context (partners with which cooperated)?

The project is funded by the INCO programme of the Directorate-General Research
of the Commission of the European Union and the International Co-operation
Research Programme of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of
The Netherlands. The project partners are:
Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands
-

LEI (Agricultural Economics Research Institute)

- ALTERRA (Green World Research Institute)

- PRI (Plant Research International)

* Questionnaire received 2006, revised May 2007; Project leader B. Kamphuis (LEI)