The future of the cluster

The first cluster meeting occurred in August 2002 in collaboration with the Kenan Institute of Asia. Four exporters, numerous collectors, 90 farmers and 4 farmer group leaders were in attendance. Subsequent monthly meetings were held to discuss issues affecting the fresh vegetable supply chain. A key development occurred in 2004 when the Ministry of Agriculture launched the Food Safety Year, publishing GAP for a range of commodities. This initiative became a key driver for the cluster to develop its own system of quality assurance. It was thought that it was necessary to comply not just with the Ministry of Agriculture’s GAP but also EurepGAP now GLOBALGAP, as the latter would further facilitate access to markets. The farmers were brought together by the cluster so that there could be common learning about their normal practices and the constraints they faced in trying to meet the GAP of the Ministry of Agriculture and EurepGAP. A common cluster GAP was produced in the Thai language within three months. The GAP itself was made as accessible to the relevant parties as possible. Not only was it in Thai, but any part that was not applicable to the normal practices of each relevant actor was deleted and the whole GAP was made simple to understand. Acting as a cluster aided the whole process, allowing exchange of information between the different actors farmers, exporters, distributors, research institutes, etc. Korpraditskul, 2005. While the production of a common GAP was a key step in raising the quality levels of the cluster’s produce, other action was clearly necessary to ensure that it was understood and kept to. The cluster has a GAP assessment and checking system that includes farm advisors, government officials, farm leaders, trained internal auditors and various other cluster stakeholders. Recent research on small farmers’ implementation of GAP revealed a general lack of understanding of the system Korpraditskul, 2005. For this reason, training courses were developed, relevant to each area. The cluster has taken on many other related tasks. It is now committed, inter alia, to providing training to all parts of the cluster and promoting public-private dialogue. It also launched a symbol for products that achieve the GAP requirements. Overall, the cluster’s work appears to have been largely successful in promoting GAP in the region. Indeed, the approach taken in this cluster is being extended to areas in the rest of Thailand. This extension called ThaiGAP is being driven by a PPP. The main actors are the Thai Chamber of Commerce and the agricultural department of Kasetsart University. It aims to build on the Western GAP cluster’s work in improving agricultural practice, and also raise the profile of Thai agricultural exports internationally Chuenprayoth, 2007. Importantly, despite being a national initiative, this new action still has a cluster-based approach at its core. The scheme focuses upon acting in eight key clusters around the country 27 . Similar to the Western GAP cluster, it hopes to use the dynamics of collective action by supply chain members and support institutions to promote SMEs in these areas.

5.2.3 The future of the cluster

While the Western GAP cluster has had much success in raising the quality and health standards of the cluster’s produce, there are questions over its sustainability. In particular these questions arise because of the necessity of outside sources of funding for many of 27 www.thaigap.org the initiatives. Although the act of bringing together different cluster members is relatively costless, initiatives such as providing training are not. For example, when these initiatives were introduced, they were dependent upon a Provincial Project grant. The nationwide ThaiGAP initiative has similar limitations. One of the first processes that its committee highlights as important is to ask for budget support from the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion part of the Ministry of Industry Chuenprayoth, 2007, thus indicating the inability for these clusters to act without external support. Additionally, although there is much sharing of knowledge between various members of the cluster, there is also a high dependence on the agricultural department of Kasetsart University and bodies external to the cluster for knowledge inputs. However, these weaknesses of the cluster initiatives do not necessarily undermine the cluster projects. This is especially true for funding in the short term. For instance, the ThaiGAP initiative now has funding from the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion, the Thai Chamber of Commerce and the Thai Fruit and Vegetable Producers’ Association GTZ, 2008. Moreover, as the cluster develops, one might argue that the dependence on external actors may decline as the capabilities of the cluster members are increased. The cluster project overlaps with some donor backed initiatives. For example, GTZ has an active programme in Thailand aiming to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs in certain fruit and vegetable subsectors through the promotion of technological advisory services. Through cooperation with institutions such as the Thai Chamber of Commerce and the National Technical Working Group, GTZ has also explicitly aided and supported the development of ThaiGAP GTZ, 2008.

5.3 ROOT CROP PROCESSING CLUSTER IN DONG LIEU, VIET NAM