Author : Tuong-Van Nguyen

Summary : The Vietnamese government views agricultural biotechnology as an essential and important prerequisite to achieve national goals for food, feed an fiber production. Present activities which are quite limited due to lack of funding, facilities and human resources include tissue culture for micropropagation, virus elimination, somaclonal variation and anther culture. For livestock and poultry, diagnostics and vaccines are produced to detect and prevent diseases while embryo transfer has been utilized to improve breeds. Plans of the national government include investment of US$60 million (M) for the major institutions (Institute of Biotechnology and United Agricultural Laboratory) $20M to strengthen other training and research centers, $2.5 M for overseas training, and 25 B DVN for R&D programs and 2 B DVN for information and libraries. Among the priority researches identified concern genetic modification of important crops such as rice, maize, potato, sweet potato, etc. for pest/disease resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, etc. to help achieve food security in the future.