Consultancy for Baseline Survey of the GCP Collective Action Initiative for Responsible Use of Agro-Inputs in Vietnam

TERMS OF REFERENCE

CONSULTANCY FOR

THE BASELINE SURVEY OF THE GCP COLLECTIVE ACTION INITIATIVE FOR RESPONSIBLE USE OF AGRO-INPUTS IN VIETNAM

Introduction

The Global Coffee Platform (GCP) is an inclusive multi-stakeholder sustainability platform that convenes coffee stakeholders, prioritizes sustainability issues and catalyzes local action and progress measurement in collaboration with country platforms to create a thriving and sustainable coffee sector. Members of the Global Coffee Platform include farmers and farmer organizations, traders (exporters and importers), coffee roasters and retailers, other supply chain actors, civil society organizations, coffee associations and others.

GCP’s Collective Action Initiatives (CAI) optimize sustainability investments and multiply impact through pooling resources, knowledge, and networks to collectively address country specific sustainability gaps. By partnering with GCP, participants of a CAI support the coffee sector to identify and address complex issues through a structured and collaborative approach.

In June 2020, GCP Vietnam launched a 5-year Collective Action Initiative for effective and responsible use and management of agro-inputs in Vietnam, which focuses on addressing the responsible use of agro-inputs (especially herbicides) in the coffee sector in Vietnam by improving the enabling environment and sector policies, providing support and training to farmers and stakeholders in the Central Highlands and conducting research to gather and document best practices and lessons learned. Results of the Initiative will be shared with Vietnamese and International coffee sector stakeholders in order to upscale best practices. The Initiative has drawn high attention and commitments from roasters, including Nestlé, JDE and Tchibo as well as from organisations as The Sustainable Trade Initiative - IDH, and is being promoted to additional interested actors to participate in this initiative.

In this context, GCP is looking for consulting services to carry out a survey on the plant protection use with special focus on Glyphosate in the provinces of Daklak, Dak Nong, Lam Dong, Gia Lai and Kontum, in the Central Highlands (CH) of Vietnam.

Objectives

The recruited consultant shall conduct a geographic mapping of agro-input use throughout the Central Highlands to identify hotspots and understand why more pesticides/herbicides are used in certain regions in relation to location, climate, type, pest incidence, intercrops/farm systems.

The results of this survey will be the basis to finetune the next steps of interventions by GCP.

Specifically, the consultant is expected to:

Conduct a survey on weed management and trends including residue levels
Identify risk regions in the Central Highlands
Develop a weed management report and a map of Glyphosate use in the Coffee sector in 05 CH provinces
Formulate a mitigation action plan (aligned with the sector strategy) and
Organize a sharing wworkshop to disseminate the results to public and private Coffee Sector ‘s stakeholders

Deliverables

The consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

Activities	Deliverables	Deadline
i)Conduct a survey including literature review and field work, including taking samples of green bean produced in the CH (the sampling will be spread over the CH areas) for LAB analysis to identify: the Glyphosate use related risk regions in the Central Highlands and weed management and trends including residue levels	A weed management report A map of Glyphosate use in coffee production in the 05 CH provinces (Should it be an Agro-input use map which focusses on Glyphosate?) Results of Glyphosate analyses submitted by LABs	30 November 2020
ii)Develop a mitigation action plan aligned with the Sector strategy	A mitigation action plan
iii)Compile a final narrative report	Report in English and all the deliverables mentioned in (i), (ii) and recommendations on next steps
iv)Present results of the survey in a sharing workshop	A PPT in both English and Vietnamese, summarizing the main findings and recommendations on next steps of interventions	31 December 2020

Consultant qualification

For this assignment we expect an agriculture consultant who brings the following assets/experiences:
Understanding of the IPM concept, with at least 10 years working experiences in plant protection/agriculture sector
Education background (Master, preferably PhD degree) on plant protection, agriculture, economics
Neutral and trusted
Fluency in both Vietnamese and English languages
Clear communicator, capable of translating complex information into an accessible and understandable format and
Ideally knowledge of the Vietnamese coffee sector.

Procedures

The procedure will be as follows:

Announcement of assignment: 20 August 2020 Submission of proposals plus quotations by candidates: prior to 20 September 2020 Criteria for assessment of the proposals:

Nr.	Criteria
1	Relevant qualifications on education or other similar disciplines & experiences in similar assignments (Composition of the expert team, CVs of experts & Profile of the Company must be submitted along with the proposal)
2	Reasonable time plan
3	Cost of the assignment

Evaluation of the candidates’ proposals and decision made on selection of consultant Contract signing: 30 September 2020. Deadline for proposal submission: 20 September 2020 Contact information For any question, please contact Ms. Doan Tran Thu Thuy – Project Officer, via email: thuydoan@globalcoffeeplatform.org