Who are we?

Market and Agriculture Linkages for Cities in Asia (MALICA) collaborative platform aims to strengthen the research and decision capacity on food market analysis and urban/rural linkages of researchers, students, public officials, and private groups in Vietnam and in Laos. MALICA’s overall objective is to foster the sustainability of food systems in South-East Asia.

  • A brief history

    The creation of MALICA in 2002 formalized the collaboration between CIRAD (Centre for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development, France) and Vietnamese Agricultural research institutes which started in the late 1990s and proved to be very fruitful. Collaboration since the beginning has been driven by the interest and need to understand better the new opportunities and threats faced by the Vietnamese agri-food sector in a context of rapid urbanization. The extension to Lao PDR partners in 2010 came logically together with the broadening of the focus of MALICA as depicted below and is in line with the similarities between Vietnam and Lao PDR in terms of political and institutional framework; the growing relationship between Laotian farmers/rural areas and consumers/urban markets in Vietnam and the growing awareness and openness of food systems in both countries to various dimensions of quality.

  • Partnership

    Markets and Agriculture Linking Chains in Asia (MALICA) is an international consortium of research partners established in 2002. There are 11 institutions in the platform as of 2020.
  • Objectives

    MALICA’s overall objective is to foster the sustainability of food systems in South-East Asia.