On January 19, 2026 our SUCCEEDS training farm in Tay Ninh Province hosted a high-level delegation from the Netherlands as part of the Dutch Innovation Mission on Salinity. The group of 23 companies, knowledge institutes and public organizations was led by Céline van Maaren from the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature, and Raïssa Marteaux, Consul General of the Netherlands in Ho Chi Minh City. Our team, led by Siebe van Wijk, Managing Director of The Fruit Republic, welcomed the delegation with a presentation on the Vietnamese citrus sector and the objectives of SUCCEEDS, followed by a guided farm tour.
The visit offered a practical window into what we are building on the ground. Participants moved through the farm in smaller groups, exploring the climate-smart systems the SUCCEEDS team put in place to address some of the most pressing challenges facing citrus growers in the Mekong Delta — salinity intrusion, groundwater depletion and increasingly erratic rainfall patterns. Among the solutions on show were the on-farm rainwater harvesting reservoir that drastically reduces the need for groundwater extraction during the dry season, the drip irrigation and fertigation systems connected to it, solar-powered pumps that supply water in the dry season and drain excess water during heavy rains, and improved pruning and branch-bending techniques for better light penetration, higher yields and a greater share of premium-grade fruit.
Consul General Raïssa Marteaux and Ms. Đinh Thị Phương Khanh, Vice Director of the Tay Ninh Department of Agriculture and Environment, concluded the visit by planting citrus seedlings themselves on the training farm.
Following the visit, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture’s international agriculture platform Agroberichten Buitenland published a detailed feature on SUCCEEDS, documenting what the delegation saw and placing our work within the wider context of Dutch-Vietnamese agricultural cooperation on climate resilience and sustainable horticulture in the Mekong Delta.
You can read the full article HERE