“Conservation – Sustainability - Fairness – Transparency”, Rudolf Lüthi – Head of Agribusiness and Rural Development Department, HELVETAS Headquarter, BioTrade project implementer In Vietnam, herbs have been used to cure diseases for thousands of years. However, the majority of Vietnamese native herbs are either underproductive or overexploited.  Consequences are resources of natural herbs are dwindling, manufacturers of herbal medicines have to import herbs (mainly from China); and since they can only afford low graded herbs, they cannot be certain of the origin or quality. This reality is calling for action: herbals plants and traditional knowledge need conservation, consumers need access to good quality herbal medicines, and people in possession of the natural resource and the traditional knowledge need to make profit out of what they have for them to protect it. And that is the very reason why our project is on point. We bring in BioTrade concept that applies to value chains sourcing from nature. Criteria of BioTrade include conservation of nature, financial and social sustainability, fairness, and transparency. “We don’t do one-size-fits-all”, Cuong Vien – BioTrade Project Manager In BioTrade project, we aim at manufacturers of herbal medicines all over the country as they have the necessary resources as well as the motivation to develop sustainable value chains of herbs. I think it’s worth mentioning that all of our interventions are carefully customized to the needs of companies. We don’t do one-size-fits-all because each of our companies is at a different stage in the development toward sustainability, and have different objectives. Until now, we have established partnership with 29 small/medium enterprises to develop 38 value chains of natural herbs. More than 3000 farmers have benefited from these value chains: they received trainings on sustainable farming of herbal plants, they were supported with production materials, and engaged in long-term contracts with stable pricing for their herbs.