What to do to solve difficulties in the quality of Vietnamese agricultural products?
What should be planted next season to have a "good harvest - good price", how to improve product quality, meet export standards, traders and businesses support high purchase prices, not depend on Chinese traders? These are constant questions that many farmers have to struggle to answer when preparing to start the next crop season right when the agricultural export situation since the beginning of the year has encountered many difficulties...
According to the report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the first 6 months of 2014, the total export value of the industry is estimated at 14.88 billion USD, an increase of 12.7% compared to the same period in 2013. In fact, many agricultural products of Vietnam are currently quite dependent on the Chinese market, in which rice and rubber, the Chinese market accounts for about 40% of the industry's export turnover. As for dragon fruit, lychee, and cassava flour, this market accounts for 80-90%. China is also the largest importer of vegetables and fruits from Vietnam with a total import value of 159.64 million USD in the first 5 months of the year, an increase of 44.3% compared to the same period in 2013, accounting for 29.91% of the market share. Notably, China is still the largest importer of rice from Vietnam, accounting for 40.46% of the market share. However, in May and June, the export value of the whole industry decreased quite sharply due to objective political and social factors with China, making this market gradually unstable. Therefore, finding a market to remove difficulties for agricultural products is identified as a key task in the entire agricultural sector in the coming time. Not only leaders and businesses, but also farmers are struggling to find answers before starting the next crop.
Faced with this situation, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has coordinated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and related sectors to actively direct and closely monitor developments, and propose solutions. At the same time, it has stepped up support for businesses to participate in trade promotion activities, enhanced information work, and promoted agricultural, forestry and fishery products to consumers through domestic and foreign information and communication channels. Strengthened work with Vietnamese representative agencies abroad and competent authorities of importing countries to sign cooperation agreements, remove barriers, and create conditions to promote exports.
Need to develop products associated with local brands
Currently, some enterprises growing and selling agricultural products have proactively affirmed their agricultural product brands by branding and adding regional names to agricultural products, creating "regional specialties" such as Hoa Sua organic rice, Ba Tay dragon fruit, Luc Ngan lychee, Trung Nguyen coffee... and exporting them to developed countries with stable markets and selling at high prices. To do so, agricultural products need a care process from planting to packaging, promoting the brand and finding outlets. Along with that are technical challenges, requiring products to be clean according to specific standards such as: Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), ISO 9000 quality management system standards... In addition, goods related to the environment must have eco-labels, recycled labels with internationally recognized certificates. On the other hand, businesses also need to master regulations such as rules of origin, maturity criteria, competition conditions, and modern equipment lines for processing and packaging. These issues show that Vietnam has not yet met the needs of large markets such as the EU, Japan, the US, and even close markets such as the Philippines, Malaysia, etc. This has significantly affected export turnover and solutions to proactively solve the problem of production and consumption of Vietnamese agricultural products.
And the solution from organic agricultural products
Organic agricultural products are agricultural products that use organic fertilizers and organic farming methods to meet the needs of output and chemical content in products according to the highest standards of the market. The market today has many organic products certified by international organizations, in accordance with the technical standards of the most demanding countries such as the US, Europe, Japan and Taiwan. These products are mainly sourced from developed countries such as the US, Australia and Europe.
The most typical and most mentioned recently is the organic fertilizer product Woprofert 4-3-3 from the Netherlands. With ingredients containing nitrogen (4%), phosphorus (3%), potassium (3%), organic (>65%), Ca (6%), WOPROFERT ELEMENT 4-3-3 helps plants grow strongly and resist pests and diseases, stimulates the development of microorganisms, makes the soil more fertile, improves the soil and makes it loose, airy, improves biodiversity and long-term productivity of the soil... Thanks to the ability to regulate humidity, balance PH, plants with WOPROFERT ELEMENT 4-3-3 fertilizer always have strong roots, do not have root rot, and can retain water for a long time for the soil.
The product is being widely applied to Global gap/Vietgap models in all provinces and cities, typically Sapoche Mac Bac, Tien Giang is certified Vietgap using Dutch organic product Woprofert 4-3-3 which has been purchased in Kim Son and Song Thuan communes. The average yield always reaches 35-40 tons/ha.
This production model has also brought great benefits to farmers in ensuring product output quality, meeting some strict regulations on the quality of harvested agricultural products, helping farmers to be proactive in output because they have ensured superior quality and believe in a brighter future without depending on the sole output for their "darlings".
According to NNVN
