Struggling with the problem of safe agricultural products

Although the demand for safe agricultural products is increasing, the actual supply is still very limited. According to experts, the main reason for this situation is the inadequacy in the implementation of VietGAP standards in agricultural production, and the lack of a separate consumption channel for clean agricultural products at high prices.

The price of certification is too high.

VietGAP is a good agricultural production practice process developed and issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) since January 28, 2008. After 6 years, up to now, Vietnam has certified VietGAP for 5 types of agricultural products including: Coffee, tea, rice, fruits, and vegetables.

Safe vegetable production in Yen My commune, Thanh Tri district, Hanoi.

According to Mr. Ngo Tung Thu, Project Manager of “Sustainable Rural Livelihoods” implementing the VietGAP certified safe vegetable component in Binh Dinh province, the strict application of VietGAP standards has brought great value to farmers. Thanks to the application of VietGAP standards in growing safe vegetables, it has helped reduce 70% of pesticides used in vegetable growing while increasing farmers’ income by 20-30% compared to normal vegetables.

“The low rate of production area applying VietGAP is due to the design of this process not being suitable for small-scale, fragmented production models of farmers. Therefore, the “Basic GAP” standard proposed by JICA is a suitable direction to help most farmers apply safe crop production practices and target the domestic consumption market. Instead of implementing all 65 criteria, farmers only need to initially implement well 26 basic criteria” (Dr. Dao The Anh, Director of the Center for Agricultural Systems Research and Development).

However, through the actual implementation, Mr. Thu said that the replication of the model still faces many difficulties due to too many control criteria and farmers have to keep very complicated care diaries. "Currently, there are up to 65 control criteria, ensuring traceability with a production diary for farmers to implement, including many complicated indicators and tables. This has caused a lot of trouble for farmers who only know how to work in the fields all year round", Mr. Ngo Tung Thu emphasized.

Agreeing with this view, Mr. Dao Xuan Cuong, representative of the Swiss Sustainable Development Fund implementing a project to help farmers produce safe vegetables, said that there has been a situation where farmers have turned their backs on VietGAP due to the complexity of this criterion. In addition, the certification price for VietGAP is too high, up to 50-60 million VND/ha/year, which is also a big obstacle that makes farmers hesitant. "Farmers may not earn that amount of money even after working all year, so how can they spend such a large amount of money to implement this certification?", Mr. Cuong emphasized.

According to Mr. Tran Xuan Dinh, Deputy Director of the Department of Crop Production (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), the certification of products meeting VietGAP standards must be approved by a number of quality certification organizations. “Therefore, only a few production facilities that are associated with enterprises and have contracts to purchase new products are certified, or projects that provide financial support for production facilities to certify them. In general, products applying VietGAP criteria are mainly for export, not yet serving domestic consumption needs,” Mr. Dinh analyzed.

Strengthen inspection and punishment

According to the leader of the Department of Crop Production, the gap between “supply and demand” for safe products is still quite large. In addition to the production stage that meets the criteria, the management of certificates also shows many limitations. Therefore, consumers still have many concerns when choosing products. “Recently, many cases of dirty agricultural products but “disguised” as safe have been exposed, causing consumers to not really trust in products that have been labeled as certified. Therefore, how to improve consumers’ trust in these products is an urgent issue,” said Deputy Director of the Department of Crop Production Tran Xuan Dinh.

Based on these shortcomings, the leaders of the Department of Crop Production recommend that, in order for safe products and VietGAP products to reach consumers, relevant units need to develop a process for assessing and managing the market for safe products through strengthening State management of inspection, supervision, and sanctions against cases of unsafe and substandard food business and production.

According to Mr. Ngo Tien Dung, Deputy Director of the Plant Protection Department, there is still a lack of regulations on business management of agricultural products, especially at markets. “People's markets do not have stalls selling safe vegetables, and any organization that wants to sell them must rent space at a very high price. Meanwhile, the characteristic of vegetables is that they spoil quickly and need good preservation equipment, so the profit is not much. Therefore, the State needs to have mechanisms and policies to support and remove difficulties for businesses, thereby expanding the models of safe agricultural production and business,” Mr. Dung suggested.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said that, implementing the national food safety program for the period 2011 - 2020, with a vision to 2030, the Vietnamese Government is making efforts to perfect the legal framework, quality standards management, and food safety and hygiene farming techniques. Accordingly, grassroots units need to strengthen training to raise awareness for both producers and consumers about food safety and at the same time promote safe agricultural products for both domestic and export markets.

According to News