Building a national brand for Vietnamese rice: Better late than never

With a tradition of rice production for thousands of years, rice is not only the staple food but also a cultural symbol of Vietnam, rice flowers and grains are present in all aspects of economic and social life. Therefore, starting to build a national brand for Vietnamese rice now may be too late, but better late than never.

"Golden seed" has released gold?

According to statistics, Vietnam currently has 4.1 million hectares of rice land, of which the Mekong Delta accounts for 53%. In 2014, total rice output reached 45 million tons, export output was more than 6.3 million tons, reaching a turnover of 2.93 billion USD. Vietnam currently ranks third in the world in rice exports, after India and Thailand.

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Mr. Vo Thanh Do, Deputy Director of the Department of Agricultural, Forestry, Fisheries and Salt Processing (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), commented that despite many outstanding achievements in the recent period, the Vietnamese rice industry is facing many challenges such as: production is mainly on a small, fragmented household scale (more than 85% of households have a scale of less than 0.5 ha/household). Meanwhile, the organization of production activities at the scale of cooperatives, groups, and contract production is still limited, leading to difficulties in quality management and unstable income of farmers. The structure of rice varieties is diverse but lacks key, high-quality varieties to form key products and access international markets.

Vietnam's rice export market is in the middle and low segment, high quality exported rice accounts for a low proportion. Currently, there are more than 200 medium and large-scale enterprises participating in the rice trading system, but the use of brands in the market, especially the export market, is still very limited.

“In the context of increasingly fierce competition, in addition to traditional competitors, Vietnam also has to compete with potential competitors such as Cambodia and Myanmar. Competitive pressure on Vietnamese rice is not only about price and quality, but also building a brand, maintaining prestige and trust in the world market is an urgent and vital requirement,” said Mr. Do.

From the reality of participating in the rice export process, Mr. Le Thanh Khiem, Deputy Director of Tien Giang Food Company, said that the lack of a brand makes Vietnamese rice suffer a double loss. For example, Thailand focuses on developing certain varieties while Vietnam has not yet chosen a variety with long-term stability. Often, our varieties can only be produced for a short time and then degenerate. "The seed production stage plays an important role in building a brand. If we want to build a rice brand, we can choose a number of varieties to preserve genes. In addition, the practice of mixing many types of rice together is the biggest limitation in the issue of building a Vietnamese rice brand," Mr. Khiem stated a reality.

The representative of the Southern Food Corporation admitted that the promotion and marketing activities of the units in the corporation are still very limited, and have not created horizontal links between units to strongly develop retail packaged rice products; and have not paid due attention to selecting varieties with stable quality to avoid the situation where products circulating on the market must stop shortly.

Enterprises are the subjects

Sharing his experience in the process of building the brand of the unit, Mr. Cao Tuan Nam, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thap Muoi Clean Agriculture Development Company Limited (Dong Thap), said that the enterprise is investing in the production of organic rice, targeting high-end markets, using Jasmine rice varieties of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute, producing on large-scale fields by renting land from farmers. The product is aimed at the markets of South Africa and Madagascar.

The project to develop the Vietnamese rice brand strives that by 2020, the image of Vietnamese rice will be widely promoted and introduced domestically and to at least 20 export markets.

Currently, Tien Giang Food Company has also built 10 of its own rice brands, which have been recognized by the Intellectual Property Office. However, this is only the brand of a single company. According to Mr. Khiem, to shorten the process of building a national rice brand, we should use available varieties of enterprises and at the same time develop the market. In addition to exporting, we must pay more attention to the domestic market because the domestic market consumes 30-40% of the rice produced.

“In building a brand, the State must play the role of conductor, providing policies to support businesses so that they can find a market because a brand only exists when there is a market,” said Mr. Khiem.

According to Mr. Vo Thanh Do, it is necessary to identify enterprises as the subject in brand building. The State needs to have specific policies and solutions to encourage and support enterprises to proactively and actively participate effectively in this process.

Mr. AK Gupta, Director of Basmati Export Development Fund, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), Ministry of Industry and Commerce of India, shared his experience that to let world consumers know about India's famous rice products, the country promotes regionally and nationally with a common policy, with reliable and quality suppliers; prioritizes trade promotion and development of specialty rice; builds geographical indications and brands. Up to now, India has had famous rice brands such as: Navara, Palakakadan Matta, Pokkali, Wayanad Jeeraksala, Wayanad Gandhakasala, Kala Namak, Kaipad. India's Bastima rice export output in 2013 - 2014 reached 3.75 million tons, other types of rice were 7.15 million tons; 2014-2015 output is expected to reach about 3.7 million tons of Basmati rice and 8.23 ​​million tons of other rice varieties.

“In addition to the role of authorities, production and business organizations have a particularly important role in building and developing rice brands,” Mr. Gupta affirmed.

Meanwhile, in Thailand, the supply chain from field to market is shortened because farmers can market their products themselves through cooperatives without going through traders. As a result, farmers can benefit 20% or even 100% if they create different added values ​​for the same product.

Although not as rich in tradition as Vietnam, India has managed to build its own Bastima rice brand, Thailand is famous for its Jasmine rice variety, and Vietnam is always proud to have many types of specialty rice but in reality, it has not yet been listed on the world brand map.

According to Mr. Tran Viet Thanh, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, in May 2015, the Prime Minister approved the project to build a national brand for Vietnamese rice. This is an important, comprehensive production project, assigned to ministries and branches to coordinate in building. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is assigned to preside, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other ministries and branches coordinate in implementing.

Mr. Thanh said that creating a brand is difficult, but ensuring a quality value chain for that brand to exist in the long term and stably is even more difficult. Currently, the Ministry of Science and Technology has built programs and research projects related to creating quality rice varieties, modern and advanced machinery and equipment to make the rice production process more synchronized; continuing to build and perfect the set of Vietnamese standards for rice export.

“National branding is not a new issue, but Vietnamese rice is the first agricultural product to be approached in this direction. In recent times, we have focused on building and developing intellectual property based on the advantages of local and regional specialties, promoting the advantages and strengths of Vietnamese agriculture. However, when approaching products with large-scale commodity production such as rice, building a national brand is necessary to create an image, position and promote product trade in the international market. Second, the national brand can become a destination, a convergence of State policies with a comprehensive approach from production, processing and trade, promoting the comprehensive application of science and technology, which is the basis for the development and sustainability of the industry to capture and expand the market,” Mr. Thanh emphasized.

Although not as rich in tradition as Vietnam, India has managed to build its Bastima rice brand, Thailand is famous for its Jasmine rice, and Vietnam is always proud of having many types of specialty rice but in reality has not yet been listed on the world brand map. Therefore, raising the issue of building a national rice brand now is probably too late, but nevertheless it is something that must be done right now, if we do not want to lose the third place.

The project to develop the Vietnamese rice brand until 2020, with a vision to 2030, was approved by the Prime Minister on May 21, 2015. By 2020, the image of Vietnamese rice will be widely promoted and introduced domestically and to at least 20 export markets; the national rice brand will be protected by intellectual property rights in the form of certification marks in Vietnam and at least 50 countries; and 20% of exported rice will be branded as Vietnamese rice.

By 2030, rice export production areas will be stable, effective and sustainable, making Vietnamese rice a world-leading brand in terms of quality and food safety; striving for 50% of exported rice output to carry the Vietnamese rice brand, of which 30% of total exported rice output will be fragrant rice and specialty rice.

According to Kinhtenongthon