Intra-industry restructuring - Solution to increase the value of agricultural products

(Baonghean) -Nghe An is the largest locality in the country, with about 256 thousand hectares of agricultural land. Due to its diverse terrain, in addition to rice growing areas, Nghe An has sufficient conditions to strongly develop industrial crops. However, from the organization of raw material areas to the processing stage, there has been no breakthrough in productivity and quality, leading to high prices and a lack of competitiveness in the market. This can be clearly seen in Nghe An's two main products: tea and sugarcane.

Rubber processing at Nghe An Rubber Coffee Company.

Tea and sugarcane lack breakthroughs

Currently, there are nearly 8,000 hectares of commercial tea in the area, striving to reach 12,000 hectares by 2015. Tea output reaches nearly 8,000 tons of dry tea. The tea material area creates jobs for about 200,000 workers. In its development strategy, the tea industry has invested in deep processing to create products for direct export. However, the quality of tea is not high. The transfer of scientific advances to the people has not been focused on, so people do not invest properly, harvesting is not scientific, leading to uneven tea development. Infrastructure investment has not been focused on, the dam system has not been invested properly, so in the dry season, there is often a lack of water, leading to mass tea death, reduced productivity and quality.

Every year, in the dry season, hundreds of hectares of tea in Anh Son, Thanh Chuong, Con Cuong... die. The above reasons lead to the product quality not being guaranteed. One of the factors that creates the product quality is processing. Currently, in addition to the raw material processing lines of the enterprises under Nghe An Tea One Member Co., Ltd. which are invested in quite systematically, every year during the harvest season in the tea regions, about 60 tea processing facilities appear, many of which do not have business licenses and the quality is not managed. The emergence of many facilities leads to price competition, buying and selling, making it difficult to control the quality. On the other hand, even the processing lines of large businesses are mostly old and outdated, leading to low quality products. According to a source, Nghe An is the province with the largest tea export volume in the country, but many facilities export through consignment, or sell raw materials to processing and export facilities.

For sugarcane, every year when the harvest season comes, farmers often complain about being forced to pay a high price. In the market economy, with just one click of the mouse, farmers can know the sugarcane purchase price across the country. Currently, the income from sugarcane is calculated to be about 13 million VND per hectare, which is lower than some other crops. The reason for the low income is that the sugarcane yield is only 55 tons/ha. Compared to the southern provinces, the sugarcane yield is more than 100 tons, double that of ours. The low yield leads to high sugar production costs. According to the calculation of the cost of the 2013-2014 pressing season, it was 12,300 VND/kg of sugar. This is the reason why the sugarcane area is decreasing day by day. In its heyday, the Nghe An Tate & Lyle Sugarcane Company alone had a sugarcane area of ​​over 25,000 hectares, now it has decreased by over 4,000 hectares, the total area of ​​the province is currently approximately 28,000 hectares. After the grass shoot disease, unscientific cultivation with low productivity... the sugarcane growing area is being "invaded" by other crops such as cassava, rubber, tea, etc.

Internal restructuring

With the policy of diversifying crops, in addition to rice, in recent years, industrial crops have been focused on development. The formation of specialized industrial crop areas has contributed to hunger eradication and poverty reduction in the province's disadvantaged areas. In parallel with the raw material crop area, the processing industry has been formed and developed. In order for the "picture" of Nghe An's industrial crops to have a new color, the first thing is to resolutely restructure the industry. According to Mr. Nguyen Van Lap - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development: As part of the industrial crop restructuring program, the agricultural sector is reviewing all planning, selecting key crops to focus on investment. Long-term industrial crops are targeted at tea, rubber, and short-term crops are sugarcane and peanuts. Research to clearly identify each type of land, classify to propose specific cultivation measures for each type and soil quality. Apply technical measures on varieties, propose technical measures for each region. Improve and perfect the process of planting, caring for and harvesting each type of tree in the direction of mechanization to replace manual labor. Promote the establishment of projects to form high-tech zones in sugarcane, tea and rubber growing areas... applying advanced technologies to increase productivity...

The restructuring policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is an opportunity to arrange and orient strategic development. In the structure of industrial crop development of the locality, we can see a list of many types of crops, but in reality they are gradually being eliminated. For example, coffee trees, according to Resolution 17, Nghe An will have 2,000 hectares of coffee, in fact the coffee area in the area has decreased rapidly in recent times, currently according to the latest statistics there are only more than 600 hectares with poor quality and productivity. The fate of the 600 hectares will be determined in the near future when the exploitation cycle ends. From the widespread orientation leading to scattered areas, the products are not enough to build industrial processing factories, there are no deeply processed products to increase added value.

Therefore, in the restructuring strategy, only a few key crops should be selected to create a large source of products sufficient to supply large, modern processing facilities. In the planning, it is necessary to invite specialized agencies to evaluate the climate, land, soil, etc. to determine the most suitable crop varieties. The functional sector needs to bring in good varieties for multiplication and build product brands associated with the market in a sustainable manner, which are necessary solutions to increase the value of agricultural products. On the basis of identifying key seedlings, building a raw material area to have a plan to call for investors to invest deeply in the processing stage. Only then can Nghe An agricultural products increase their value, create competition in the market, and contribute to accelerating the development of the agricultural sector.

Mr. Tuan