'Roll up your sleeves' in agriculture, accompanying production households

By “rolling up their sleeves” in agriculture, accompanying production households, businesses do not stop at “buying and reselling” agricultural products, but also become ambassadors spreading the awareness of clean production in the community, towards a sustainable future for Vietnamese agriculture.

The market can “swallow” farmers

According to economic expert Pham Chi Lan, Vietnamese agricultural products are currently under pressure from both domestic and international markets. “The foreign market is clearly at a disadvantage because it is influenced by larger countries in terms of quality, technology and marketing. Domestically, agricultural products are suspected of food safety and hygiene. They are delicious and fragrant, but if they are not clean, no one will dare to buy them,” Ms. Lan stated the reality.

Clean vegetable production in greenhouses.

To conquer the domestic market, Vietnamese agricultural products need many clean agricultural product brands. However, to cultivate agricultural products according to processes that produce clean agricultural products requires changing farming practices and higher costs than usual. Not to mention, consumption in the "from home to market" style is still a habit and the only way for many farming households.

Talking about the market pressure on farmers, Director of the Department of Crop Production (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) Nguyen Hong Son said that if we continue to let street vendors and carts sell goods without managing the quality of agricultural products, there will come a time when farmers will "suffer" because of this type of market.

Mr. Son's assessment is not wrong when recent "market flooding" stories appear such as the sale of dragon fruit, watermelon... When not grasping the market signal, producers keep groping and producing until one day the products are no longer welcomed, at that time, although not desired, the market has unintentionally "swallowed" all the efforts of farmers.

Need pioneering enterprises to make the market healthy

While the agricultural market is still full of confusion, the participation of enterprises is a positive signal. A typical example is the program "Accompanying, supporting and promoting Vietnamese agricultural production" launched by VinEco Company in September 2016 with the project of linking 1,000 production households to support clean farming households to export cleanly and consume cleanly.

Illustration

Production households only need to have an area of ​​over 1 hectare and commit to clean production... to be able to participate in the program. Ms. Vu Tuyet Hang, General Director of VinEco Company, said that VinEco will support training in knowledge, production processes according to safety standards, and control the production process to ensure the best product quality. "We ensure to purchase the agricultural products that we have signed with farmers in the most stable way according to the correct process and price. In addition, if during the cooperation process, any farming households achieve high standards in terms of quality and quantity of agricultural products, we will have a direction to support capital and high technology to develop production," Ms. Hang emphasized.

Regarding the current application of the VietGAP management system, the leaders of the Department of Crop Production also recognized some shortcomings in the management documents and will consider including them in the revised program in 2017. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh also commented: “Enterprises have a role in leading farmers, leading sustainable agriculture into integration. Enterprises are also the leading units in organizing production according to the value chain, the core connecting farmers with the market”.

Enterprises package agricultural products before exporting to the market.

The “cluster linkage” models implemented by VinEco are creating a very positive ripple effect for the agricultural sector. More than ever, we need more pioneers and businesses willing to “roll up their sleeves” and work hard with farmers to create clean agricultural product chains, for the long-term future of future generations.

Commenting on the role of enterprises in agriculture, economic expert Pham Chi Lan said: “Without enterprises as a bridge, farmers would be extremely helpless, helpless in production, helpless in consumption. In addition, enterprises also take on the role of supervising product quality...”.

According to Thanh Tuyen/nongnghiep