Building the brand of 'Nam Dan delicacies'

(Baonghean) - As a locality with many traditional industries, Nam Dan district is focusing on developing agricultural products in the direction of commodity production, creating products with distinctive brands and achieving quality. This is the direction to concretize the Resolution of the District Party Congress for the term 2015 - 2020.

Mr. Ho Sy Canh's family in hamlet 5, Nam Anh commune, grows 2 sao of cassava. Previously, he grew cassava only for his family; but in recent years, when this crop became a commercial crop, his family expanded the planting area on the hill, with an average of approximately 1 - 1.3 tons of tubers per sao, each quintal of fresh cassava costs 1 million VND/quintal of tubers; 2 sao of cassava brings in an income of 20 - 25 million VND for Mr. Canh's family. Cassava is an easy-to-grow plant, requires little care, does not use pesticides, has high productivity, low investment costs, self-propagates for adjacent crops, and has good drought tolerance, especially on high-altitude hilly land.

Nam Anh is a commune with a relatively large area for growing cassava, especially focusing on processing cassava starch. Currently, the commune has nearly 30 hectares of cassava for starch processing. In addition, people also buy from communes such as Nam Xuan, Nam Hung, Nam Nghia for processing. Meanwhile, if processing 1 quintal of tubers can produce 20 - 22 kg of starch, with the current selling price of 140,000 - 160,000 VND/kg, thus, 1 hectare of cassava can bring in an income of over 200 million VND, many times higher than other crops on the same area.

The dried vermicelli and rice noodles products of Quy Chinh village, Van Dien commune (Nam Dan) have been built with a protected brand. Photo: Thanh Le

Not only in Nam Anh commune, cassava in Nam Dan district has been grown for many years and can be considered a traditional, main crop in Dai Hue mountain area. This product is known by many people, because Nam Dan cassava has many outstanding characteristics so that when processed into starch, it will produce a smooth, white, fragrant product, with much better quality than cassava grown in other regions.

However, for decades, people here have been producing using traditional agricultural methods, without the mindset of building their own brand for agricultural products. Based on this situation, Nam Dan district is coordinating with Japan's JICA to build a brand, register intellectual property protection for cassava starch in 2017 to increase income for people. At the same time, this is a product serving the development of local tourism.

Mr. Ho Sy Canh excitedly shared: “My family has been growing and processing cassava starch for many years but has not thought about creating a private label or brand for the product. Since receiving support from the JICA Project to develop the product, my family has understood and wanted to create a private brand”. The cassava starch produced is packaged with labels, production date, and expiration date of the product, creating high reliability for customers about the origin, as well as the quality of the product. Thanks to that, the price has been raised from 100,000 VND/kg to 150,000 VND/kg.

Quy Chinh village's dried vermicelli noodles - Van Dien commune is also one of the products that Nam Dan district aims to build a brand for. Quy Chinh village, Van Dien commune has a long-standing vermicelli making profession and has been recognized as a craft village by the Provincial People's Committee since 2006. The whole village has nearly 200 households participating in vermicelli production, evenly distributed in Quy Chinh 1 and Quy Chinh 2 hamlets.

Thanks to the famous clean and delicious vermicelli products here, people have had a better income, contributing to bringing a prosperous and comfortable life and a new, spacious rural appearance to the village. However, production here is still small-scale, spontaneous, following the household model, without a protected brand. This has made it difficult for local agricultural products, despite their good quality, to expand the market.

Having been involved in the profession of making dried vermicelli and rice noodles for 30 years, Ms. Phan Thi Chin in Quy Chinh hamlet 1 said: "The products are mainly sold to regular customers who do not have regular and long-term orders. People hope that the State will support and create conditions to build a brand for Quy Chinh dried vermicelli and rice noodles so that the products of the craft village can have a firm position in the market."

To promote the building of the traditional product brand of Quy Chinh village, on May 11, 2017, Van Dien commune established a rice vermicelli and rice paper cooperative with 32 members, which will help households connect with each other from the production to the consumption of products, creating a close connection in production and business, meeting the needs of ensuring food safety and hygiene of consumers.

With the support of the Project, diversifying livelihoods based on heritage tourism in agricultural and fishing villages of JICA (Japan), the Quy Chinh rice vermicelli and rice paper production cooperative will register its brand and label to expand its market nationwide to increase product value and further increase income for workers.

In recent years, Nam Dan agriculture has had remarkable changes, the annual output of agricultural products has been increasingly improved. However, farmers produce products mainly for direct consumption; the district's agricultural product consumption market system is still small, not commensurate with the capacity of agricultural production, brand building, market search and better selling prices for agricultural products for demanding markets are still very limited.

In particular, in Nam Dan district, there are currently many traditional and typical products such as Nam Dan soy sauce, tapioca starch, Nam Dan soaked persimmon, turmeric starch, lemon, Nam Nghia tamarind meat, Cau Don goat, Nam Thai hill chicken, Lang Sen wine, peanut oil... However, up to now, these products have not been registered for intellectual property protection. For example, Nam Dan soy sauce is a famous traditional specialty of Nam Dan district, but is facing difficulties in establishing intellectual property rights because the name "Nam Dan soy sauce" has been registered for trademark protection by Nghe An Seafood Joint Stock Company...

To build product brands, according to comrade Nguyen Hong Son - Vice Chairman of Nam Dan District People's Committee, the People's Council of Nam Dan District, term XX, 2016 - 2020, issued a Resolution on encouraging and supporting businesses and craft villages to build product brands.

On the other hand, Nam Dan will promote support for traditional craft villages in general to apply scientific, technical and technological advances in production, improve product designs and types, enhance product quality and competitiveness. At the same time, call for investment and link with enterprises from production to processing and consumption of products to improve the quality and economic efficiency of products.

In particular, the locality is working with the Japanese organization JICA to implement the project of diversifying livelihoods based on heritage tourism in agricultural and fishing villages, focusing on building a brand for typical products of Nam Dan to serve tourism development.

Building a brand for Nam Dan's typical products will gradually change people's production thinking, forming specialized areas, concentrated raw material areas and unique agricultural products of Nam Dan locality, improving people's lives and incomes, contributing to the goal of building Nam Dan district into a model new rural district of the whole country.

Thanh Le