Deep processing creates high-value agricultural products

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan shared this opinion at the working session with the Department of Agricultural Products Processing and Market Development last week on its orientation and tasks in the coming time.

The agriculture sector is currently aiming to increase value, reduce input costs and shift from the concept of agriculture production to agricultural economy, deputy minister said.

In particular, the field of agro processing and market development plays an important role, accounting for nearly 50% of the entire closed chain from production to consumers. The current added value of agricultural products is mainly through deep processing, Hoan emphasized.

Vietnam's agro-processing industry has improved substantially over the past five years, but in general, the production cost of the final agricultural product is still high while the selling price remained low due to limited processing, especially in the segments of small and medium enterprises, farmers and cooperatives.

Deputy Minister provided specific examples, saying some countries do not have favorable conditions for agricultural production, typically Japan, but Japanese farmers can still get rich despite their small production.

This is due to the fact that Japanese farmers and agricultural cooperatives have undertaken almost all production, from the organization of production to preliminary processing, deep processing into a wide variety of products and promoting consumption that helps increase value of their agricultural products.

In Thailand, in addition to the larger scale of production and high production level, cooperatives and fruit farmers can deeply process fruits into a variety of products, making the most of their products. As a result, the value of fruit production is higher than just consuming fresh fruits.

From these facts, Hoan suggested that in the coming period, the Department of Agricultural Products Processing and Market Development should research and create a better environment to attract more businesses to invest in deep processing of agricultural products in rural areas, especially investing and equipping farmers and cooperatives with the ability to pre-process and deep-process on the spot, on the basis of application of appropriate technologies.