Agricultural promotion 'troubleshooting' for production and consumption linkage

Revitalizing medicinal chrysanthemums cultivation

In the last months of 2021, hundreds of locals in Thang Thuy Commune, Hai Phong City’s Vinh Bao District rushed to harvest medicinal chrysanthemums.

This is a sandy land with some deeply low areas difficult for cultivation. Many years ago, farmers mainly planted bananas but got low economic efficiency and precarious income.

In recent years, a few households have started to switch to growing medicinal chrysanthemums and economic efficiency has initially improved. Many others have followed them by upgrading their wasteland, but basically, production is still spontaneous and fragmented.

Although the market demand is very large, the production has not been expanded, the yield is low, and the price is volatile. Many people have abandoned their fields to find another job after a period of time growing chrysanthemums.

The year 2021 is a turning point for locals since 124 households in Dong Loi 1 and Dong Loi 2 villages of Thang Thuy Commune, Vinh Bao District were selected by the Hai Phong Agricultural Promotion Center (HPAPC) to implement the "structure conversion model of crops grown on inefficient rice-growing land into production of medicinal chrysanthemums associated with product consumption".

With supports of the Center, farmers had participated in various training courses on technical application, seed and fertilizer selection, VietGAP certification as well as the introduction of linkages with products consumption chains.

After nearly 6 months of implementation, locals in Dong Loi 1 and Dong Loi 2 villages have earned an income of nearly VND169 million/ha on a cultivation scale area of 10 ha, much higher than other crops before.

Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy from Dong Loi 2 village, said that medicinal chrysanthemums are relatively easy to grow, easy to care for. It can be grown 1 crop a year from August to the end of November.

In years of favorable weather with little rain and less cold, medicinal chrysanthemums can give an average yield of 4-5 quintals/sao. In 2021, despite a lot of rain at the beginning of the crop, the yield still reached about 3 quintals/ha.

Nhờ được liên kết với doanh nghiệp để tiêu thụ sản phẩm nên người dân rất yên tâm sản xuất, chỉ cần làm theo hướng dẫn kỹ thuật, tập trung làm cho tốt là chắc chắn có tiền.

Thanks to being linked with consuming enterprises, farmers feel secure and just follow the technical instructions.

“We are old so can't work in factories... But since the model was introduced, by going to the field to pick chrysanthemum flowers every day with about 10kg/day, we can earn VND300,000/day", Thuy confided.

According to the Center, besides growing medicinal chrysanthemums, in 2021, a number of other production models have also been implemented in Hai Phong such as growing sticky rice in Tan Trao, gladiolus in An Duong, chickens in Quoc Tuan Commune… All of them bring obvious economic benefits, making locals so happy.

Along with supports of new production techniques and VietGAP certification, the Center also consults and helps farmers connect with agricultural service business cooperatives or clean food store chains in the City so that to boost unlimited consumption for their products.

According to the Hai Phong DARD, in 2021, the city has launched 5 stores to display and associate consumption of OCOP and typical agricultural products. The items are strictly controlled, ensuring clear origin and food safety.

In addition, the agricultural sector also cooperates with the Department of Industry and Trade and the Department of Information and Communications to fulfill the goal that by the end of 2021, 70-80% of agricultural production enterprises will have their products on the e-commercial floors of Postmart and Voso.vn.

From 2022, it will strive that 100% of farmers, businesses, manufacturers, and agricultural products will be present on the e-commerce floor to expand consumption channels.

Reorganizing production-consumption linkages

Currently, Hai Phong's agricultural products are still mainly consumed domestically, in the form of raw items via traders and traditional markets with a futile quantity supplied for processing and few for exports to China such as watermelon with an average amount of 300-500 tons/year.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused obstacles for farmers in their production and trade with many agricultural products facing congestion.

Meanwhile, enterprises’ investments in agricultural production are still limited compared to their potential and advantages while cooperatives’ operation is not much efficient, to promote its role as a focal point, coordinator, production service, and consumption source of agricultural and aquatic products for the farmers.

In many areas, a bad situation has occurred for agricultural producers who have to suffer from losses since their products are purchased at low prices. But when they go through traders to reach consumers, the price increases to ten times higher.

To solve this problem, Hai Phong authorities have been reviewing and adjusting operation plans for related sectors and products so that to promote the full potential and advantages of the City.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tuat, Deputy Director of Hai Phong’s DARD, said that linkage with agricultural product consumption is a common concern of the agricultural industry. Straightly, it can be said that the linkage between production and consumption currently is not good. Production often is uneven with shortage here but surplus there...

“This is a very weakness that we need to fix. Currently, we are planning to restructure the agricultural industry, with an interest in building a sustainable chain from production to processing, to markets and consumers. We will try to advise the Hai Phong City People's Committee to have mechanisms and policies attracting large processing enterprises and corporations so that to clear the bottlenecks and fix broken points in the chain from production to consumption,” said Tuat.