Agriculture mapping to orient sweet potato development

Still weak in preservation, processing and consumption

ChauThanh district is now one of the localities with the largest specialized areas for exported sweet potatoes in Dong Thap with over 3,300 hectares per year. The average yield reaches 25 tons per hectare and output reaches 100,000 tons per year.

Farmers in the communes including Phu Long, Hoa Tan and Tan Phu are focusing on growing sweet potato. Over the past years, growing purple sweet potato helped local farmers improve their income and stabilize their livelihoods. However, in the last two years, the unusual fluctuation of the export market, especially with the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, farmers in ChauThanh district have faced challenges in finding markets.

Although sweet potato product has benefited farmers with stable economic values the consumption market is still below the inherent potentials. The product is mainly consumed in the domestic market and just exported informally to China and Cambodia.

Meanwhile, sweet potatoes still have enough ability to access the demanding markets such as Japan, South Korea and Australia. However to export the product to the difficult markets it requires to strictly follow the standards of quality, food hygiene and safety.

In this spring - summer crop season, there are about 266 hectares of sweet potato in ChauThanh district with a total production estimated at 8,500 tons which have not yet been consumed. However, the current challenges are fluctuating market and unstable prices. Therefore, it's necessary to reorganize production in the direction of increasing added values and sustainable development for sweet potato based on renewing production relationships, reducing prices and improving competiveness. 

Chairman of ChauThanh District People's Committee, Pham Tan Xieu said that sweet potato is one of the commodities put into the agricultural restructuring scheme. To add value to this commodity, the district has supported farmers to access scientific and technical innovations, conducting many sweet potato cultivation models in the way of reducing price associated with consumption.  However, the development of sweet potato farmingin the district has faced difficulties in preservation, processing and consumption. 

According to Xieu, in the coming time, to develop sweet potato growing areas in a sustainable way it's crucially important to reinforce the linkages in production and exports among farmers, cooperatives and enterprises in a methodical, rigorous and intensive manner. Currently, ChauThanh district is receiving a great support from Dong Thap province with an investment in agricultural infrastructures for sweet potato growing on an area of 4,000 hectares. The project will be implemented in three phases with a total capital of nearly VND 76 billion.

At first, in the first phase (2021-2023), 37 hectares in Hoa Tan commune will be implemented including hardening the embankments to connect traffic between the production areas and RachNha Man and DT 854 Road, facilitating agricultural production and transportation.

Next, implementing investment in information technology application in production such as: smart irrigation system, production management by digital technology, applying mechanization in production and harvest before assessing and expanding production areas.

Recalculating linkages in production

Currently, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the consumption of sweet potatoes has faced many difficulties. This is not only the situation in Dong Thap but also in Vinh Long province which is considered as the sweet potato “capital” of the Mekong Delta.

At present, the selling prices of sweet potatoes can’t make up for the costs of harvesting while traders purchase just a small amount. Farmers conduct production spontaneously, lacking linkages with the market and the product is mainly bought by traders to export informally to China or Cambodia.

Japanese purple sweet potatoes are now sold at VND 5,000 –VND 6,000 per kilogram (a decrease of VND 10,000 per kilogram compared to the end of 2021), growers lost VND 1,000 – VND 2,000 per kilogram. Although it’s the harvesting time of sweet potatoes there is no trader coming to buy their crops.

To support ChauThanh’s farmers, in recent days many units and organizations such as Dong Thap Specialty Cooperatives, Dong Thap Entrepreneurs club in Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City Youth Union, Dong Thap Trading Group and many supermarkets have been connecting to consume sweet potatoes for farmers. However, the stocks are still huge.

Especially, Dong Thap Specialty Cooperative connected to several individuals and organizations inside and outside the province to consume the product, therefore purple sweet potatoes inChauThanh were consumed timely avoiding loss or damage caused by insects ‘attacks.

Director of Dong Thap Specialty Cooperative Bui ThiThanhThuy said the cooperative’s members were almost working at full capacity to help the consumption of sweet potatoes for ChauThanh’s farmers. Currently, many traders is coming ChauThanh to buy purple sweet potatoes and they are willing to pay few hundred dong higher compared to the prices in the market.

Recently, under the chairmanship of Pham ThienNghia, Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee of Dong Thap, the departments, offices, agencies, organizations,  businesses and cooperative have sit down together to solve difficulties for sweet potato growers in the province.

At first, Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee of Dong Thap Pham ThienNghia asked ChauThanh district to work with agencies, organizations and localities as well as businesses to support farmers to connect and consume their crops. From district to communes and from cooperatives to local farmers, all must join hands and urgently provide enough quantity as ordered.

In the long term, Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee of Dong Thap asked farmers to reorganize production, in which production must be linked with enterprises, improving the quality and expanding cultivation areas meeting the standards of safety, building trademark for ChauThanh sweet potatoes; at the same time, increasing post-harvest processing capacity for cooperatives or businesses.

Dong Thap’s agricultural sector needs to build an agriculture map for farm produce , especially for reconstructed crops and it’s necessary for the map to update production, cultivation areas, harvesting time; thereby it can control and connect for the consumption of farm produce timely as well as giving advices to help farmers make farming more sustainably.

Most recently, the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Dong Thap province has launched the program “Dong Thap’s farm produce – Sharing love” side by side with people in Ho Chi Minh City to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic.

About 20 tons of rice, 5 tons of sweet potatoes, 300 kilograms of dried fishes, 600 bottle of fish sauce and 1,000 eggs will be shipped from Dong Thap to Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Dong Thap province mobilized a total amount of more than VND 300 million from organizations, localities and sponsors to support farmers.