First six months of 2021: Phytosanitary and market opening for agricultural products achieved good results

In the first 6 months of 2021, the Covid-19 epidemic was still extremely complicated throughout the country and in many localities, making it difficult for the investigation, detection and direction of harmful organisms’ prevention and control. The arrangement and reorganization of the plant protection system in localities in the spirit of Resolutions 18 and 19 of the Central Government have not been uniformly implemented, nor have there been a clear assignment of professional tasks, leading to disturbances in operations, affecting the quality of plant protection work. Moreover, importing countries are raising technical barriers in both phytosanitary and food safety to a very high level. The situation of production and trading of fertilizers and plant protection drugs of poor quality, counterfeit, and unknown origin still occurs, posing many unpredictable risks. However, the Department has achieved some results regarding state management.

The infected area of many main harmful organism objects has decreased compared to the same period in 2020, especially on several fruit trees and industrial plants. Even so, some harmful organisms have increased compared to the same period in 2020, such as cassava mosaic disease increased by 4.2%; beetles harmful to coconut increased 74.8%, mainly in the provinces of Ben Tre, Ca Mau, Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, ...

In regard to phytosanitary work, the Department has strictly inspected all kinds of import and export goods, especially fresh pomelos exported to Russia; carrots and some agricultural products exported to Korea; tomato (Solanum spp.) and chili (Capsicum spp.) seeds exported to Taiwan; polished rice must be treated with Phosphine before being exported to Brazil.

Market opening for agriculture products has achieved many positive results, especially in trade promotion negotiations with foreign partners such as the United States, Japan, Malaysia, etc. on phytosanitary issues and exportation of some typical agricultural products: pomelo, lychee, chili...

In the first 6 months of 2021, the Department has issued 290 new planting area codes with an area of 1,544.93 hectares for the crops of dragon fruit, mango, longan, rambutan, star apple, Persian lime, pomelo, lychee, watermelon, jackfruit, banana, mangosteen.

The total quantity of imported pesticides in the first 6 months of 2021 is 4,067 batches, the same as 2020, with the total imported finished pesticides weight of 33,898.86 tons, up 31.73% over the same period last year. Meanwhile, Vietnam exported pesticides with a volume of 7,407 tons (up 13.34% over the same period in 2020), an estimated value of USD 78,939,008. The total number of imported fertilizers registered was 5,750 batches with a total volume of 2.49 million tons (up 48.20% compared to the same period in 2020), the estimated value of about USD 645 million, 100% of the inspected batches are of import quality.

Facing the situation above, the Plant Protection Department has set out a number of key tasks and solutions for implementation in the last 6 months of the year.

Well implement phytosanitary inspection for exported agricultural products, grant planting area codes, contribute to maintaining and expanding export markets for Vietnam's agricultural products.

Continue to implement the program of organic fertilizer development: monitor and coordinate with enterprises that have signed commitments to carry out the program of organic fertilizer development to initiate the model according to the schedule.

Coordinating with localities and media agencies to strengthen information, communication, and raise awareness of producers about the use of fertilizers and pesticides to ensure food safety; promoting the application of IPM, technical advances and new technologies in crop production.

Director of Plant Protection Department Hoang Trung shared his opinion: “ How to create the best and maximum conditions for institutes and universities to ensure output products and meet important directive requirements as well as the needs of the people is always a thing to consider”.

Addressing the conference, Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh highly appreciated the efforts of the Department in the first 6 months of the year, which has well-implemented disease control on crops, thereby contributing to the victory of the winter-spring crop of 2020-2021; exports increased by 13.3% over the same period in 2020.

In the last 6 months of the year, the Deputy Minister suggested that the Department continue to carry out tasks, especially considering natural disasters and epidemics on crops, proactively develop scenarios to be ready to respond to the Covid-19 epidemic’s complicated development situation.