Producing more agricultural machinery for cooperatives

In the afternoon of August 20, Deputy Minister of Agricultural and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien and the members of Task Force 3430 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) reviewed the current situation of the preservation and cool storage of agricultural products in order to improve the capacity of production, processing and consumption during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the beginning of the meeting, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien affirmed that at present, our processing level is still low. Although crops are adjusted to be harvested throughout the year, the production sometimes does not meet demand, sometimes exceeds consumption. Therefore, VIAEP must step in first to solve the problem of preserving and processing agricultural products in the country, then reaching out the region.

At the meeting, Director off VIAEP, Assoc.Prof. Dr. Pham Anh Tuan talked about how the institute has helped localities, local enterprises in processing and preserving farm produce during the Covid-19 pandemic.  

“So far, the institute has transferred technologies of processing and packaging lychees for exports to Japan to five facilities in Bac Giang, Hai Duong. Besides, we are now training, guiding establishments in Hung Yen on how to process longan ,” Assoc.Prof. Dr. Pham Anh Tuan said.  

In addition, VIAEP also created many types of machinery for enterprises exporting agricultural products to Europe and Australia or quick freezing systems for enterprises exploiting and exporting seafood.

After listening to the information, the Deputy Minister asked VIAEP to replicate the models of lychee and longan preservation and processing which are accepted by the demanding markets like Japan, Europe to apply to other farm products.

Mentioning to the strategy, Nguyen Quoc Toan, Director of the Department of Agricultural Product Processing and Market Development said that preserving and processing plays an important role in the value chain and cooperatives and small and medium-sized enterprises have great demand for suitable lines and systems with affordable costs.

“The current problem is that we have technologies but we need to improve the quality of the equipment to ensure the efficiency when they are used in real life,” Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien asked VIAE, highlighting the development of equipment to serve  the fishery industry because a huge amount of seafood are exploited in the sea.  

Clarifying the problem, Director General of Directorate of Fisheries Tran Dinh Luan said that at present, technologies for preserving and processing seafood in Vietnam are still out of date. Therefore, apart from producing large-sized storages, VIAEP can develop equipment for other purposes.”

“For example, creating deep cooling systems for vessels catching tunas or freezing systems for shrimps right on the trucks to transport shrimps from farm to the factories for processing,” Tran Dinh Luan said.

For livestock industry, currently Vietnam produce 5.4 million of ton meat every year, however the percentage of processed products is small.

“Currently, processed meat accounts only for 20%, the remaining 80% of the production are sold at the wet markets. Therefore, it’s necessary to have a change in slaughtering and processing,” said Tong Xuan Chinh, Deputy Director of the Department of Livestock Production.

In addition, Chinh shared the livestock industry has depended on grains as ingredients for animal feed manufacturing. However, with an abundance of agricultural by-products, VIAEP could create equipment for collecting, processing and hydrolyzing to serve animal feed industry.

“Straw is a good by-products with 43 million tons annually. So, we want to have machines that can collect straw after threshing to press into 200-500kg blocks then spraying biological product to turn them into feed for big cattle such as cows,”  the Deputy Director suggested.

Agreeing with this opinion, Director of the Department of Crop Production Nguyen Nhu Cuong also mentioned the importance of the researches and application of technologies to turn by-products in crop production into input for livestock production. Moreover, according to Cuong, VIAEP can also research and create functional products or cosmetics from crops to add value to farm produce.

According to the head of the Department of Crop Production, the output of the crop production is huge but the production is seasonal and on small scale compared to the livestock or aquaculture production. While the self-life of fresh fruits and vegetables are short. Besides,  the exports just stop at raw products and to the neighboring countries due to the limitations of preservation.

“So, there are a lot of spaces for VIAEP to organize the researches, stepping in processing and preservation sector with the focus on cooperatives and small and medium sized enterprises because the large enterprises tend to have huge demand, looking for international partners,” Nguyen Nhu Cuong shared.

After listening to the opinions, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien emphasized it’s necessary to give priority to the processing sector in order to achieve sustainable development, adding value to farm products.

According to Tien, although VIAEP has gained many positive results it should be more focused. The institute should strongly invest in what are considered its the strengths and features; making its brand popular to the big companies to generate profit. Thereby, the scopes and quality of the researches can be expanded and improved.

Apart from reiterating the strategy on researching and producing products for cooperatives and small and medium-sized enterprises, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien said that it’s necessary to strengthen the cooperation with large enterprises.

“With the advantages of prices and guaranteed quality, when opening to cooperation with enterprises, they will accept VIAEP’s technologies, the Deputy Minister said, adding that there are large spaces for VIAEP to develop in the agencies under the MARD such as the Directorate of Fishery, the Department of Crop Production and the Department of Livestock Production, the institute should enhance linkages.