Sustainable vegetable and pork value chains ensure food safety

On the morning of July 26, in Hanoi, the Department of Quality, Processing, and Market Development, the Project "Safe Food for Growth" (SAFEGRO), and the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development held a signing ceremony to support selected vegetable and meat value chains in Hanoi.

The goal of the signing ceremony is to agree on the content of supporting the upgrading of agents in the chain and committing to and maintaining the supporting results of the SAFEGRO project for selected vegetable and pork chain agents in Hanoi.

The chain agents selected for deployment in the first phase include: Vegetable chain from Van Duc Cooperative (Gia Lam); Pork chain from Hoang Long Cooperative (Thanh Oai); Van Duc Market (Gia Lam); and Kim Quan Market (Thuong Thanh, Long Bien district).

The project’s supporting contents for chain agents include not only technical elements of food safety according to international standards but also implementation of contents on sustainable production and value chain linkage and developing production in the direction of environmental protection.

In addition, the project will contribute to green growth, advanced technology applications to adapt to climate change, digital transformation, building brands and product labels, and increasing the value of agricultural products.The project also supports community monitoring, gender equality, and raising awareness of communication, education, and culture in terms of food safety.

To support upgrading the value chain, the project will support a number of pieces of equipment to control and improve food safety. Producing executive cooperatives will be supported by the project to build a digitized system of production plan management and a system of traceability.

The project also supports developing a set of regulations and establishing a community monitoring group with the participation of good farmers to monitor and manage. At the same time, guide farmer households to produce and pre-process safely in accordance with the provisions of quality management systems according to international standards.

The difference in the project’s implementation activities is the participation of the entire community ecosystem. The supporting contents are implemented in three phases. To be more specific, Phase 1 supports upgrading the value chain; Phase 2 supports and verifies the model; and Phase 3 summarizes, evaluates, and replicates the model. The project's support period is expected to last until 2025.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Son, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and Head of the Hanoi Working Group, said that as of now, Hanoi has built and developed 159 chains from production to consumption of agricultural, forestry, and fishery products. Of which, 53 product chains were derived from animals and 106 from plants.

At the same time, Hanoi has also signed cooperation agreements with 43 provinces and cities to develop more than 900 linkage chains in production, consumption, promotion of regional products and specialties, and support for goods circulation in the city.

In order for the project to achieve practical effectiveness, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Son suggested that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the project’s experts, in addition to supporting the project, should continue to replicate and support other agro-forestry-fishery chains in the city in the coming time.

Mr. Nguyen Van Minh, Director of Van Duc Cooperative, shared that the project is highly community-based, helping to change the awareness of producers, improve environmental problems, reduce pollution in production, improve product value, and ensure safety and sustainability, thereby improving economic efficiency.

In the coming time, it will be necessary to replicate the project in many other localities to improve the quality of vegetables and bring to market more competitive products.

Mr. Nguyen Nhu Tiep at the Department of Quality, Processing, and Market Development said: "We have to ensure food safety but also build brands and labels for our products. This is a big project; today is just the beginning. In the 5-year period, we strive to not only stop at the two chains but also spread and expand to many other products and many other localities."