Urgently inspect and correct the planting area codes management

Strictly handle violations of planting area codes

At the recent online conference organized by the MARD, Mr. Nguyen Van Thuc, Director of Hoa Loc Cooperative (Cai Be district, Tien Giang province) said: "Lately, the management of planting area codes has been loose, not been paid attention to, has not yet developed a plan and implemented inspection and supervision of planting areas and packing facilities after codes have been granted, leading to the situation of enterprises using incorrect codes, impersonating each other's codes to export".

In the opinion of Mr. Thuc, in the near future, central and local agencies need further studies and come up with sanctions strong enough to deal with cases of code violations of growing areas and packing facilities.

Moreover, the combination of granting planting area codes with electronic traceability for agricultural products will help cooperatives, businesses, gardeners, and packers minimize the situation of "borrowing" the planting area code to export.

Mr. Thuc also suggested that the MARD should continue to instruct the establishment of product chain links from planting areas, packers, exporters, localities and state management agencies to prevent products from outside the growing area or packer, without a growing area code, being brought into the production chain.

Review and correct in a timely manner

Director of Plant Protection Department Hoang Trung shared: "During the past time, the code granting and management for planting areas and packing facilities have achieved positive effects, helping to stabilize and improve quality, increasing the competitiveness of export agricultural products.

However, the situation of impersonating growing area codes, using the wrong code to export, affecting the reputation of Vietnamese goods is still present in the regions. It is until the harvest time has come that enterprises arrive to collect agricultural products from the growing areas, but they sign no offtake contracts from the beginning of the season to orient the production organization accordingly”.

As cited by Mr. Hoang Trung, in 2020, the Chinese side had requested to suspend the export of mangoes from 12 growing areas and 18 packing facilities due to detecting violations of plant quarantine. Among these, Tien Giang is the province with the largest number of violating codes (15 codes of planting areas and packing facilities), followed by An Giang (7 codes) and the lowest is Vinh Long (2 codes).

In order to solve the problems mentioned above for the Mekong Delta, the Director of the Plant Protection Department said that it is necessary to promote decentralization and strengthen the local capacity in setting and monitoring the code of growing areas and packing facilities for export and domestic consumption; striving to 2025 so that the number of planting areas in the Mekong Delta provinces having codes granted will increase 3-5 times compared to the present, expand the object of code-granted crops to rice, vegetables, sweet potatoes...

The Plant Protection Department also suggested the MARD propose the Government has a mechanism to support farmers in production linkage as well as establishment and management of planting areas and packing facilities; include the target on establishing planting areas eligible for code issuance in the targets of the New Rural Program, the One Commune One Product (OCOP) Program; invest in infrastructure for concentrated production areas.