Agriculture in the Central – Central Highlands: Need a “push” to make a breakthrough

The 3rd Prime Minister’s Dialogue with farmers will be held in Dak Lak on September 28th. According to the assessment, this conference will contribute to removing obstacles and barriers in the process of agricultural and rural development in the Central – Central Highlands, creating a driving force to awaken potentials.

Lesson 1: When shrimp, passion fruit, and coffee go to the EU

Among the main agricultural products that enjoy preferential tariffs when exported to Europe under the Vietnam – Europe Free Trade Agreement, the Central – Central Highlands region has 3 products: Shrimp, passion fruit, coffee.

In particular, Buon Ma Thuot coffee is also one of 39 geographical indications of Vietnam that the EU is committed to protect when the EVFTA officially comes into effect.

Happy September

In the early days of September, many key agricultural products of the Central – Central Highlands region left for the EU after the EVFTA officially took effect, opening up unprecedented tariff preferences.

Starting from the shrimp in the sunny and windy land of Ninh Thuan, overcoming many challenges, with efforts to renovate technology, a closed and modern farming process, Ninh Thuan’s shrimp herd has departed to the EU.

According to Mr. Truong Huu Thong – General Director of Thong Thuan Co., Ltd., the unit exporting the first batch of shrimp to the EU under EVFTA, said that for the company’s shrimp to export to difficult markets such as the US, EU, Japan. Ban…, Thong Thuan Group ensures a closed production process from seed to rearing and processing for export, and at the same time applies strict procedures.

Thong Thuan Group’s export shrimp processing factories fully meet the product categories, quality standards and stringent international production processes.

For the European market, the company has a full range of certifications: GlobalGAP, ASC, BRC, BAP 3 STAR, IFS, BSCI, SEDEX, BAP 4 STAR, thus creating a source of high quality seafood products for export. , being trusted by customers from other countries, the market is always growing.

Although the Covid-19 translation had a significant impact on the export situation, by the end of August 2020, Thong Thuan’s revenue from shrimp exports reached nearly 70 million USD. In which, the Japanese market reached 13.7 million USD (accounting for 20% of revenue); EU market reached 34.7 million USD (accounting for 50% of revenue); US market reached 6.9 million (accounting for 10% of revenue) and other markets accounted for 20% of revenue.

After shrimp, two typical agricultural products of the Central Highlands, passion fruit and coffee, also went to the EU with unprecedented incentives, of which, Buon Ma Thuot coffee is also one of 39 geographical indications. Vietnam’s legal system is committed to protect by the EU when the EVFTA officially comes into effect.

It is known that coffee is one of the 13 main agricultural products of the country, with a high competitive advantage and also a key agricultural product of the Central Highlands. The coffee industry contributes 3% of the national GDP, creating jobs and stable income for over 600,000 farming households.

For many years, Vietnam has always been the 2nd largest coffee exporter in the world and the world leader in Robusta coffee export, with regular export turnover of over 3 billion USD / year.

Mr. Kpă Thuyen – Vice Chairman of Gia Lai Provincial People’s Committee shared: “The effective agreement is an opportunity for our country’s agricultural products to conquer the EU market, a market with high requirements for product quality. At the same time, it is also a challenge for organizations and individuals involved in agricultural production to reorganize production and processing, and apply an advanced quality management system for agricultural products to meet market requirements ” .

According to Mr. Kpă Thuyen, Gia Lai has over 97,000 hectares of coffee, the annual output is nearly 240,000 tons. Currently, Gia Lai has over 34,000 hectares of coffee produced according to standards such as UTZ, 4C, VietGAP … At the same time, there are 55 enterprises processing coffee powder, instant coffee; 53 enterprises purchasing and processing green coffee for export.

Passion fruit is also a promising crop in the Central Highlands, the vast regions in this basaltic red soil have contributed to making Vietnam one of the leading passion fruit countries in the region.

From 2015 to 2018, passion fruit export volume and turnover increased by more than 300%, respectively from 95,000 tons of fresh fruits / year (2015) to 300,000 tons of fresh fruits (2018) and turnover from $ 19.6 million to 66.2 million USD, bringing Vietnam to the top 10 largest passion fruit exporting countries in the world, after Brazil, Peru, Ecuador … In the first 6 months of 2020, passion fruit export reached 18.4 million USD, up 41 % over the same period in 2019.

Overcoming climate change challenges

According to Dr. Tran Cong Thang – Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic affecting many economic sectors, the agricultural sector still clearly shows its role. support.

This is evident in the Central region – Central Highlands. In the first 6 months of 2020, when the industry – construction sector of the Central region – the Central Highlands faces difficulties, the agriculture – forestry and fishery sector is still growing fairly well. In which, the Central region increased by 2.13%, the Central Highlands increased by 4.97%.

“In order to unleash agricultural potentials, in my opinion, it is necessary to have breakthrough policies to promote the linkage between businesses and farmers to form value chains, and at the same time pay attention to sustainable production. in the context of climate change ”- Mr. Thang affirmed.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said that agriculture and rural areas in the Central Highlands have many potentialities and important roles in the economy, security and defense of our country.

The Central Highlands has up to 2 million hectares of fertile basalt, suitable for industrial crops such as coffee, cocoa, pepper, mulberry, tea, and macadamia – important industrial crops exported from Vietnam. import and retain a large share of the world turnover.

“For the Central Highlands to develop sustainably, commensurate with its potentials, it is important to have mechanisms and policies to encourage investment in infrastructure to form key economic inter-regions; to concentrate on strongly developing key industries; especially the processing of agricultural and forestry products; at the same time, to step up the transformation of the agricultural structure, forming large-scale, concentrated raw material areas in service of the processing industry; sustainable development, restoration and protection of forests, associated with people’s livelihoods “- Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said.

According to danviet.vn