On December 1, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development organized a conference to promote pepper production, processing and consumption. Information at the conference showed that prices and food safety (Food Safety) are hot issues of pepper industry.
Farmers in Cu Kuin district – Dak Lak harvest pepper
Price plummeted
After a long time always standing at a high level, about 200,000 VND / kg, the price of pepper in our country is falling sharply and tends to decrease from June, July until now.
If in June and July, the first price (the price prescribed for black pepper with a weight of 500 g / l, moisture content of 13-14 degrees, an impurity ratio of 1%; if the farmer's pepper has The higher the weight, the lower degree and impurity rate will be added with the price and vice versa) average of 200,000 VND / kg, by October and November it was reduced to only 187,000 VND / kg.
In early December, the starting price was only 173,000 VND / kg, up to 17,000 VND / kg lower than the average price of December 2014.
As predicted by some pepper industry entrepreneurs, by 2016, pepper prices are likely to fall further. Mr. Do Ha Nam, President of Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA), said that in fact, from 2014, VPA has forecast, after reaching a peak in 2014, in 2015, pepper prices will return. head down.
However, thanks to strong speculation activities in Singapore, China, Dubai …, pepper prices this year are still high, even higher than 2014. But the difficult signs of the market are pushing prices. The target is going down in the last months of this year and also in 2016.
Nguyen Mai Oanh, VPA General Secretary, said that due to the sharp drop in oil prices, many speculators in the Middle East region have almost stopped buying pepper, even some customers have returned the goods.
Meanwhile, many farmers are holding pepper because they think that the information that India lost in the crop year 2015-2016 could lead to an increase in world pepper prices. It is true that India has lost its crop, but its pepper production is mainly consumed domestically, with only a small amount exported to foreign countries, so there is not much impact on pepper prices globally.
Not only a sharp drop, according to an expert in pepper industry, pepper price in Vietnam is also showing unusual signs when it is much lower than pepper price in India. By now, the price of pepper in India, if converted into Vietnamese currency, is still at more than 200,000 VND / kg, nearly 40,000 VND / kg higher than the price of pepper in our country. This is the biggest gap in domestic prices between the two countries in many years.
Difficult to do food safety
For a long time, pepper exports were less affected by food safety like some other key products, but there have been alarms about this issue.
Mr. Vo Thanh Do, Deputy Director of Department of Agro-forestry-Fisheries Processing and Salt Industry, said that this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development received a warning from Europe about some consignments of pepper with residues of pesticides and fungi. musty…
According to Do Ha Nam, there were a number of Vietnam's pepper shipments that customers returned due to unsafe food safety, causing significant losses to exporters.
Due to pesticide abuse, the proportion of pepper that does not guarantee food safety in our country is currently quite high. This is causing great difficulties for companies investing in processing plants.
For example, KSS Vietnam Co., Ltd. invested in modern technology and processed pepper for export to Japan. However, due to the scarcity of domestic raw material pepper, ensuring the country's food safety standards (pepper before being imported to the factory, it must be tested for residues of more than 400 pesticides), so KSS Vietnam has to import a lot. pepper from other countries, processing for export to Japan.
Mr. Do Ha Nam said that Japan currently needs to import 8,000-9,000 tons of pepper / year, but only buy from Vietnam less than 1,000 tons, because our country does not have enough pepper sources to meet the food safety standards. Japan regulations.
One thing to worry about is the mobilization and persuasion of pepper farmers to ensure food safety is very difficult. Mr. Hoang Phuoc Binh, Chairman of the Chu Se Pepper Association (Gia Lai), said: “As long as the pepper farmers who use pesticides abuses pesticides and still sell well at the heavenly prices, they should call them Export of food safety is very difficult ”.
Mr. Le Huy Toan, Director of Gia Lai Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department, also said that it is extremely difficult to mobilize farmers to produce VietGAP pepper at this time, as they have been producing for so long. Selling pepper is too high.
Not only that, the problem of chemical residues in pepper is also controversial, not knowing where it comes from.
Mr. Hoang Phuoc Binh said that there were no growers who sprayed Carbedazim 2 months before harvesting (this substance only decomposes after 20 days).
Yet there was Carbedazim spray pepper garden 4 months before harvesting, but when checking pepper originating from that garden, still detect residues of this substance, where did it come from? Mr. Phan Van Don, Deputy Director of Binh Phuoc Department of Agriculture and Rural Development also raised the same question and asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to re-evaluate the environment of pepper growing areas.
In order to have raw materials to meet food safety requirements, some businesses have invested in building material areas or cooperating with farmers. For example, KSS Vietnam Co., Ltd. has built a 6-hectare organic pepper farm in Binh Phuoc, and conducted instructions on safe cultivation procedures for many other farmers and product acquisition.
Enterprises such as Pitco, Phuc Sinh … are also building material areas in some localities by investing, guiding farming process for farmers and purchasing products. However, Mr. Do Ha Nam said that in these raw material areas, businesses are still facing many issues that need to be addressed related to food safety.
Source Vietnamese culture
Source link
