Need to invest in developing agricultural processing

The Provincial People's Council's monitoring delegation worked with Muong Nhe district on policies to support production linkages associated with processing and consumption of agricultural products.

Promote agricultural processing

Dien Bien has potential for agricultural production as well as developing the processing industry with a large agricultural land area and diverse agricultural products. On average, the total area of food crops is more than 80,039 hectares per year, with an output of nearly 286,000 tons; more than 3,600 hectares of fruit trees, with an output of nearly 22,600 tons; coffee beans and rubber output is nearly 10,000 tons... The total herd of livestock and poultry is more than 5.3 million, with an estimated output of 25,237 tons of fresh meat; nearly 4,800 tons of aquatic products. This is an abundant source of raw materials to serve and develop the processing industry.

In recent times, the provincial agricultural sector has gradually shifted its production towards commodity production, concentrated production, and high-tech application, combined with promoting processing and connecting product consumption according to the value chain. The provincial People's Committee has directed specialized sectors and district-level authorities to carry out land accumulation and concentration, develop high-tech agriculture; create favorable conditions and support organizations, individuals, and enterprises to invest in the field of agricultural product processing.

Up to now, the province has had more than 30 enterprises investing in the agricultural sector, including a number of units operating in the processing sector such as: Phan Nhat Tea Company Limited, Huong Linh Dien Bien Company Limited processing tea; Hai An Coffee Company Limited processing coffee; Truong Huong Agricultural Seed Company Limited processing rice; Dien Bien Rubber Latex Processing Factory (under construction).

Tua Chua people harvest tall tea trees and sell them to Huong Linh Dien Bien Company Limited for tea processing.

In addition, there are some small rice processing facilities, such as Thanh Yen Service and General Cooperative... Up to now, the whole province has 1,847 processing facilities. Many facilities and enterprises have been supported with machinery and equipment for production, such as: Phuc Son One Member Co., Ltd. has been supported with advanced machinery and equipment for macadamia processing; Hai An Coffee Co., Ltd. has been supported with coffee processing machinery; Muong Then Cooperative has been supported with production lines and rice processing...

In addition to supporting machinery and equipment for businesses, the province also focuses on supporting projects linking production with processing and product consumption. In the period of 2021 - 2023, the whole province has 125 supported projects, bringing clear economic efficiency compared to traditional production. For example, growing safe vegetables increases profits by 30 - 35 million VND/ha; linking rice production according to single-variety fields, applying mechanization increases profits by 15 - 20 million VND/ha. Through linkage, it contributes to changing people's production methods and organization.

Forming commodity production areas, agricultural products are more abundant and diverse, the agricultural processing industry is focused on development, contributing to increasing income, improving people's lives, and strongly transforming the agricultural production structure. In 2023, the total value of agricultural, forestry and fishery products is estimated at 2,432.4 billion VND, up 3.01% compared to 2022; in the first quarter of 2024, it reached more than 306 billion VND, up 2.7% over the same period last year.

Deep processing is still limited.

However, the development of the agricultural processing industry, especially deep processing, in the province still faces many difficulties and challenges. The number of agricultural processing facilities is large, but most of them are small-scale and fragmented; technology is mainly manual and semi-automatic. The processing capacity of some industries has not met the demand; there are no large corporations researching and investing in the field of agricultural processing locally.

Despite the advantage of a large rice production area, the province's deep processing industry in this field is still limited.

Currently, there are some deep processing facilities in the province, such as: Phan Nhat Tea Company and Huong Linh Dien Bien Company Limited processing tea; Hai An Coffee Company Limited processing coffee... but they are still on a small scale. The rest are mostly raw processing facilities. Typically, currently the whole province has more than 3,600 hectares of fruit trees, with an output of nearly 22,600 tons, but there are no preliminary processing or processing factories in the province. Every harvest season, fruits are mainly sold to traders and sold to the market in the province.

In addition to the limited attraction of businesses to invest in this field, the most difficult problem for agricultural processing enterprises in general is the lack of capital. Enterprises do not have enough potential to invest in modern and synchronous machinery and equipment, so the problem of expanding production is also difficult. Although the Government and the province have credit support policies, it is still very difficult for businesses to access due to many obstacles in procedures and lending subjects.

Most of the province's agricultural products are mainly exported in raw form. In the photo: Currently, rubber latex is being transported to other cities and provinces for preliminary processing, because there is no processing plant.

Land accumulation and the construction of concentrated raw material areas are major bottlenecks in attracting investment. Because large-scale investment in agricultural processing industry requires a synchronous and stable raw material production area. Meanwhile, most of the province's production areas are still fragmented and small, and have not yet formed a large enough commodity production area to attract enterprises to invest in processing.

Currently, the rate of technology application in the processing stage has only reached 15%. There is still a lot of room for growth in the value of agricultural products in the province but it has not been effectively exploited through deep processing. To promote development, it is necessary to have synchronous solutions from mechanisms and policies to attract investment, develop science and technology, to train and develop human resources. Along with that, it is necessary to invest in building agricultural areas to ensure output, quality and variety to meet the needs of deep processing.

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