Hanoi farmers get rich by growing safe vegetables

Safe vegetable growing areas bring in billions of dong in income

Chuc Son Clean Vegetable and Fruit Cooperative (Chuong My district) is a typical unit of Hanoi in producing and consuming safe vegetables. Director of Chuc Son Clean Vegetable and Fruit Cooperative Hoang Van Tham shared that in order to create competitiveness in the market and increase the value of vegetables, the cooperative always complies with regulations on vegetable production according to VietGAP standards.

Chuc Son Clean Vegetable and Fruit Cooperative (Chuong My district) is a typical unit of Hanoi in producing and consuming safe vegetables. Photo: Ngoc Anh

Thanks to the quality and brand of the products, every day, the cooperative supplies about 3.5 tons of vegetables directly to customers, including 2 Lotte supermarkets and 21 supermarkets in the BigC, Go, Tops chains; 4 companies, factories; 18 schools and 3 hospitals in Hanoi. The products are diverse in types, stable in output and meet the criteria of "each season has its own products", bringing in billions of VND in revenue per year.

According to Director of Tien Le Agricultural Cooperative, Tien Yen Commune (Hoai Duc District) Nguyen Van Hao, up to now, the cooperative has more than 500 households participating in growing VietGAP vegetables on a total area of ​​33.5 hectares.

The Tien Le safe vegetable production area has been certified by the Hanoi Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection (Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment) as meeting food safety conditions in vegetable production and processing. The brand, quality and reputation of Tien Le safe vegetables have been granted a geographical indication label and maintained from 5 to 10 enterprises directly signing contracts to consume with an output reaching nearly 50% of the total output of the entire cooperative.

Currently, the cooperative is supplying 12-14 tons of vegetables/day to supermarket systems, retail stores, industrial kitchens, and schools in the capital and achieving revenue of about 200-300 million VND/ha/year.

Head of the Hanoi Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection, Luu Thi Hang, said that to ensure the quality of safe vegetables, every year, the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment   Coordinate with local authorities to open training courses and guide people on safe vegetable production processes, from fertilizer use techniques, irrigation, pesticide spraying, and product harvesting processes.

Therefore, farmers in safe vegetable growing areas not only provide the market with safe agricultural products with clear labels of origin, but also help improve the working environment, ensuring the health of the people participating in production because they do not have to come into contact with toxic pesticides; many models of safe vegetable growing in the direction of organic, VietGAP bring high economic value.

Brand building, sustainable development

The effectiveness of the safe vegetable growing model is clear, but the production process is still difficult due to the small production scale and large number of farming households (about 120,000 vegetable producing households).

Safe vegetable production at Tien Le Agricultural Cooperative, Tien Yen commune (Hoai Duc district).

The connection between enterprises, cooperatives and farmers is still not tight, the interests of all parties are not harmonized, causing agricultural product consumption contracts to be often broken. This leads to the consumption rate through contracts with cooperatives and enterprises being very low, mainly through wholesale channels at wholesale markets; many safe vegetable growing areas have been planned, but there is no separate safe vegetable processing area.

For example, in Me Linh district, the locality has coordinated with the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment to build a collective brand for Dong Cao vegetables (Trang Viet commune), supporting barcodes, traceability and labels to identify safe vegetable products; coordinating with the city's departments and branches to bring the district's vegetables, tubers and fruits to participate in fairs in Hanoi and other provinces and cities nationwide, thereby promoting the brand and gradually increasing the value of vegetables.

Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment Nguyen Manh Phuong said that in order for farmers to get rich from safe vegetable production, localities need to build product brands for safe vegetable products; focus on investing in traditional vegetable growing areas with favorable infrastructure conditions, sufficient conditions for safe vegetable production, and favorable product consumption for widespread replication.
The Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment also promotes training on safe vegetable production in both specialized and small-scale production areas, ensuring that vegetable production areas in the city are safe; strengthens propaganda so that people trust and use safe vegetables whose quality has been controlled by competent authorities, helping cooperatives and farmers producing safe vegetables to improve their competitiveness in the market.
Thereby, changing people's awareness from extensive farming to intensive farming linking production and product consumption, contributing to increasing the value of finished vegetables, developing safe and sustainable vegetable growing areas.

 

The Department of Agriculture and Environment will continue to transfer science and technology in safe vegetable production to farmers, instruct farmers to minimize the use of pesticides, increase the use of organic fertilizers and inorganic fertilizers to limit insects, pests and diseases; recommend farmers not to mass produce one type of vegetable, root or fruit, but to plant in separate seasons, produce according to contracts and market demand, and limit the surplus of agricultural products.

Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment Nguyen Manh Phuong

Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/nong-dan-ha-noi-lam-giau-nho-trong-rau-an-toan.html