Building raw material areas for agricultural processing industry

In recent years, Thanh Hoa’s agricultural sector has been gradually transforming strongly thanks to focusing on improving product quality and gradually building quality raw materials to serve the specialized processing industry. Thereby, not only revenue and profit from agricultural production are increased but the competitiveness of agricultural products in the market is also significantly improved.

Harvesting raw pineapple in Ha Long commune (Ha Trung).

As one of the crops that have been serving the processing industry with high economic efficiency, the province's raw pineapple production area currently reaches 3,935.8 hectares. Of which, the harvested area reaches 3,298 hectares, the newly planted area reaches 1,313.9 hectares, the average yield reaches 25.7 tons/ha. In order to sustainably develop the raw pineapple growing area, the province has issued many mechanisms and policies to support the development of concentrated production areas, such as: land accumulation and concentration policies; support agricultural restructuring... At the same time, through the project to orient localities to concentrate on fruit tree production (including pineapple), the province has focused on reviewing the planning, based on land and soil conditions and forecasting consumption demand of the market inside and outside the province to arrange suitable area structure for pineapple in some localities, such as: Ha Trung 900ha, Ngoc Lac 990ha, Thach Thanh 610ha, Yen Dinh 520ha, Cam Thuy 125ha, Bim Son town 700ha... In parallel with the raw material area, the province has created support and incentive mechanisms to form 4 pineapple processing factories for export (canned) to the Russian and Korean markets... However, compared to the raw material supply capacity of about 84,000 tons/year, the total capacity of the factories has only reached about 10,000 tons/year, not fully utilizing the raw material supply of the province. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of the province has coordinated with the People's Committees of pineapple growing districts to work with the province's pineapple processing enterprises and Dong Giao Food Export Joint Stock Company (Ninh Binh) on strengthening production linkages and consumption of fruit products associated with processing, especially pineapple. At the same time, actively coordinated and advised the Provincial People's Committee to call on domestic and foreign enterprises to invest in building fruit processing factories.

Currently, there are 2 projects to build fruit juice processing factories in the province being implemented in Nhu Xuan district (T9 Agricultural Import-Export Company Limited) and Ngoc Lac district (Xuan Thien Thanh Hoa 2 Joint Stock Company) which have opened up sustainable development prospects not only for pineapple but also for fruit trees in general in the province. To ensure the source of raw materials for processing when the factories come into operation, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is coordinating with enterprises and the People's Committees of some districts to develop plans to develop raw material areas for pineapple, passion fruit, mango, etc. with an area of ​​thousands of hectares.

Not only for pineapple, but also in the province, production areas have been formed and expanded, creating favorable conditions to attract businesses to invest in deep processing of agricultural products. Typically, such as: Raw sugarcane production areas in 15 districts linked with sugar factories, with an area of ​​13,000 - 15,000 hectares/year; raw cassava production areas in 10 mountainous districts; rice seed production areas in localities with 3,264 hectares; commercial rice production associated with product consumption of 6,500 hectares... In which, many production areas have applied the VietGAP process, for high productivity, quality and ensuring food safety. At the same time, forming production chains according to market demand, building brands, stabilizing product output, reducing post-harvest losses, bringing high economic efficiency.

According to statistics from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Thanh Hoa province currently has 205 enterprises operating in the field of cultivation, 172 livestock enterprises, 94 aquaculture enterprises, 156 forestry enterprises, 761 general, production and processing enterprises. Among them, there are many large investment projects with modern technology of Lam Son Sugarcane Joint Stock Company; dairy cow farming systems of Vinamilk, TH; chicken farming chain associated with processing and consumption of Phu Gia Agricultural Products Joint Stock Company; pig farming projects of Dabaco, Xuan Thien, Newhope Groups; bamboo product production project of Bamboo King Vina Joint Stock Company... These are the basis and conditions for localities in the province to build high-quality, highly efficient agricultural production areas to sustainably serve the source of raw materials for the processing industry.

However, according to the general assessment, the agricultural processing industry in the province still has many limitations, mainly raw processed products with low added value; the linkage between stages in the production - processing - consumption value chain is not really tight; post-harvest losses are high from 15 - 20%; there are not many products with high economic value; the content of science and technology in agricultural production and processing is still limited because enterprises and units still face difficulties and lack of resources for investment; there is still a shortage of technical staff and highly skilled workers...

To gradually overcome limitations and shortcomings, in order to build and expand large-scale agricultural raw material production areas, Thanh Hoa province continues to encourage the selection and attraction of "leading" enterprises, especially large companies and corporations in processing and trading branded agricultural products to increase opportunities for sustainable and effective development for the raw material areas that the province has, is and will build. At the same time, encourage the development of small and medium-sized agricultural processing enterprises to process and consume products on the spot in clusters linked by each industry for farmers.

Article and photos: Le Hoa

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/xay-dung-vung-nguyen-lieu-cho-cong-nghiep-che-bien-nong-san-224019.htm