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“Rescuing” durian is flooded on Hanoi streets Photo: Internet

“Rescue” chorus

In recent days, it is not difficult to see agricultural selling points hanging "rescue" banners on many streets in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The main item at this time is watermelon, which is quite cheap at only VND7,000-8,000 per kg. Earlier, dragon fruit were also called for "rescue". Even lobster has been "rescued" with a sharply reduced price of only VND 500,000 - 900,000 per kg instead of VND 1.5-2 million per kg, as previously.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade,because of the complicated and unpredictable situation of the Covid-19 epidemic, which is expected to persist, although Vietnam's agricultural and fruit shipments can be cleared for export, the progress has been much slower due to strict and serious implementation of disease prevention measures.

To minimise risks and negative effects, the Ministry of Industry and Trade requested the People's Committees of the provinces and cities directly under the Central Government to coordinate and direct the functional agencies in the area, especially the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department of Industry and Trade, to promptly review and detail the output of each agricultural product and fruit that have been and are going to be harvested, the quality standards, and competitiveness of the above-mentioned products to assess the ability and develop consumption plans. Besides, re-evaluate the situation and take the initiative in adjusting production plans to suit the situation of the Covid-19 epidemic.

Specifically, for agricultural products and fruits that are relying heavily on export in the form of exchanging residents (such as dragon fruit and watermelon), it is necessary to encourage farmers to regulate yields, at least not use methods to increase production at this time. For areas not yet cultivated, consider switching to other agricultural products that are easier to consume.

In addition, proactively improving the quality of agricultural products and fruit, and implementing rules of traceability, planting area declaration, packaging specifications (packaging and labels) as well as relevant requirements to meet the regulations and standards agreed with importing countries to create favourable conditions for relevant ministries and branches to redirect the replacement market effectively and promptly.

Not only agencies, organisations, unions participating in "rescuing", but big supermarket systems such as Vinmart and Big C also actively participate in that work, committing to unprofitable sales. In a recent meeting with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to discuss solutions to remove difficulties in consumption for agricultural products, a representative of businesses stated that enterprises accepted to offset the loss of freight costs to buy local products for farmers.

Agricultural products have been "rescued" in the first months of 2020 mainly due to the Covid-19 epidemic disrupting trade with the Chinese market.Remarkably, if the Covid-19 epidemic was temporary, it would gradually be controlled, but the "rescue" of Vietnam's agricultural products is still severe, lasting from year to year, from item to item.A series of items such as purple onion, watermelon, dragon fruit, radish, kohlrabi and garlic were included onthe "rescue" list.

Typically, in early 2018, all the newspapers were filled with information about "rescuing" kohlrabi and radish.Thousands of tons of kohlrabi and radish in Me Linh (Hanoi) and TuKy (Hai Duong) were sluggish, their prices fell deeply by several thousand VND per kg, even if they could not be sold, farmers were forced to uproot.At that time, to "rescue" them, many supermarkets, organisations, unions and associations set up non-profit selling points to help farmers.

Depend on the Chinese market

Vietnam is an agricultural country and has many leading agricultural export products in the world, but why does the "rescue" keep going from year to year?

According to Assoc.Prof. Dr. Ngo Tri Long, former head of the Price and Market Research Institute (Ministry of Finance), over-reliance on the Chinese market is the main reason for the Vietnamese agricultural industryfaces risks.Vietnam has participated in many free trade agreements (FTAs), so in theory, Vietnamese agricultural products will have many opportunities to promote exports.However, the typical barrier is that our agricultural products do not meet the standards of many strict markets in the world.

Talking more about the Chinese market, many people believe that restricting official exports but focusing on non-quota export, enjoying immediate benefits is also one of the reasons that makes Vietnamese agricultural products' consumption easy to fall into a difficult situation when the market has fluctuations.In the Covid-19 epidemic, the fact is that in spite of slow progress, official export agricultural products to China still have a "door", only export goods in the non-quota is completely deadlocked, it is necessary to look for a direction to return to the domestic market or rush to find a new market.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade statedexports in the form of exchanging residents, especially fruit exports, due to the preferential treatment of the value added tax when imported into China, still accounted for a large proportion, although the Ministry of Industry and Trade has asked enterprises toquickly and strongly shift to official exports during the past two years.Shippers have been afraid of switching to official exports because ithas additional costs and other requirements for packaging, labeling and traceability.

Superficially, "rescuing" agricultural products is dependent on the Chinese market, but one of the typical reasons leading to the above situation is the instability of production thinking. The production scale of Vietnamese agriculture has been fragmented, small, and lackslinkage. Farmers in any places lack market information, follow the old methods, and "sell what they have but not really sell what the market needs".

Switch to large-scale production

Assessing "rescuing" some agricultural products is only a temporary solution, failing to solve the root of the problem, Assoc.Prof.Dr. Ngo Tri Long emphasised that in the long run, this measure would give rise to dependence, while the quality of agricultural products isnot improved.

How to stop Vietnamese agricultural products from needing "rescue"? Dr. Dang Kim Son, former Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) stated the most worrying issue forVietnamese agricultural products and farmers was the market. In the long term, it is necessary to diversify markets, build value chains from production to final consumption, and switch to large-scale production.

Regarding this issue, Mr. Nguyen Quy Duong, Deputy Director of Plant Protection Department (MARD) said there should be policies for farmers to link into groups and cooperatives to produce goods that are not only sold to China but also sold to developed countries.This is the goods production, there should be policies to promote production.

"The program of 15,000 cooperatives of MARD, forming new cooperatives with stable outputs is an example.The introduction of technical progress, production progress isfavourable. This is the method that China and Thailand are adopting.Vietnam also needs to be stronger to have good agricultural products for export as well as for the domestic market," said Mr. Duong.

Some experts assessed that the research, forecasting and provision of market information in Vietnam's agricultural sector were limited.Producers lack information or are not provided with information in a timely manner. Therefore, in the future, in addition to large-scale production, quality assurance, market forecasting also plays an extremely important role to help Vietnamese agricultural products escape the need for "rescue".