Vietnamese businesses join the global agricultural value chain

Strengthening linkages between businesses is the solution to increase added value for Vietnam's agricultural value chain, and to join the global agricultural value chain. That was the general opinion of the delegates at the forum "Vietnam enterprises: Links to participate in the global agricultural value chain", organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, October 8, 2019, in Hanoi.

Speaking at the forum, Mr. Nguyen Van Trung - Deputy Director of the Department of Cooperative and Rural development, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the Government always recognizes the importance of strengthening the connection of the linkages, considering it as the main solution to increase added value for agricultural value chains and many policies to support linkages between stakeholders (farmers - state - scientists - enterprises). Up to now, there have been 2,975 agricultural cooperatives participating in linking production and consumption of products with 1,082 enterprises.

For safe agricultural chains, there are 1,254 chains nationwide certified with 1,452 products. The whole country has 3,172 points of sale of agricultural products along the value chain, of which 469 business addresses have been granted certificates of safe food supply chains.

However, according to the State Bank's Economic Sector Credit Department, at present, the organization of production under the linkage models still reveals limitations due to the weak cooperation and linkage ability of the people; the number of safe agricultural chain models is not much; lack of coherence in association contracts; occurrence of violating association contracts between farmers and key enterprises is still popular. This also makes it difficult for credit institutions to control cash flow when lending in accordance with the value chains ...

In order to enhance the added value chain for Vietnam's agricultural value chain in the coming time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development offers a number of solutions, details as follows:

- Promoting sharing information and propaganda activities on value chain linkages associated with production, on linking production with consumption of agricultural products and standards, market information (prices, market forecasts ... );

- Strengthening the application of standards to improve product quality, ensure food safety, build brands;

- At the same time, trade promotion, market expansion, trademark registration and protection; organizing fieldtrips for distribution enterprises, supermarkets, food chains, processing and export enterprises ... directly to production areas to guide cooperatives and farmer households on methods of preservation, purchasing, preliminary processing, packaging, stamps, labels, etc. for ease of entry into consumption channels;

Along with that, it is necessary to provide training to enhance the capacity of enterprises, farmer households cooperatives through training courses on production techniques, processing of agricultural products, and knowledge of global integration...

At the forum, experts from foreign organizations also said that the weakness of Vietnam's agricultural production chain is the lack of cohesion, limited production and processing technology, and the link between businesses to improve the value of agricultural products are still weak.

According to Mr. Park Hyang Jin - General Director of Dreamfarm Company (Korea) said that to improve the competitiveness of Vietnamese businesses, they need to invest in technology, from production to processing, packaging and consumption of products, ensuring the entire process is properly controlled. Thus, new businesses can contribute to improving the value of agricultural products and participating in the global agricultural value chain.