Hi-tech agriculture area accounts for 21 per cent of Lam Dong's cultivated area

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Lam Dong province, the province now has about 300,000 ha for farming with key products including vegetables, flowers, tea, coffee, fruit trees, mulberries.

The agricultural area applying high technology is 63,000 ha, accounting for 21 per cent of the total cultivated area of ​​the province.

Nguyen Van Chau, Deputy Director of Lam Dong Province's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that over the past time, the local agricultural industry targeted to increase value, meet market demand, especially for export.

The locality also focused on developing production with improved quality standards, traceability and growing area codes. According to statistics, the production area certified by VietGAP, GlobalGAP, UTZ, 4C... of Lam Dong is about 78,000 hectares.

The province's average production value reached VND185 million per ha. Many areas of high-tech vegetables and flowers generate an income of over VND1 billion per ha.

According to Lam Dong Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, currently local agricultural products are exported to more than 40 countries around the world, of which the traditional markets are Northeast Asia, Europe and North America.

In particular, Lam Dong's agricultural products for export are currently present in demanding markets such as Japan, European countries, and the US.

This province also supplies agricultural products and raw materials for export to many multinational corporations and large distributors.

The total export turnover of agricultural products of Lam Dong province at the end of 2021 reached about US$320 million, accounting for about 45 per cent of its total export turnover of goods.

The province's main export items include vegetables, flowers, green tea and coffee. Particularly, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, carrots are exported to the EU, East Asian and ASEAN countries with export volume of about 34,000 tons and a total value of more than US$60 million.

Flower products are also exported to East Asia, Australia and ASEAN countries with about 371 million stems and total value of over US$58.7 million.

Green tea and coffee products are also exported to countries such as Taiwan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Portugal.

Regarding the development of agricultural export markets in the coming time, Nguyen Van Chau, Deputy Director of Lam Dong Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the locality was developing production processes and technical standards in accordance with the requirements of the market. At the same time, it would develop logistics services to support businesses, especially those newly engaged in exporting, with package services such as packaging, warehousing, customs clearance, transportation, and delivery.

In addition, along with focusing on traditional markets, Lam Dong also seeks and exploits new markets based on the advantages of variety, quality and crop of agricultural products.

"In order to promote the export of agricultural products, especially to potential markets like the EU, we have determined that the solution is to expand organic farming, safe agriculture associated with processing to create added value, and at the same time, upgrade technical infrastructure for production to meet international quality standard certification process. This is to facilitate the process of taking advantage of the incentives of the EVFTA Agreement," Chau said.

He added that the locality also made warnings about regulations, technical barriers and problems arising from the markets so that the production was proactive and guaranteed.

Chau said that Lam Dong's agricultural industry was building a long-term development strategy and focusing on developing high-tech agriculture, smart agriculture, and organic agriculture.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Lam Dong province, the locality is implementing many solutions to boost agricultural development and market access. Along with the restructuring of crops, building concentrated production areas, applying high technology..., Lam Dong province also invested in post-harvest centres to provide preliminary processing and processing services and preserving agricultural products in production areas. Its focus is on investment for equipment and machinery, upgrading factories, supporting human resource training, building preliminarily and processing processes that meet HACCP, ISO, FSSC certification standards. The moves are expected to attract businesses to invest in agricultural product processing and increase production value.