Minister Le Minh Hoan: Calculating the long path for sweet potatoes

Vinh Long is the province with the largest sweet potato area in the country. Since March, the price of sweet potatoes has gradually decreased, no traders are coming for purchase at the moment, making it difficult for growers. Currently, the harvested area of sweet potatoes in Vinh Long province is 3,300 hectares, especially potatoes in the fields, which harvest time has come, is about 400 hectares.

Recently, through consumption support activities, the price of sweet potatoes has increased more than before. Perfect-condition potatoes are about VND 200,000/100 kg. Particularly for overgrown potatoes, bucket potatoes are only VND 100,000 - 120,000/100 kg, at this price, farmers lose about VND 100,000 - 200,000/100 kg.

Binh Tan district has a total annual sweet potato production area ranging from 12,000 to 13,000 ha. Sweet potato’s peak production can reach 350,000 tons, however, there are only 14 sweet potato cooperatives in Binh Tan district, accounting for about 10% of households and area. On average, farmers in Binh Tan district harvest about 1,000 hectares of sweet potatoes every month, so they are always in a state of anxiety about output.

Dong Phat Food Co., Ltd (Tan Phuoc hamlet, Tan Binh commune, Binh Tan district, Vinh Long) specializes in processing all kinds of dried sweet potatoes, dried bananas, dried taros, ... Particularly for Japanese purple sweet potatoes, every month, the company processes about 150-200 tons of potatoes for export. Due to the impact of Covid-19, the export volume of this unit has also decreased sharply to a few dozen tons/month.

Upon sharing with the Minister, Mr. Tran Hoang Dong, Director of Dong Phat Food, shared that companies that process dried sweet potatoes like Dong Phat Food are facing difficulties. Previously, customers could order 5-10 containers monthly and consume products all year round, but since the Covid-19 epidemic, the order volume has slowed down. Dong Phat Food is currently forced to expand their cold storage to store about 2,000-3000 tons of potatoes.

Since the beginning of the year, the consumption of purple sweet potatoes has been slow because China is also planting a large area of purple sweet potatoes. Moreover, the supply was interrupted for a few months near Tet, so now it is very abundant.

According to Minister Le Minh Hoan, recently, agricultural products are facing difficulties in output. In particular, the two provinces of Dong Thap and Vinh Long have many sweet potato areas, as Vinh Long alone already has the largest Japanese purple sweet potato material area in the country. Not only during the pandemic, but the agricultural product market in the past sometimes also fell into chaos, oversupply and congestion. You will not find the answer if you look at the wrong nature.

Minister Le Minh Hoan hoped that all sectors and levels would join the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to share information and ideas. Particularly, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will share their views on transforming the growth model, shifting the mindset from quantity and output to quality, switching from output to added value is the goal to strive for. More output does not mean more income, but vice versa.