Processing vegetables following market signals

Director of Agrotrade Vietnam Nguyen Quoc Toan said that in the past years, MARD has spent a lot of resources and focused on vegetables and fruits, processed products in particular.  

According to Mr. Toan, Vietnamese vegetable products are typical of tropical agriculture, seasonal, and hard to preserve. When shifting towards producing large goods, and exporting to challenging markets such as Japan, the EU, US... advantages requires further advancement. 

In addition, Director General Toan pointed out that factors related to technology, infrastructure, investment, and labor force... need to be paid attention to and developed synchronously. According to him, processed vegetable export is motivated by the market's signals.

"Consumption trends are changing a lot, focusing on plant-based products. After the pandemic, people’s consumption behavior at home and abroad changed. They have a growing need to consume more refined, quality, flexible, multi-use, high-value products" Mr. Toan said. The agricultural industry must have the technology to respond to these changes. 

Regarding the construction of raw material areas, Mr. Toan said that large businesses should pay more attention to small and medium businesses and cooperatives,... to promote linkages and the potential and strengths of the companies.

Regarding product quality, Mr. Toan emphasized the importance of technology. However, to have stable quality, the Director of Agrotrade Vietnam said that it is necessary to have the synchronous participation of agencies and research institutions, especially the schools, crops, and institutes section.

Another problem raised by Mr. Toan is the management of product costs. Practice shows that to reach an agricultural economy, the production and processing stages must determine the structure and price of products. Otherwise, the profit margin will be unclear, causing businesses to incur costs when input materials and transportation costs are very high.

Regarding market barriers, Mr. Toan suggested understanding the advantages of each market and regularly and continuously updating information from the market. Consequently, businesses, people, and cooperatives will be aware, use proper methods and act correctly in practice. 

In parallel with the export activation, Director Toan is also interested in the domestic market for processed vegetables and fruits. He suggested that the product should be put into supermarket chains, and segmented for consumption right from the locality to expand the consumption market. 

In addition, stakeholders need to pay attention to absorbing the policy into practice. For small and medium enterprises, it is necessary to have appropriate credit policies, creating favorable conditions for these subjects to have favorable access. For small production establishments, it is necessary to pay attention to electricity prices by region… From these factors, production will develop in the direction of reducing product costs.

"In the coming time, we need to promote investment for four processing segments like large processing plants; small and medium-sized processing establishments. We also need to promote investment in by-product processing facilities in the field of vegetables and agro-product logistics connection centers," said Toan.

Based on this resource, new processing and preservation capacity will be promoted, contributing to solving the weakness of tropical agriculture. New processing and preservation capacity will also be closely associated with the livelihood and interests of farmers - the priority, throughout the process of restructuring the agricultural sector.

"We need to deepen the connotation of agricultural economic development, perfect the institution, attract resources from the grassroots practice, and base it on the voluntary association of the commodity ecosystem. Subjects need to promote initiative, self-reliance, and self-reliance when increasing the value of processed agro-products, contributing to bringing benefits and profits to farmers," Director Nguyen Quoc Toan emphasized.