Agricultural products have been considered one of Vietnam’s major exports with many holding sway in both regional and global markets, such as rice, pepper, rubber, cashew nuts, tea, fruit and vegetables. Even now, they are available in 150 countries and territories.

Strengths not yet brought into full play

Agricultural products should be of high-quality to make a bigger profit for farmers and businesses. At the moment, farmers’ incomes are still very low.

According to a recent survey, a farmer can annually earn only US$400-450, not worth his hard working throughout the year.

For their part, as businesses are faced with many trade barriers, they also care about the quantity only, and use other brand names to sell their products. That’s why their export performance is not strong.

Since Vietnam became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Vietnamese goods have had to compete with cheap products such as rice, sugar and fruit from Cambodia and Thailand which are dominating regional markets. If changes are not brought in quickly, Vietnam’s agricultural products will risk conceeding their domestic market share.           

What are the weak points in agricultural production?

It is a fact that many localities lack detailed planning and forecasts on the consumer market and just vie with each other without caring much about laws of supply and demand. For instance, any crops that could bring them immediate benefits were grown extensively as in the cases of coffee and pepper in the Central Highlands and sugar-cane, cassava, pineapples and watermelons in the central region.

Not a few farmers stopped planting sugar-cane to grow cassava, and then decided to grow cashew and pepper instead, just for a short-term profit. The years of growing and changing crops have made the land completely barren in the end.

Also for an immediate profit, businesses rush to buy cheap agricultural products at random.

There is no wonder that the quality of agricultural products is much lower than other kinds of goods in the region. Even Vietnamese rice, coffee and tea are much lower than the same Thai products, US$15-20, US$100-150 and US$400-500 per tonne, respectively.

Also, because of low-quality products, businesses have to use brand names from other countries to export their own goods.    

Solutions to boost agricultural exports

In recent years, Vietnam has taken a number of practical measures to enhance the competitiveness of agricultural products, including creating brand names, establishing many wholesale and exchange markets, organising fruit festivals and seeking new outlets.

The country’s products such as Buon Ma Thuot coffee, Hoang-Hau Binh Thuan green dragon fruit, Hoa Loc mangos, Chu Se pepper are now widely known across the world.

However, these solutions are not strong enough to sharpen the competitive edge of agricultural exports. The bottom line is Vietnam’s export products must be of high quality to pass all hygiene requirements and to be priced reasonably.

To this effect, every solution calls for close cooperation between producers, scientists and exporters.  More important still, scientific advances and the transfer of new technologies to farmers needs to be speeded up with a focus on establishing high-quality seed centres for the region, removing low-quality seeds, even when they provide bumper crops, and adopting a proper investment policy to upgrade facilities for collecting and preserving agricultural products in the post-harvest period.

The State needs to put in place the quality management system in line with international regulations so that both farmers and exporters can do proper planning, while accelerating the process of creating brand names for their agricultural products-a prerequisite for export business. They also have to make a greater effort to expand their markets and minimise losses when hitting snags in their export business.

Such solutions will help to improve the quality and prestige of Vietnamese agricultural products for export in the long run.