Agricultural products guarantee int’l standards

When officially taking effect, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) will create a breakthrough for Vietnamese exports, including agricultural products. But, Vietnam’s agricultural products will also face severe competitiveness with similar ones from member countries of the AEC and TPP. Before the situation, Binh Duong has boosted restructuring of the local agricultural sector towards added value increase and sustainable development.

Attaching special importance to hi-tech based agricultural production

The province is now home to 4 hi-tech agricultural parks of 991.4 hectares in Phu Giao, North Tan Uyen districts and Tan Uyen town. All are operational, in which 3 have been exempted or reduced from land tax with more than VND62.292bln and 1 under consideration for support. An Thai hi-tech agricultural park in Phu Giao district’s An Thai invested by U&I Agriculture Joint Stock Company (Unifarm) is the most noticeable. So far, the hi-tech agricultural park has developed over 80 hectares of vegetables, fruits, ornamental and herbal plants. It has also successfully fostered a model of growing rock melons with total revenue and profit of around VND1bln and more than VND500mln per crop per hectare, respectively.

Pepper being harvested in Phu Giao district’s An Binh commune

Besides, the whole province now has a total of 1,068 farms with more than 10,698 hectares in total. Most animal husbandry farms have begun to use new breeding animals and apply modern technologies, contributing to increasing economic efficiency for breeders and creating a safe supply of food for customers. The average profit from animal husbandry in the province is now VND100mln-VND120mln per batch.

Thanks to using advanced technologies, the value of the local agricultural production has been increasing. The models of growing oranges, pomelos and tangerines have so far brought the local farmers the average income of VND500mlm-VND1bln per hectare per year…The average value on one hectare of farming land in the province has reached VND90mln, up 54% compared to 2010.

Businesses need to be proactive

According to Nguyen Tan Binh, Director of provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the TPP will open great opportunities for domestic products, comprising of agricultural ones, with import tariff at 0%. In Binh Duong, pepper and rubber are two agricultural products that can widely and deeply penetrate into the TPP market. But, the TPP will also bring pressure in agricultural competitiveness, so domestic businesses need to make more investment to be able to generate international standard products.

Binh Duong Sugar Joint Stock Company is one of the province’s units taking the initiative in preparing plans for integration. Particularly, the company has implemented a project on hi-tech based large-scale milk cow farm in Phu Giao district’s Phuoc Sang and Tan Hiep communes. Covering 470 hectares, the milk cow farm has total investment of more than VND200bln with 3,500 milk cows and the annual output of 8mln kg of milk. The phase 1 of the project has just been put into operation. The company has also just imported 200 HS milk cows from Thailand. All activities managing and tending milk cows here are run under EU’s advanced management software. When the project is developed successfully, the company will transfer techniques, supply breeding cows with basic price for farming households while purchasing cow milk from them, thereby contributing to creating hi-quality milk products, raising domestic competitiveness.

Nguyen Thanh Trung, Director of Binh Duong Sugar Joint Stock Company said that criteria for products imported to member countries of the TPP are very high. Hence, right from the project implemented, the company has made a breeding method with hi-tech application, not only ensuring safety for the environment, but also guaranteeing the quality of products at criteria for export.

Pham Quoc Liem, General Director of Unifarm affirmed that foreign agricultural products in Vietnam have high quality, so domestic businesses need to raise their competitiveness right in the domestic market. This also shows that sci-tech application in production is very necessary.

According to experts, economic integration brings both opportunities and challenges to the domestic agricultural sector. Therefore, well realizing restructuring of the sector, building modern and effective agriculture with high added value will help the agricultural sector of Vietnam in general and of Binh Duong in particular to turn challenges into opportunities to be able to firmly stand in the international market.

According to provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the whole province now has a total of 1,622 hectares of plants with sci-tech application and nearly 5.2 mln chickens (or 72.2% of total herd) bred under advanced technology, mostly in large-scale farms. Many new techniques have been applied, helping the local farmers reduce production costs and increase their income.

Ha Cong Tuan, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development said that as a TPP member, Vietnam’s agricultural sector will have four major opportunities.

Firstly, once the TPP is officially signed, the market will be more open for Vietnam, helping the country adjust the import - export market in the field of agriculture. The second opportunity is that when the TPP takes effect, the import tax rates on most of the agricultural products will drop by over 90%, and even to 0%. This is a great advantage for many agricultural products of Vietnam.The third and fourth opportunities are to attract investment capital along with modern technology and management methods from TPP member states into the agricultural sector and to promote restructuring of this sector.

Reported by Quynh Nhien-Translated by K.T