HCM CITY — Closer links need to be forged between farmers, Government, scientists and businesses towards the value of Vietnamese agricultural products, particularly jackfruit and banana, experts said at a seminar yesterday.
Nguyen Lam Vien, director of Vinamit Co, a major producer of jackfruit and other fruit chips, said the State needs to initiate support policies for the sector, including financial support, to ensure that the co-operative model is effective.
Currently, 80 per cent of the processing firms' material purchases are done through intermediary traders. The links between businesses and farmers are not close, and this ends up with the latter making low profits.
The situation needs to be improved quickly in order to avoid the necessity to import produce since businesses have stable, all-year-round demand for raw product in huge quantities. More importantly, they need the best quality products so that their trademarks remain popular all over the world, Vien said.
For instance, Vinamit plans to import raw product from India for jackfruit produce, he added.
Scientists should conduct research to create new high quality seed to help businesses and farmers, and improve cultivation as well as processing efficiency.
New seeds have to meet market demands, especially for processing and export purposes, and businesses should cooperate with scientists in exchanging market information, Vien said.
Effective co-operation between businesses, scientists and farmers would open doors to many more foreign markets, he added.
The Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology's Institute of Tropical Biology informed the seminar of ideal fruit requirements to serve the processing industry. A jackfruit tree has to produce fruits weighing more than 10kg each and produce fruits weighing more than 200kg per tree.
Banana plants have to produce large fruit with diameters of more than 4 centimetres.
Le Duy Minh, chairman of Viet Nam Business and Farming Association said State-scientist-business-farmer co-operation was also necessary to ensure food safety and hygiene.
At the seminar, Vinamit signed a memorandum of understanding on co-operating with scientists and farmers to produce new, high quality seeds. Vinamit would then provide the seeds as well as effective cultivation and harvest know-how to the farmers.
Nguyen Quoc Binh, head of Vinamit Co's Foreign Affairs Department, said his company is currently suffering a severe shortage of raw material for processing. — VNS
