To keep agricultural products from being "fresh in the morning and withered in the afternoon"

Diversified processed products

Processing is considered a key step, contributing to increasing the economic value of agricultural products. Realizing its importance, in recent times, many cooperatives, businesses, and households have been interested in investing in technology and machinery to preserve and process agricultural products, contributing to reducing consumption pressure, creating competitiveness, and improving product quality.

Canned lychee - 4-star OCOP product of Toan Cau Food Import-Export Joint Stock Company.

In 2024, the Huong Son Clean Pineapple Cooperative (Lang Giang) received 150 million VND from the State to buy a dryer. The members of the Cooperative contributed money to buy more peeling and slicing machines to bring to the market dried pineapple and pineapple tea products. On average, each month, the Cooperative dries 1 ton of fresh pineapple, producing nearly 100 kg of finished dried pineapple with a selling price of 400,000 VND/kg.

According to the representative of the Cooperative, in the past, pineapples were mainly consumed fresh, so when they were ripe, the selling price often dropped, even being forced down, and sometimes the ripe fruit was spoiled because it could not be consumed in time. Processing as it is now not only helps to extend the consumption time but also enhances the product with a variety of items, thereby increasing the value. In addition to being sold in the province, the product is also consumed in stores and supermarkets in many provinces and cities.

In the province, there are many agricultural products that cooperatives and enterprises have invested in technology and machinery for processing, such as turmeric starch, tapioca starch, lotus root of Thuy Duong Clean Agriculture Cooperative, Nham Bien Ward (Bac Giang City); dried lychee products stir-fried with ginger, tamarind, kumquat of Bang Thuy Agricultural Cooperative, Giap Son Commune (Luc Ngan); honey-dried sweet potatoes of Nhu Hoa High-tech Agriculture and General Service Production and Trading Cooperative, Bich Dong Ward (Viet Yen Town); peanut oil, gac oil, sesame oil, roasted whole peanuts, hand-peeled finished peanuts of Quang Duy Agricultural Cooperative, Dong Lac Commune (Yen The). In addition, there are many other processed products such as Danh mountain ginseng tea; guava bud tea, perilla, chrysanthemum; products processed from lychee such as wine, cakes, yogurt, tea, wax-scented candles, etc.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Thang, Director of Quang Duy Agricultural Cooperative, the unit's current oil pressing capacity has reached 600 liters/day, and product quality has significantly improved. Thanks to that, the Cooperative's Dai An cooking oil brand is increasingly known and used by many domestic customers; the average revenue is about 3 billion VND/year.

Regarding livestock products, Yen The hill chicken is currently being deeply processed by Yen The Green Agricultural Cooperative with the following products: Vacuum-packed chicken, chicken ham, chicken sausage, chicken jerky, salted chicken. Recently, the unit has put into operation an automatic cell freezing line, thereby helping to extend the frozen storage time from 3 to 12 months without changing the quality of the product. The cooperative plans to expand to more markets in the South and further towards export.

Promote investment attraction

Bac Giang has formed many large-scale commodity production areas such as: fruit tree area of ​​over 52 thousand hectares; quality rice production area of ​​45.5 thousand hectares; safe vegetable production area, processed vegetables of 12.8 thousand hectares. In addition, the province regularly maintains a herd of about 900 thousand pigs, a herd of about 20 million poultry; other livestock such as buffalo, cows, horses, goats, bees... This is a large area for the development of preservation and deep processing technology.

The province currently has 163 agricultural and food processing facilities, including 4 large agricultural processing factories (VIFOCO Import-Export Joint Stock Company, Dung Si General Investment Limited Company, GOC Import-Export Food Processing Joint Stock Company, Toan Cau Food Export Joint Stock Company) and 159 small-scale processing facilities.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the province currently has 163 agricultural and food processing facilities, including 4 large agricultural processing factories (VIFOCO Import-Export Joint Stock Company and Dung Si General Investment Limited Company, both in Bac Giang city; GOC Import-Export Food Processing Joint Stock Company, Lang Giang district; Toan Cau Food Export Joint Stock Company, Chu town) and 159 small-scale processing facilities.

Some products are capable of meeting large production requirements such as: Lychee juice, canned fruit juice, canned sweet corn, soybeans, okra, vegetables exported to Japan, Europe, Australia of Toan Cau Food Import-Export Joint Stock Company; canned vegetables, tubers, and fruits of VIFOCO Import-Export Joint Stock Company to Europe, Russia, and Korea; vinegar products of Ngan Giang Trading Limited Company (Chu town) exported to China; Binh Minh agricultural cakes made from potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkins, and onions of Binh Minh Cooperative (Viet Yen town) exported to Korea...

Despite achieving some results, according to the assessment of the functional sector, the province's agricultural product preservation and processing activities still have many limitations, mainly consumed domestically and exported in the form of raw processing. The rate of deeply processed agricultural products is not high, so the added value is limited, the situation of "good harvest, low price", "fresh in the morning, withered in the afternoon" still occurs. The reason is that agricultural product processing enterprises, especially small enterprises, have difficulty accessing and applying modern processing technologies, leading to uncompetitive product quality. Many enterprises have difficulty finding markets for their products due to lack of marketing strategies, brand building, product labels or lack of connection with large consumer markets.

According to Mr. Le Ba Thanh, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, to promote the development of agricultural processing, the province continues to attract enterprises with financial, scientific and technical potential, business administration to invest in developing production and processing industry in a modern direction, with quality products. In particular, the orientation is to attract investment projects to build factories to process pork and chicken for export in the districts of Tan Yen, Yen The, Hiep Hoa, Lang Giang and agricultural processing factories in other localities.

At the same time, expand, maintain and develop safe crop and livestock farming areas to provide input materials for processing. The province also pays attention to supporting and introducing businesses to link production and consumption, form raw material areas, invest in preliminary processing technology, preserve and process key agricultural products such as fruit trees, vegetables, pigs and chickens for export to ensure international standards.

Article and photos: Nguyen Huong

Source: https://baobacgiang.vn/de-nong-san-khong-sang-tuoi-chieu-heo--postid416355.bbg