Safe tea production associated with traceability

Currently, tea production cooperatives in the province are all aiming for safe production processes to serve traceability.

Safe production area is expanded

From less than 10 hectares of tea certified to meet VietGAP standards (good agricultural practices) 15 years ago, the province now has over 5,900 hectares of tea certified to meet this standard; in addition, there are 120 hectares of tea certified to meet organic standards. With the goal of improving quality, ensuring food safety, and increasing product value, most of the tea areas that have not yet achieved certification for "clean" production have also been proactively applied safe production processes by the people.

Mr. Nguyen Ta, Head of the Provincial Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection: Consumers are increasingly concerned about the quality and safety of tea products. Therefore, households that do not proactively apply “clean” production processes will be “eliminated” from the “playground”. This means that income will be reduced and life will be greatly affected.

In fact, thanks to the application of safe production processes, not only productivity and quality but also income of Thai Nguyen tea growers have increased significantly. With 22,200 hectares of tea, of which 21,500 hectares are for products, Thai Nguyen's tea productivity has reached 127 quintals of fresh tea buds/ha/year, an increase of 17 quintals/ha compared to 10 years ago. Accordingly, the value of the products has also nearly doubled when the average selling price of tea of ​​households in the province is quite stable at 150-300 thousand VND/kg.

In order to expand the area of ​​safe tea, from now until 2030, Thai Nguyen sets a target of having 24,500 hectares of tea, of which 70% of the area meets VietGAP and organic standards; 70% of the area is granted a growing area code.

To realize the set goals, the Department of Agriculture and Environment has deployed to localities to propagate and guide tea growers to register for production applying VietGAP and organic standards, and issue growing area codes according to the direction of the Provincial People's Committee. At the same time, step up inspection and post-inspection of food safety; monitor food safety topics for existing OCOP products and take samples to monitor food safety for tea...

Ms. Le Thi Quynh Huong, Head of the Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Product Quality Management of Thai Nguyen province: The monitoring work will contribute to raising people's awareness and responsibility in properly and adequately applying clean production processes in agriculture, especially with tea plants.

Promote traceability

Safe tea production is a solid foundation to meet the requirements of product traceability. Ms. Dao Thanh Hao, Director of Hao Dat Tea Cooperative, Tan Cuong Commune (Thai Nguyen City), said: Applying a "clean" production process means that tea products are always guaranteed to be safe. This is the reason why we are very confident when affixing traceability stamps on the products of the Cooperative...

In recent times, people in tea growing areas in the province have proactively applied many advanced technologies to the safe and circular tea production process, including automatic irrigation technology. Photo: TL

In order to facilitate traceability, since the beginning of the year, Thai Nguyen has continued to issue new growing area codes to cooperatives, units and individuals producing tea. Up to now, out of 95 growing area codes issued, the whole province has 62 tea growing area codes. In addition, the Department of Agriculture and Environment has actively guided tea production establishments to update information for traceability on the "Agricultural Product Quality Management - Thai Nguyen" software system.

Up to now, the whole province has had 503 registered accounts. Accordingly, the number of updated, monitored and managed establishments is 7,095 establishments (including 86 enterprises, 392 cooperatives, the rest are individual business households) of 222 production areas with a total area of ​​over 1,397 hectares; 74 production diaries were created; information on 87 products was updated.

In addition, the Department of Agriculture and Environment also coordinated with VNPT Thai Nguyen to pilot a model of applying digital technology solutions for Thai Nguyen tea products. Currently, the province has completed training for 100% of cooperatives and farming households with growing area codes in Thai Nguyen city and Dai Tu, Phu Luong, Dong Hy districts. Basically, farming households can perform daily tasks; 100% of cooperatives have issued production processes and assigned work to farming households; created 1,693 accounts for independent farming households; attached tea growing and tea production processes according to VietGAP standards to farming households that already have accounts...

It can be affirmed that linking safe tea production with traceability is the right direction on the path to conquering billion-dollar revenue from Thai Nguyen tea. Although the journey is still long, it has opened up promising directions for the land with the leading area, output and value of tea products in the country.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/kinh-te/nong-nghiep/202505/san-xuat-che-an-toan-gan-voi-truy-xuat-nguon-goc-130318f/