Ho Chi Minh City: Accompanying clean agricultural products, building the foundation for sustainable urban areas

Ho Chi Minh City aims to improve the value chain of clean agricultural products, linking production with safe consumption, moving towards a modern and sustainable urban area.

Developing modern urban agriculture – a strategic direction of Ho Chi Minh City to ensure safe food supply. Photo: INT

According to Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Farmers' Association Nguyen Thanh Trung, the city is both the largest food consumption center in the country and is shaping modern urban agriculture. Therefore, ensuring food safety and developing a supply of clean agricultural products is of strategic and urgent significance.

Over the past 5 years (2021-2025), the city has promoted production models according to VietGAP, GlobalGAP, organic agriculture, and high-tech agriculture standards; at the same time, many safe food chains have been formed, and small-scale cooperatives and cooperative groups have been developed.

However, in reality, there are still many shortcomings: small-scale, fragmented production; the abuse of agricultural materials still occurs; propaganda work is difficult because many production households have not joined the Association. Meanwhile, consumers are "lost in the food matrix", finding it difficult to determine the origin and gradually losing confidence in domestic agricultural products.

Many OCOP products of Ho Chi Minh City farmers are of good quality but have not been widely promoted to consumers.

Not only that, many typical agricultural products, OCOP products of city farmers, although of good quality, have not been widely promoted and have not reached people's kitchens. These bottlenecks are hindering the sustainable development of Ho Chi Minh City's agriculture and directly affecting public health.

In that context, Ho Chi Minh City has identified the program "Accompanying clean agricultural products in the period 2025-2030" as a key task to remove bottlenecks and improve the value chain of clean agricultural products from production to consumption.

According to Vo Thanh Giau, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Ho Chi Minh City, the city currently has about 13,700 hectares of crops and more than 133 hectares of high-tech aquaculture. It is expected that by 2025, the product value will reach over VND250 million/ha for crops and over VND600 million/ha for aquaculture – a significant increase compared to the national average.

Ho Chi Minh City farmers actively apply technology to improve product quality.

To achieve the goal, the city's agricultural sector will promote mechanization, develop smart, organic, and circular agriculture; focus on specialized production areas, enhance traceability of key products and recycle agricultural waste to effectively use resources.

At the same time, the city continues to shift its agricultural structure towards a modern urban area, prioritizing the development of high value-added products such as safe vegetables, dairy cows, seafood, etc. However, the city is currently only self-sufficient in 30-40% of vegetables, tubers, and fruits and still depends on 40-70% of meat and eggs from neighboring localities.

With a long-term vision, the program “Accompanying clean agricultural products” is not only a slogan for action, but also a specific commitment to building a safe, modern, and environmentally friendly agriculture. The program is expected to create a substantial change in awareness, production models, and methods of distributing safe agricultural products, contributing to the construction of civilized, modern, and sustainably developed urban areas.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/tp-ho-chi-minh-dong-hanh-cung-nong-san-sach-xay-nen-tang-cho-do-thi-ben-vung-10395439.html