Official export of sweet potatoes: Opening the way for farmers to cultivate professionally

08:17, 20/03/2023

On November 9, 2022, the General Administration of Customs of China signed a protocol on sweet potato exports from Vietnam to China. This opens up a way out for sweet potato farmers who have been unable to sell their products for two years. However, in order for Dak Lak 's sweet potatoes to enter the official export route, it is necessary to focus on re-planning production.

Production is unstable.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the country has over 100,000 hectares of sweet potatoes, with an annual output ranging from 1.2 to 1.5 million tons. Sweet potatoes are a traditional food crop (second only to rice and corn) in Vietnam and in the past 10 years, sweet potatoes have developed into an export commodity, with export turnover reaching 60 million USD. However, domestic sweet potato growers are still in a precarious situation because in some places, farmers often arbitrarily break the planning when facing market fluctuations. Meanwhile, activities of linking output consumption, trade promotion, and finding export markets for this product have not been focused on. Therefore, the area and output are not according to the plan. For example, in 2021, the whole country had nearly 98,000 hectares of sweet potatoes, with an output of over 1.2 million tons, but due to low prices, in 2022, the area was reduced to more than 86,000 hectares, with an output of nearly 970,000 tons. Meanwhile, the production plan for 2022 was 105,000 hectares and an output of over 1.3 million tons of sweet potatoes.

Sweet potato growing area in Lak district.

Dak Lak is also one of the localities with a relatively large sweet potato growing area, fluctuating from 7,000 - 10,000 ha/year, with a yield of about 25 - 30 tons/ha, mainly concentrated in Lak, Krong Ana, Krong Buk districts... In fact, sweet potatoes bring higher economic efficiency to people than income in rice-growing areas, so when the sweet potato market price increases, farmers rush to grow this crop. However, in recent years, the fresh sweet potato export market as well as prices have been unstable. Therefore, economic efficiency as well as the direction of expanding the sweet potato growing area towards commodities are still facing difficulties, leading to unstable sweet potato production over the years. Especially the situation of falling prices and not being able to consume for the past two years has made farmers no longer interested in developing sweet potatoes.

Sweet potato packaging facility of Huong Cao Nguyen Import Export Service Trading Joint Stock Company.

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Lak district, the locality with the largest sweet potato area in the province with nearly 700 hectares, the average yield reached 29 tons/ha, in previous years, Japanese sweet potatoes brought high income to farmers and many areas expanded the cultivation area. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the output of sweet potatoes was no longer stable and the price continuously dropped. Especially at the time of harvesting sweet potatoes in June 2022, the selling price dropped sharply, only 4,000 - 5,000 VND/kg in the field but still no traders came to buy. The reason is that due to China's "Zero covid" policy, informal exports to this market were blocked, all goods could not clear customs, so traders did not dare to buy.

The official door is open.

On November 9, 2022, the General Administration of Customs of China signed a Protocol on sweet potato exports from Vietnam to China. This is good news for farmers as well as export enterprises. In the face of the opening of the export market, the agricultural sector as well as sweet potato growing localities in the province and export enterprises are currently promoting activities to prepare raw material areas as well as qualified packaging facilities to prepare for official sweet potato export shipments.

Officers of the Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection inspected the sweet potato packaging facility of Van Hoa Investment and Development Company Limited.

Lak district currently has about 150 hectares of sweet potatoes for the 2022-2023 winter-spring crop, which are in the process of applying for a growing area code. This will also open up many opportunities for farmers to increase their income. However, to successfully build a growing area code, the main role is still the producer (farmer). The Protocol has officially opened, but it also requires farmers to work seriously and methodically to build large-scale sweet potato material areas in Lak district that are truly high-quality and sustainable.

Mr. Nguyen Viet Quang, Head of Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Lak district

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tung, Deputy General Director of Huong Cao Nguyen Import Export Trading Service Joint Stock Company (Dak Lak province) said that the enterprise is currently linking and building growing area codes with farmers, cooperatives and cooperatives in the districts of Ea Kar, Krong Ana, Cu M'gar, Lak and Ea H'leo to establish 12 growing area codes, with more than 1,000 hectares. Currently, the dossier has been completed, submitted to the competent authority and is waiting for approval and code issuance. "Growing area codes are a mandatory condition for traceability when exporting, bringing stable output for sweet potatoes and Vietnamese sweet potato products. From there, sweet potatoes will bring high economic efficiency to farmers. In addition to supporting sweet potato growers to cultivate according to VietGAP standards, the enterprise also signs contracts to consume output products for farmers to ensure benefits for households participating in production linkages", Mr. Tung said.

According to the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development), the official export of sweet potatoes will open a way out for sweet potatoes today because the output for this product will be stable, helping to shape key production areas, bringing farmers to access large-scale concentrated production with better profits. However, products exported officially will have to have traceable origins, from management and supervision of growing areas with input and output products; management of packaging facilities, plant quarantine treatment measures to quarantine at import gates. Therefore, in order for sweet potatoes to "open the road" to the Chinese market, the biggest challenge for businesses and farmers is to ensure product quality according to the requirements set by the neighboring country.

According to Mr. Le Van Thanh, Head of the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection, immediately after the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced that sweet potatoes were officially exported to the Chinese market, the Department mobilized people to establish cooperatives and cooperative groups to build large raw material areas eligible for growing area codes. Currently, the Department has completed the dossier, proposing to grant growing area codes for 500 hectares for inspection in the coming time. At the same time, two enterprises (Van Hoa Investment and Development Company Limited; Huong Cao Nguyen Import-Export Service Trading Joint Stock Company) have completed the dossier to grant packaging facility codes. Currently, the preparation work is ready, just waiting for the Chinese Customs to evaluate and grant codes to prepare for the official export of sweet potatoes to the Chinese market.

Minh Thuan

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