Scenario of consumption for agricultural products during epidemic period

 
​Many summer fruits are in the harvest season and needed to be consumed. Photo: Harvesting rambutan in Binh Loc Commune, Long Khanh City. Photo: Phan Anh

Supply forecast

According to a report of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the first 6 months of 2021, the output of meat of all kinds reached over 239,000 tons, up nearly 5.3% over the same period. In which, pork reached nearly 167.7 thousand tons, up 4.2%; poultry meat reached 69.9 thousand tons, up 7.87%; buffalo and beef meat reached over 1.9 thousand tons, up 2.2%; total seafood production reached over 36,000 tons. In terms of cultivation, in the next 2 months, there are 4 types of agricultural products that are in the harvest season or about to be harvested with a large output estimated at 367 thousand tons, including: pomelo, rambutan, South American banana, and dragon fruit.

Mr. Tran Lam Sinh, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said: the Department is currently focusing on monitoring and updating agricultural output until the harvest period; Output of slaughtered cattle and poultry to coordinate with localities to consume all products, to avoid congestion and stagnation. The Department also reviews and summarizes the storage capacity of freezing, cold storage and preservation warehouses of production, processing and distribution enterprises in the area to be ready to use or mobilize support in case of necessity. In addition, the Department also works with agricultural product processing enterprises in the area, mobilizing and supporting the purchase of preliminarily processed products, processing, preserving and storing agricultural products to ensure food safety and fight against the disease.

Forecasting and organizing production on crops are also of special interest. Specifically, in production, localities closely monitor the weather situation, the evolution of harmful organisms to guide cooperatives, cooperative groups, and farms to promptly adjust seasons, varieties, and restructuring crops and applying new technical advances to production. In animal husbandry, animal quarantine, well implementation of vaccination to create active immunity for cattle and poultry. Continue to improve disease management and control of slaughter and processing, ensuring adequate food safety and hygiene conditions. In the fisheries sector, the provincial agricultural sector also monitors cooperatives, cooperative groups, farms, and aquaculture households in order to know the production situation to provide technical guidance for people to reduce density, to apply science and techniques, appropriate farming to reduce costs but still maintain product quality to serve market demand under the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic.

Ready to cope with the challenging situation

Abundant supply of poultry waiting for consumption. Photo: Chicken farm in Cam My District. Photo: Phan Anh

Specifically, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has actively developed many scenarios of agricultural product consumption for farmers and breeders. In particular, the unit will closely coordinate with the Department of Industry and Trade in connecting agricultural product consumption channels. Specifically, coordinate to provide information on domestic and international agricultural product market developments, import demand and main export markets of Vietnam to organizations, individuals, cooperatives, and groups, farms and businesses in the province. Strengthen promotion activities, connect manufacturers, suppliers with distributors, domestic trade promotion organizations in localities. Organize online shopping programs for participating businesses, cooperatives, cooperative groups, farms such as: Online shopping day program; Vietnamese online store; livestream online sales, etc. Connecting e-commerce trading to create favorable conditions for cooperatives, cooperative groups, farms, businesses to participate in trading agricultural products on e-commerce platforms such as: sendo.vn, voso.vn, OCOP platform, Postmart, etc. Mobilizing and supporting businesses to step up the processing and storage of agricultural products to increase by about 30% over the same period last year.

Associations and cooperatives are also actively looking for solutions to consume agricultural products in the province. Ms. Dang Thi Thuy Nga, Director of Xuan Dinh Agricultural Service Trading Cooperative said that facing the consumption situation of the Ho Chi Minh City market dropped sharply due to a series of wholesale markets temporarily suspended due to the epidemic, the cooperative closed connecting and bringing goods to consumption in many central and northern provinces. One advantage is that this year's summer fruit crop, many production areas harvest scattered crops, not harvested at the same time as every year, so the price of many fruit products has decreased compared to the same period last year, but there has not been any situation of stockpiling, and falling prices.

Phan Anh