Customers choose vegetables at a supermarket in HCM City during an earlier lockdown. (Photo: VNA) During anonline conference held by the ministry in Hanoi earlier this week,high-ranking officials, local leaders and businesses across the countrydiscussed current challenges and limitations faced by agricultural producers inrecent months, especially in light of the many recent lockdowns that have goneinto effect to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Some 1,300supply points and 58 depots have been built to distribute over one trilliontonnes of agricultural products per day during the most recent lockdown imposedin Ho Chi Minh City, the country's largest economic hub and home to more than 9million people, according to a ministry report.
During thelockdown, the ministry established numerous websites and hotlines to connectand support sales of agricultural products. The ministry has introduced combosales such as the 10-kg combo of products for 100,000 VND (4.4 USD), which hasquickly become a best-seller in the southern city. Similar combo sales havealso been rolled out in other provinces under lockdown in the Mekong Deltaincluding the provinces of Binh Duong and Tien Giang.
In the future,the programme will help connect suppliers, producers, retailers and consumers.It will also provide producers with management training, digitalisationguideline and geo-tagging support and serve as a platform for localleaders to work with agricultural experts and policy-makers.
Minister ofAgriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan said the programme was designedto assist producers find the right markets, both domestically andinternationally.
"It's themarket that gets to decide what will be produced," Hoan said.
"Hopefully,the programme will help producers learn how to read the market demand and toproduce the right products.
"Meetingmarket demand is the first step. The next step is to scale up production andminimise cost. Once we have high-valued products, it will be that much easierto find consumers."
The programmewill also start collecting information on speciality products of localitiesacross the country to build a database, which will support central and localgovernment agencies in planning and in providing warnings and guidance onagricultural production in a timely manner./.
VNA
