Organic farming has become a trend as consumers are looking for better food to ensure health. (Photo: VNA) According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,the global organic farm produce market expanded rapidly in the past twodecades, from just 18 billion USD in 2020 to 188 billion USD in 2021. Themarket is forecast to reach 208 billion USD this year.
The US and the EU are the largest markets for organic products,all together holding a market share of 90%. However, markets that saw rapidgrowth in the consumption demand for organic farm produce come from otherregions, such as Canada (26.1%), China (23%) and Germany (22.3%).
Those are potential markets for made-in-Vietnam organic products,according to the Trade Promotion Centre for Agriculture.
Currently, Vietnam’s organic products are present in 180 countrieswith annual revenue of 335 million USD, still a very modest share.
Nguyen Minh Tien, Director of the Trade Promotion Centre forAgriculture, said consumers around the world were looking for better food fortheir families to ensure health with increasing demand for products withtraceability and food hygiene and safety.
Countries were also increasing the standards for sustainability,product labelling process and quarantine regulations to aim at protectingpublic health and the environment.
The organic food market was expected to reach 437.36 billion USDby 2026 with a compounded annual growth rate of 14%.
With the organic agriculture development project for the 2020-2030period, organic farming emerged to be a trend in Vietnam.
Statistics showed that the total agricultural land for organicfarming reached 174,000 hectares, an increase of 47% over 2016, putting Vietnamin the top ten countries with the largest organic agricultural land in Asia.
Vietnam set the target of increasing the total organic land areato 2.5-3 % of the agricultural land area by 2030.
According to the ministry’s Department of Agro Processing andMarket Development, organic agriculture becomes an unavoidable trend not onlyto ensure health but also to protect the environment in the context thatclimate change is seriously affecting agricultural production.
Bui Hong Quan, deputy chairman of agriculture processing companyVinamit, said that the most important thing for enterprises in organicagriculture was to fulfil their commitments to quality and maintain theirreputation, adding that enterprises would face a lot of difficulties duringthis process, such as a lack of resources.
Tu Thi Tuyet Nhung, head of the Participatory Assurance System Vietnam’sCoordination Committee, said that organic products had not been priced at theirtrue value and faced difficulty in competing with other products. Many organicagriculture producers were forced to give up because of losses, she said.
Nguyen Hong Lam, Chairman of Que Lam Group, pointed out that thebottlenecks in the development of organic agriculture were the lack of trustamong enterprises, farmers and consumers and the exploitation of resources tothe point of exhaustion.
Lam said that the focus should be placed on developing policies toencourage enterprises to establish organic value chains together with enhancingquality control measures.
“Organic agriculture production is a long-term process. We mustpersevere, there is no other way,” he stressed.
Nguyen Quoc Toan, Director of the Department of AgriculturalProduct Processing and Market Development, said organic production played animportant role in the green growth of the agricultural sector.
He pointed out a number of difficulties enterprises wereencountering during the process of moving towards organic production such asbuilding trust of consumers in organic products, limited conditions forlarge-scale production, and the lack of synergy to further promote organicproduction on a larger scale.
The key would be traceability, transparency and digitalisation oforganic products, Toan said.
Currently, there are about 17,000 organic agriculture producers,555 processors and 60 exporters in Vietnam./.
VNA
