HCM City (VNA) -Demand for organic products has been rising sharply globally including in Vietnam,and this is good news for businesses investing in them, according to theMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Deputy Minister of Agricultureand Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam said the area under organic crops in thecountry had increased from 53,350ha in 2016 to 237,693ha last year and they aregrown in 46 out of 63 provinces and cities.

They had been exported to 180countries and territories including the US, the EU, China, Japan, Germany, the UK,the Republic of Korea, Russia, and Singapore, and annual shipments are worth 335million USD, he told a seminar in HCM City on October 26.

But Ha Phuc Mich, Chairman ofthe Vietnam Organic Agriculture Association, said the rapid growth in organicagriculture was also causing concern about the ability to control quality.  

While the country had standardsfor organic farming TCVN11041: 2017/2018, the list of inputs allowed to be usedhad not been issued, he said.

"There are manyco-operatives and enterprises that want to enter the field but are stymied bythis."

Sharing his experience inproducing and exporting organic produce, Thai Nhu Hiep, Director of Vinh HiepCo., Ltd, said: “Organic agricultural products are favoured by global consumersand will be an inevitable requirement for making agriculture sustainable, butorganic production in our country faces many difficulties.

“The cost of analysis ofsamples and evaluation to grant organic certification is high. It usually takestwo to three years or even longer to fully meet the requirements, while thevalidity of the certification is only one year, and producers must routinelyapply for reassessment.”

His company has faceddifficulties in expanding the scale of organic farming because productivity andyields are not high, farmers do not have the habit of taking notes about theirdaily farming activities and their knowledge about organic production remainslow.

Inputs such as fertilisers thatcan be used in organic production are still not widely available and areexpensive.

“To sustainably develop organicagriculture, it is necessary to apprise farmers, businesses and consultingofficials about standards through seminars, workshops and training courses.

“The Government needs tostrengthen promotion of organic produce … domestically and globally.

“Creating domesticorganisations for analysing and certifying organic production is imperative toreduce costs.”

Nam said development of organicagriculture was part of plans to restructure the agricultural sector toincrease value added and make it sustainable.

So organic agriculture wasbeing actively developed in 2020-30 with targets of having 1.5-2 percent of allagricultural lands under organic farming by 2025 and 2.5-3 percent by 2030,he said.

To accomplish these objectivesthere would be incentives for businesses and co-operatives to participate inorganic production and training to improve knowledge about organic farming, hesaid.

There would be efforts toimprove the professional capacity of local certifying organisations, headded./.