HCM City (VNS/VNA) - It is timeto increase the production and use of organic fertilisers to foster organicfarming, according to the Vietnam Fertiliser Association.

Speaking at a national conference ondevelopment strategies for the organic fertiliser industry and organicagriculture in Ho Chi Minh City on October 13, Nguyen Hac Thuy, generalsecretary of the association, said: "Consumers around the world payincreasing attention to food safety and farm produce quality, while importingcountries scrupulously check imported agricultural produce, especially forresidues of plant protection chemicals, antibiotics, and heavy metal content.

“Many countries have shifted to organicagriculture to ensure sustainable agriculture, food safety and people’shealth.”

Vietnam’s agriculture has made greatstrides in recent decades, with productivity shooting up to not only meetdomestic but also export demand.

But its challenges are increasing in theform of natural disasters, saltwater intrusion, droughts, flooding and soilexhaustion due to overuse of fertilisers.

Luong Quoc Doan, Vice Chairman of the VietnamFarmers Association’s executive committee, said: “It is time for Vietnam’sagriculture to have new directions to enable it to develop more sustainably andefficiently, and organic agriculture, through eliminating the use of chemicalfertilisers and enhancing the use of organic ones, is among the new directions.

“Organic fertilisers are among theimportant factors in pushing Vietnam’s agriculture towards organic farming.

“But domestic supply of organic fertilisersis still very modest compared to demand.”

Thuy said Vietnam produced more than 1.2 milliontonnes of organic fertilisers a year, accounting for a tenth of totalfertiliser demand.

“Statistics provided by the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development reveal that the agricultural sector annuallyproduces around 40 million tonnes of straw, corn and sugarcane refuse and over25 million tonnes of animal and poultry waste, which are potentially rawmaterials for marking organic fertilizers, but for a long time we did not takeadvantage.”

"With such volumes of agriculturalby-products, we can produce 5-6 million tonnes of organic fertilisers," hesaid.

Using the agricultural by-products toproduce organic fertilisers would also help reduce pollution and improve soilfertility and farm produce quality, he added.

Doan said promoting the use of organicfertilisers remained difficult since to fertilise a similar area a largervolume of organic fertilisers is needed compared to chemical fertilisers,making transportation harder and costs higher.

Besides, their impact is not as quick asthat of chemical fertilisers, he said.

“Despite facing difficulties in developingthe organic fertiliser market, it is a vital trend and the Government shouldoffer support through appropriate policies and technologies,” Doan said.

Fertiliser management

At the conference, the Crop ProductionDepartment issued Decree No 108/2017/ND-CP on fertiliser management toencourage legitimate producers and eradicate fake products, a widespreadproblem.

Hoang Trung, head of the department, saidthe new decree was expected to address the shortcomings of the previous decree,in which many provisions have become outdated and not impracticable.

The new decree would improve oversight tocrack down on fraudulent companies, he said.

Under the former decree, both the Ministriesof Agriculture and Rural Development and Industry and Trade managedfertilisers, causing an overlap, he said.

"The new decree resolves this issuesince the agriculture ministry becomes the only agency in charge," hesaid.

The department also solicited contributionsfor a draft decree on dealing with violations in the fertiliser sector, whichenvisages increasing fines for certain violations.

The department would continue to seekfeedback from relevant agencies and businesses to complete the draft beforesending it to the Government for approval in December, Trung added.-VNA