An event to promote Sơn La agricultural products in Big C Thăng Long Hà Nội in July. — VNS Photo Mai Hương

HÀ NỘI — Hà Nội and 43 other provinces and cities nationwide have so far cooperated to build and develop 926 safe food supply chains, an increase of 140 chains compared to the 2015-20 period.

The news was released by Deputy Director of Hà Nội Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyễn Ngọc Sơn at a recent conference reviewing the performance of safe food, agricultural, forestry and fishery supply chains between Hà Nội and other provinces and cities in 2022 in order to further strengthen the coordination to build more safe food supply chains and strictly control the quality of agricultural products in the market.

According to Sơn, among the total of 926 chains, Hà Nội has 159, many of which are self-contained from production to distribution and consumption, so they have created strong brands in the market.

Some cities and provinces have developed many chains to bring their goods for consumption in Hà Nội, such as Sơn La with 144 chains, Hòa Bình with 65, Lào Cai with 53, Hưng Yên with 41, Đồng Tháp with 28, Lâm Đồng with 15, and Tiền Giang with 20.

According to Cầm Thị Phong, deputy director of the Sơn La Province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sơn La currently has 242 supply chains of safe agricultural, forestry and fishery products, of which 84 have provided about 7,200 tonnes of vegetables and fruits, and 290 tonnes of processed food for Hà Nội’s consumers.

The coordination between Sơn La Province and Hà Nội has helped Sơn La’s cooperatives stabilise the consumption market and map out its production plans according to the market demand, Phong said.

Meanwhile, Hoàng Văn Vương, a representative of the Trại Sơn Organic Agricultural Cooperative in the northern province of Hòa Bình, said the cooperative has signed a contract to supply vegetables for supermarket chains Winmart, BigC and clean vegetable stores in Hà Nội. On average, the cooperative harvests and sells 1-2 quintals of safe vegetables per day.

Bùi Thị Hạnh Hiếu, General Director of Bảo Minh Agricultural Products Processing and Trading Joint Stock Company – one of the companies that have implemented the cooperation between Hà Nội and cooperatives of other provinces and cities, said her company has cooperated on production with 24 provinces and cities across the country to process and trade 40 kinds of regional specialties, including rice and related-rice products. Bảo Minh currently has 9,000ha of organic production areas to supply the goods for partners.

To improve product quality, head of the Hà Nội Agro, Forestry and Fisheries Quality Assurance Sub-Department Nguyễn Thị Thu Hằng said in the first eight months of 2022, the sub-department tested 167 samples of agricultural, forestry and fishery products which were brought from other provinces and cities to Hà Nội for consumption. Of the total, 158 samples met standards, and nine were found violating food safety standards. For sub-standard samples, the sub-department promptly notified provinces and cities to trace the origin and handle violations.

According to Deputy General Director of BRG Retail Co., Ltd. Nguyễn Thùy Dương, in order to further promote the development of the chains, provinces, cities and Hà Nội need to do well in planning production areas and forming high-tech agricultural models to create conditions for enterprises and farmers to associate with each other and sign contracts for product consumption.

According to Director of Hà Nội Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Chu Phú Mỹ, the department will continue to focus on reviewing enterprises and cooperatives engaged in the production and consumption of agricultural products in order to build linkage chains that meet new requirements.

Besides, the department will also propose the capital city’s authorities to have policies to support the development of infrastructure, machines, equipment and agricultural processing factories for enterprises.

It will strengthen inspections and take samples for testing to supervise the products’ quality besides promoting the application of information technology in traceability and using QR codes to make product information transparent in the market.

According to Director of the Department of Quality Management of Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Nguyễn Như Tiệp, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has appreciated the drastic actions of Hà Nội's agriculture sector in implementing a project on agricultural restructuring associated with construction of new rural areas through developing agricultural product supply chains from production to consumption.

In the future, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will continually strengthen the direction, coordination with and support to provinces and cities in implementing the planning of production areas.

In addition, the ministry will also synchronously deploy programmes to transfer and apply new and high-tech advances to agricultural production besides building linkage chains to ensure a sufficient supply of safe food products to meet the needs of consumers throughout the country in general, and in Hà Nội in particular. — VNS