HÀ NỘI — The Hà Nội Promotion Agency (HPA) and Hòa Bình Province Department of Agriculture and Rural Development on Monday signed an agreement to promote the distribution of safe farm produce of Hòa Bình Province in the capital city.

Accordingly, HAP would provide support to farmers and enterprises in Hòa Bình to connect with distributors in Hà Nội as well as in enhancing quality of farm produce in the northern province.

Nguyễn Gia Phương, HPA’s Director, said that connecting with other provinces to supply agricultural products for Hà Nội was important as the capital city had huge demand and now had to buy around 50-60 per cent from other provinces.

HPA recently launched the website nongsangantoan.gov.vn to introduce safe agricultural products and connect producers, distributors and consumers.

Hòa Bình had huge demand for developing safe farm produce but the consumption in Hà Nội remained modest due to the lack of a distribution system. It was estimated that only around 20-30 per cent of farm produce in the province was sold in Hà Nội.

Vương Đắc Hùng, deputy director of Hòa Bình Province Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the northern province had major agricultural products such as orange, grapefruit, sugarcane, pork, chicken and fish.

Nearly 80 hectares for farm produce in the province had VietGap certificates.

However, Hùng said that finding distribution channels for Hòa Bình Province’s farm produce remained difficult. Price fluctuations also caused problems for farmers.

Hùng added that it was necessary for the province to develop large-scale farm production in association with distribution channels.

A representative from BigC supermarket said that farmers and producers in the province must focus on enhancing product quality and transparency in product origin to gain consumer trust.

Hòa Bình targeted to have 12,000 hectares of farming area for fruit with an output of 30,000 tonnes by 2020, together with 7.5 hectares for sugarcane cultivation with an output of 53,000 tonnes, 10,000 tonnes of fish and 5.2 million chickens. By 2025, the outputs were expected to increase by 30 per cent. — VNS