Knocking down EU-Vietnam fruit and veggie trade barriers

The deal is expected to initially take effect in late 2017 or early 2018 with a phased-in transition period eliminating EU duties on imports from Vietnam over a seven-year period, says the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

Speaking at recent industry conference, Hoang Trung, head of MARD’s Plant Protection Department, said historically, the nation’s major exports to the EU have included telephones, electronic goods, footwear, clothing, coffee, rice, seafood and furniture.

Agriculture exports in general have been inconsequential, said Mr Trung, primarily due to the high transport costs and food safety concerns for sanitary and phytosanitary— bacterial contaminants and pesticides.

Inappropriate agricultural practices in production, harvesting, handling and storage have led to serious phytosanitary issues – making it difficult for fruit and veggies grown in the nation to pass the strict quality tests of the EU.

With the passage of the EU trade deal, the economy’s 28 member countries, however, are now highly lucrative, well-guarded markets for which Vietnam agriculture must devise an effective strategy for cracking into, said Mr Trung.

The trade pact allows sufficient time to adapt industry practices so that all stakeholders including smallholder farmers, retailers, haulers, storage operators, exporters and others can benefit.

It is for this reason that the challenges facing these two segments of agriculture need to be tackled with some urgency, said Mr Trung.

He cited the huge potential to provide not only higher levels of employment to the people, especially the youth, but emphasized higher incomes to farmers and the benefits of bringing in more foreign exchange to the economy as a whole.

It is in the light of these benefits, the nation need focus its efforts on collaboration between the public, social and private sectors towards promoting research and other cooperation efforts to improve these segments of the economy and overcome production challenges.

One of the overarching goals is to address research gaps and find innovative, practical, appropriate solutions to problems affecting the segments’ growth, said Mr Trung.

The mission should be to establish sustainable and internationally competitive industry segments that contribute to inclusive economic growth, driven by a strong belief in the health and quality of fruit and vegetables from Vietnam.

If we are to accomplish this end, he said, it must be accompanied with a genuine desire to help agriculture at all levels find new and novel ways of doing business and advance the use of research as a vital tool.

The current challenges – phytosanitary, soil and climate change – could be reduced, if researchers and key players in agriculture agree to collaborate and make a solid commitment to change.

The commitment means stakeholders in the agriculture fruit and vegetable segments, in particular, must radically move away from the old ways of doing things and make their outputs readily transparent to the people.

Access to new scientific information and innovations by farmers and other actors in agriculture is the only way to tackle key challenges facing production for both the domestic and export markets, said Mr Trung.

It must not be lost on anybody that fruit and vegetable production is mainly undertaken by smallholder farmers, the majority of whom are illiterate or semi-illiterate.

It is therefore important that researchers adopt better ways to communicate new scientific knowledge and innovations on post-harvest, storage, pest control, application of chemicals and others, which all impact the quality of the end product.