Safe fruit in the big city

Hanoi the capital worked with other provinces to hold “Safe Farm Produce Weeks” in the city, enabling its consumers to approach a diverse range of high quality, reasonably priced agricultural products from different provinces and cities.

Leaders of Son La Province and Hanoi visit booths at 489 Hoang Quoc Viet Street, Cau Giay District, Hanoi

The Quyet Tam Fruit Cooperative from the northern mountainous province of Son La is planting about 50ha of mango with an annual output of 600 tonnes of fruit. In 2018, the cooperative exported 40 tonnes of mango to Australia and China. This year, fresh fruits from Son La, including mango grown by the cooperative, were displayed at a safe farm produce week held in the Big C Thang Long Supermarket in Hanoi from May 17-21 and were highly welcomed by the capital’s consumers.

Vu Duc Thuan, Deputy Director of the Son La Province Department of Planning and Investment and Director of the Son La Province Investment Promotion Center said that during the safe farm produce week, farmers sold 30 tonnes of mango, 20 tonnes of longan and 20 tonnes of passion fruit and other products, earning revenues of VND3.5-4 billion. Son La farmers and businesses hope safe farm produce weeks will help them in particular and the province in general introduce to consumers of Hanoi and nearby provinces the province’s farm products, which meet food hygiene and safety standards and have Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGAP) and Global Good Agricultural Practices (GlobalGAP) certifications.

Products from not only Son La but also other provinces across the country have been promoted in Hanoi through trade promotion and supply-demand connection events, including the introduction of high quality oranges from Hoa Binh Province, special litchis from Bac Giang Province’s Luc Ngan District and high quality longan from Hung Yen Province.

From the second to the fourth quarter of 2019, the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade held trade exchange seminars in the city to connect producers and suppliers from different provinces and cities with distribution systems in the capital, facilitate localities’ development and promotion of potential products, and enable city consumers to access high quality, reasonably priced products.