The Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh (center) visits VietGAP lychee growing areas in Hong Giang commune (Luc Ngan district).

Vice Chairman Thai briefed the delegates on a high flowering rate of 90 percent on this lychee season with an estimated output of 180,000 tonnes of fruits thanks to the favorable weather condition. Particularly, Luc Ngan district yields of about 90,000 tonnes, doubling the figure last year.

Several solutions have been carried out by the local authority in order to facilitate lychee consumption. Concretely, the province will organize the trade promotion conference in June, inviting leaders and businessmen from the provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi (China) while expanding further consumption channel to the domestic supermarkets.

Besides, the local authority has instructed the competent sectors to collaborate with Luc Ngan district for product origin traceability so as to meet the customers’ demand, of which focuses on the information on production procedure, package, product packing location among others. This year is the first time Luc Ngan district has mobilized the budget to support 50 percent for the cost of origin traceability stamp to the lychee consuming cooperatives and enterprises.

Because the province is facing to several difficulties in issuing and reissuing the VietGAP certificate for Luc Ngan lychee, the local authority proposed the MoARD to facilitate solving the obstacles and expanding the lychee consumption channel as well.

Duong Van Thai, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee addresses at the meeting.

After the field trip to Luc Ngan lychee orchards and listening to the plan of consuming promotion from the provincial People’s Committee, Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh highly evaluated the local effort and activeness. He expressed that MoARD will enhance to implement the measurements supporting the province in product quality improvement for the upcoming time, especially creating favor condition in the verification process to issue and re-issue VietGAP certificate to the qualified areas of lychee cultivation. Additionally, the MoARD’s specialized officer will be dispatched to quarantine the products at the growing areas, ensuring quick and smooth export conditions.

Deputy Minister Doanh urged the provincial People’s Committee to continue instructing the competent agencies to guide the farmers strictly following the VietGAP process in lychee care while the crop spreading technique should be applied to reduce the consumption pressure on the official season. The products should be distributed not only to the Northern provinces but also to the Central region.

Minh Linh