Vietnam, where demand for food safety is growing, especially among high-end retailers and Japanese exporters, is working to increase the transparency of production history for buyers with expertise from Japan.

Overview of the workshop held in Nghe An Province on July 15. Photos: JICA

As a matter of fact, farmers’ low awareness of food safety remains a big challenge and lessons from Japanese managers and businesses are necessary for farmers to change their mindset and behavior toward market-oriented production.

In the latest move, experts introduced how to manage cultivation records, an important step in safe crop cultivation in a workshop on Efficient Record Keeping System in agriculture held on July 15 by the Agribusiness Japan Desk (ABJD) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

This workshop conveyed the importance of record keeping, which is essential in the cultivation of safe crops, through presentations by Nafoods, Glico, and Kamereo.

Besides, a digital record keeping service developed by Nagase Vietnam and a local company was introduced at the workshop. The digital tool is expected not only to reduce the burden of recording work but also to directly improve farmers’ profit by reducing cost and improving product quality.

It is also expected to increase the transparency of production history for buyers, encouraging them to purchase farm produce with peace of mind.

Murooka Naomichi, Senior Representative, JICA Vietnam Office, delivers speech at the workshop.

ABJD was established with the support of JICA to provide technical support to MARD to promote Japanese investment in Vietnam’s agriculture and encourage technical support from Japan’s private sector in the field.

To date, ABJD has helped connect Japanese and Vietnamese businesses by matching business partners and clients and has helped both Japan and Vietnam to activate their agriculture-related businesses so that win-win development can be achieved. JICA is currently dispatching experts to ABJD through the technical cooperation of the "Advisor for Integrated Agriculture and Rural Development" project (September 2021 to September 2022).

JICA will further contribute to the development of the agricultural sector in Vietnam by supporting the enhancement of food safety, sales promotion, and expansion of sales channels.

Vietnam’s agricultural market is developing rapidly. However, although Vietnam's agricultural sector’s gross national product (GNP) is less than one-tenth of that of Japan, its agricultural workforce stood at 22.31 million while Japan’s was only 1.75 million, according to statistics in 2018. Vietnam’s cultivable area was 11.51 million hectares, approximately three times that of Japan, showing high potential for agricultural production and very high room for further development.