Ca Mau promotes key agricultural products

Ca Mau  – The southernmost province of Ca Mau will promote its key agricultural products, especially collective brand names, to increase their value and competitiveness.

U Minh mangroves provide an ideal environment for honey bees, making honey a key product of Ca Mau province (Photo: VNA)

The province has 10 products granted collective brand names by the National Office of Intellectual Property. Most of the collective brand names of the key products are managed and used by agricultural co-operatives and farmer associations.

The province’s key products are favoured by consumers as they have high quality.

However, some key products have unstable outlets and low competitiveness as they are mostly produced on a small scale by households and small companies.

In recent years, Ca Mau has organised many trade fairs and product display sites to develop its key products.

It has worked with the departments of industry and trade of Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other provinces and cities to promote its products to large distributors and wholesale markets since 2016.

Last year, the province’s Department of Industry and Trade worked with five companies in Ca Mau City, Nam Can and Ngoc Hien districts to open six sites to display and sell the province’s key products.

Luu Van Quoc, deputy director of the department, said that producers find it difficult to sell their products, especially rice, banana and fish.

The department in cooperation with the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development would review the quantity, quality and models of key products, and instruct producers in procedures to ensure that their products meet conditions to supply large distributors.

The province would tighten promotion of the sales of products that have large quantities like rice, shrimp, crab and banana, he said.

Chau Cong Bang, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that cooperation from agricultural cooperatives was necessary to develop value chains for agricultural products.

This measure would secure outlets for farmers, provide quality products for companies, create favourable management condition for agencies and help consumers trace product origin, he said.

The province’s People’s Committee has instructed relevant departments and localities to improve protection of products that have been granted collective brand names.

Located in the Mekong delta bordering the sea, Ca Mau has great potential for developing agriculture, aquaculture, fish catching and seafood processing. The province is the country’s largest shrimp producer.

It has developed shrimp farming areas meeting domestic and international standards such as Vietnamese good agricultural practices (VietGAP), Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and best aquaculture practices (BAP). The province produces more than 530,000 tonnes of paddy and 1.57 million tonnes of aquatic species a year, according to the province’s People’s Committee.