Winter-Spring crop 2023-2024: Focus on ensuring agricultural food safety

The conference is held in person and online with districts, towns, cities and relevant units.

According to a report from Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the area of Winter-Spring rice recently increased over the same period, the sowing area was estimated at 235,718.6 hectares, reaching 105.6% of the plan. The total cost of rice production in the Winter-Spring crop of 2023-2024 was from 22-25 million VND/hectares, profit was 22-36 million VND/hectares, about 5,000,000-15,000,000 VND/hectares higher than the Winter-Spring crop of 2022-2023. For annual crops such as vegetables, lotus, and corn, the planted area decreased over the same period due to the impact of high rice prices, farmers switched to growing rice. The area of perennial fruit trees such as jackfruit, pineapple, and durian increased over the same period.

The conference also implemented a plan to produce a number of crops in the Summer-Autumn and Fall-Winter crops in 2024, directing and guiding farmers to produce and protect crops to ensure that they meet and exceed the targets assigned by the province in 2024 (for the main rice crop, strive for the output to reach 2,950,000 tons), changing crop structure to suit production conditions; continuing to implement the High-tech Agricultural Development Project associated with restructuring the Agricultural sector to increase profits, improve efficiency and quality of agricultural products.

In the Winter-Spring crop 2023 - 2024, the dry yield is estimated to reach 66.41 quintals/hectares, output reaching 1,565,398 tons.

Also according to the report of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2023, quality management, food safety, processing and market development of agricultural, forestry and fishery products received attention from all levels of government.

During the year, the Provincial Agricultural Service Center and the Department of Crop Production, Plant Protection and Agricultural Product Quality Management posted 42 news and articles; 50 radio broadcasts; 81 conferences and seminars to disseminate and propagate laws on food safety, etc with 3,682 attendees; 16 training and guidance classes to improve community supervision capacity in implementing regulations on ensuring food safety in the agricultural sector with 980 attendees; 7 model tours; 30 sets of documents and 21,000 propaganda leaflets and safe production instructions. Thereby creating a clear change in people's awareness and responsibility when participating in the production and trading of safe agricultural materials and food for consumers.

In 2023, 960 samples were collected to test food safety criteria, resulting in 20/960 samples failing, accounting for 2.1% (a decrease of 4.39% compared to 2022). To date, 641 production and business establishments have been appraised. At the same time, Long An signed a commitment to produce safe products for 42,778 households. The total number of inspections was 814 times, the number of establishments handling violations was 115, and the total fine was more than 1.4 billion VND. In 2023, 8 warnings of food insecurity in export markets (China, USA, etc) have been received and investigated to take corrective measures.

At the conference, many delegates presents many contents related to the Winter-Spring, Summer-Autumn, Fall-Winter crops of 2024, ensuring food safety, improving the quality of agriculture, forestry and fishery products.

At the conference, delegates presented many contents such as hydrometeorological situation; solutions to reduce the amount of seeds, apply high-tech rice production and prepare to implement high-quality rice production projects associated with green growth; solutions to combat drought and saltwater intrusion; etc. At the same time, delegates proposed solutions to help strengthen food safety assurance and improve the quality of agriculture, forestry and fishery products.

Speaking at the conference, Member of Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of Provincial People's Committee - Nguyen Minh Lam acknowledged and appreciated the efforts and sense of responsibility of the Agriculture sector, provincial departments, branches and People's Committees of districts, towns and cities, achieving many positive results. At the same time, he suggested that in the coming time, relevant sectors must focus on drastic and synchronous directing from the province to the grassroots to achieve results according to the set targets, especially the growth target of primary sector in 2024 ( 2.0 - 2.5%) - a big challenge for the Agriculture industry.

Vice Chairman of Provincial People's Committee - Nguyen Minh Lam speaks at the conference

He also requested that the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development closely coordinate with provincial departments, branches and district-level People's Committees to direct the implementation of agricultural production solutions, regularly monitor and inspect the situation of local crop productin, strengthen the management and operation of irrigation works in accordance with the current drought and saltwater intrusion to minimize damage.

Relevant sectors must continue to coordinate well with relevant agencies to organize propaganda on the production and trading of quality and safe agricultural products and foods for public health and sustainable development; build propaganda and community monitoring models on food safety in new rural communes for dissemination and replication.

At the same time, they must inspect, detect and handle violations of agricultural materials trading, using and abusing of agricultural materials and agricultural products that do not ensure food safety and origin./.

By Staffs - Translated by Q. Thien

Source: https://baolongan.vn/vu-dong-xuan-2023-2024-can-quan-tam-cong-tac-bao-dam-an-toan-thuc-pham-nong-san-a173974.html