Building Sustainable, Organic Agriculture for Tourism and Urbanization

8:06:16 AM | 20/5/2022

Da Nang City is focusing on restructuring agriculture, accelerating advanced tech application to production to raise productivity, quality and efficiency, and moving towards sustainable, ecological and organic agriculture for tourism and urbanization.

Outstanding achievements

Over the past time, the city adopted policies on development support in three key areas to create growth momentum: High-tech agriculture, organic and ecological agriculture; boosting offshore fishing development in association with fisheries logistics services; and forest protection and development linked to intensive afforestation for timber trees. In 2016-2020, the agricultural sector achieved an average annual GRDP growth of 3.1%, agricultural products were standardized to meet VietGAP standards and obtain OCOP product certification, such as Tuy Loan vegetables, Hoa Nhon Chinese onion, Afarm melon and Hoa Ninh green-skinned pomelo, and established some enterprises and cooperatives that played a typical role in agricultural production.

The plan of concentrated professional agricultural production and high-tech agricultural areas matched with the Da Nang master plan. In 2022, the city focuses on investing in two government-invested high-tech agricultural areas in Hoa Khuong, Hoa Phong and Hoa Phu. Rice production is strongly transformed into organic production. Organic vegetable, tuber and fruit production is developed with agricultural models for discovery tourism and ecological tourism.

In the city, there are also three concentrated aquaculture zones in Nam Thanh (8 ha), Phu Son 1 and 2 (12 ha) and Truong Dinh (35 ha). Besides, the city has Hoa Ninh green-skinned pomelo areas (10 ha), Hoa Bac sugarcane area (70 ha), Hoa Bac and Hoa Phu banana areas (30 ha), and Hoa Son and Hoa Ninh tea areas (20 ha). Mushroom production has been invested for product diversification, new product development and high economic value. Currently, Da Nang City has three production facilities for cordyceps mushrooms and preliminarily processes mushroom-related products like ganoderma lucidum, dried oyster mushrooms and freeze-dried original spirulina, helping urban agriculture development.

Inclusive and sustainable new rural development linked with urbanization

The fisheries sector has focused on developing commercial offshore fishing in line with protecting sovereignty of territorial waters, pursued innovative ship restructuring to expand the seagoing fleet, and developing modern fisheries in compliance with IUU regulations. The city has a fleet of 1,241 ships by the end of 2021, including 917 seafaring vessels with a length of 12m or more, accounting for 73.9%. The communication system smoothly links ships and the mainland. All boats have been updated into the national fishing vessel management database system, Vnfishbase, and built 129 fishing groups with 840 member ships. The city also completed upgrading the first phase of Tho Quang Fishing Port and prepared for its second-phase investment and concentrated on environmental sanitation to provide fisheries logistics services and move towards the formation of a regional trade and service center for fisheries.

To build an inclusive and sustainable new rural area associated with urbanization, by the end of 2021, Da Nang City had five out of 11 communes certified to meet advanced new rural development standards, 19 exemplary villages, and 36 standard gardens to form effective production models for rural economy in line with environmental protection.

The introduction of One Commune One Product (OCOP) Program has brought into full play internal resources of agricultural and rural economic development. By the end of 2021, the city had 40 OCOP products assigned 3-star class or higher, including 17 4-star products and 23 3-star products. The city also strengthened connectivity, fostered trade promotion, and supported certification of quality standards HACCP, ISO and VietGAP for OCOP products. It helped establish and operate five points of sale for OCOP products.

In 2021, due to COVID-19 epidemic impacts, the city’s agricultural GRDP shrank 2.38% from a year earlier. In 2022, the city directed high focus and effective adoption of response solutions to the COVID-19 epidemic, maintained and developed production and business, created a premise for successful achievement of socioeconomic development tasks.

Decision 12/QD-SNN dated January 13, 2022 of the Da Nang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development stated the agricultural theme in 2022: “The year of organic, ecological and circular agricultural development to ensure safe adaptation, sustainable development and growth of Da Nang agriculture”. The agricultural sector had to restore production to create a driving force for economic growth and agricultural and rural development in the year, enabling the sector to restructure production to integrate multi-value, speed up advanced tech application, ensure food safety, protect the environment, and adapt to climate change. In addition, the city developed high-tech, organic and ecological agricultural products linked to the OCOP Program for tourism. The agricultural sector researched and proposed plans to invest in two hi-tech agricultural areas in Hoa Vang district to enable enterprises to invest in and develop hi-tech agriculture and organic, ecological agriculture.

By Vietnam Business Forum