Vietnam has weather conditions favorable to almost all species of flowers throughout the country. It has tropical weather in the south and sub-tropical in the north. It also has temperate climate favorable to flower plantations in certain areas like Sapa, Tam Dao, Bac Ha and Moc Chau in the North and Da Lat in the South. These are ideal places to import and domesticate new flower stems from temperate climate areas, to preserve and store flower genes and seeds. There are few countries in the world that have these advantages.

In 2001, Vietnam had an area of 8,802 ha of flowers and ornamental plants, earning a revenue of 291 billion VND, equivalent to 33 million VND/ha. Land allocated for flower and ornamental plant plantations is mainly in large urban area such as Hanoi with 1970 ha, Lam Dong 1,254 ha, Vinh Phuc 867 ha, Hai Phong 755 ha and Ho Chi Minh City 900 ha with a wide variety of flowers such as roses, chrysanthemums, gladiolus, carnations, gerberas, orchids, tuberose, lilium. Of these flower species roses, chrysanthemums, gladiolus and others occupied 35%, 25-30% and 20-25% respectively. The efficiency of flower plantations is 10 times as high as that of paddy cultivation, a major crop in Vietnam and 7-8 times as high as that of other staple crops. The total turnover of flower and ornamental plant sales was approximately 30-50 million USD alone in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The demand for flowers in Vietnam has been increasingly rising, especially on holidays and festivals. However the flower output has not yet been sufficient to satisfy the market demand, causing flowers to be very expensive on holidays and festivals and sellers still have to import several flower species from foreign countries.

According to recent statistics, the value of fresh flower sales reached only about 1USD/year/person whereas this figure is 16.6USD/year in developed countries such as the United States, Germany, Japan, Holland and Italy. Vietnam has a lot of potential to expand its market share of flowers and ornamental plants in the near future.

At present, the country has two main areas specialized in planting flowers for export. The first area is in the flower-specialized outskirts and industrial zones which represent around 78% of the land area with plenty of flowers. The majority of flowers is mainly supplied to domestic consumers. While a small quantity of flowers are exported to China and other countries such as Japan, Russia, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore.

The second area is an area specialized in rotational crops, namely vegetables and two different paddy crops. This production area has a high comparative advantage, harvest time and capability to expand the area but have no impacts on food security.

The flower production in Vietnam is mainly gathered in the Red River Delta, Da Lat City and in the Mekong Delta.

The Red River Delta with its four-season climate is well - suited to the plantation of flowers and ornamental plants. Flowers grow in all 11 provinces, meeting the demand for domestic consumption and export ( mainly to China). The land area for flowers and ornamental plants is mainly located in large urban areas such as Hai Duong, Hai Phong, Bac Ninh, Vinh Phuc, Thai Binh, Hung Yen and Ha Tay with variety of flower species. Out of these many flowers, chrysanthemums are the most popular, making up 35% of the total flower areas. Firstly, chrysanthemums are distributed as a large scale but mainly grown in Hanoi and Tay Tuu, the high-yield specialized zones where a single hectare of flowers brings in a revenue of 135-140 million VND and an income of 73-75 million VND. The expected flower production expansion is 5,400 ha with a turnover of 270.000 million VND by the year 2005, and 7.650 ha with a turnover of 339.750 million VND. Secondly, the land area for roses occupies about 32% of the flower areas which is mainly located in Me Linh district, Vinh Phuc province . The large and high-yield specialized zone can attain 195-200 million VND/year. Besides, gladiolus mainly grows in Dong Lam – Dong Hai, Hai Phong province, bringing in 110-115 million VND/ha/crop. Gerberas occupied around 10% of the areas mainly in Hanoi, especially in specialized area called Phu Thuong and Vinh Tuy, resulting in a turnover of 200-205 million VND/year. Furthermore, orchids have great economic potential, particularly new species like Phalaenopsis which for 5-7 flowers on only one twig have a value of 3.5 – 5 million VND or Vanda, Oncidium, Paphiopedium or Cymbidium which have a value of 1.5 – 2.0 million. Especially, orchids like Dai Chau (with about 5 twigs), and Dendrobium (with 7-10 twigs) that have a value of 3-4 million VND.

The Da lat flower-growing zone has no large natural land However, it is an ideal place for flower production in Vietnam. Having a temperate climate in a tropical country, Da Lat is considered as an agricultural area specialized in producing high-ranking flowers like chrysanthemums, roses, carnations, gladiolus, gerberas, liliums, orchids and new exotic flowers of a high quality. The area, productivity and types of cut flowers are 1.74 times as high as those planned from 1996 to 2000. Over 25.5 million cut flowers were harvested in 2000. By this time, the area of cut flowers had increased by 32%/year.

The flower-producing zone in the Mekong Delta has a hot and warm climate all year round and is very favorable to tropical flowers. Although Vietnam’s flower production, business and export emerged only 10 years ago, its favorable weather conditions and orchid imports from countries all over the world, Vietnam has selected more than 300 wild orchid species with high quality that are to be used for creating new orchid species. The movement to plant orchids is dramatically developing in Ho Chi Minh City where has favorable conditions for trade and production of tropical orchids like Dendrobium, Oncidium and perfumed flowers have a lot of economic benefits.

Besides these flower zones, cut flowers, flower potting, and ornamental plants in some large cities (including Ho Chi Minh City) has also had economic benefits, leading to developing ecological tourism in combination with horticulture.

Compared to regional and international countries, Vietnam with its favorable weather conditions has cut flowers such as chrysanthemums, roses, carnations, gladiolus, gerberas and lilium which all grow rapidly in winter, whereas these flowers must be planted in greenhouses due to freezing weather conditions in temperate countries, resulting in a higher price. Holland is a powerful flower exporter to nearly 80 nations all over the world. However, it is only able to export flower in summer, but in winter not only Holland but also Germany, Japan and France have to import a great volume of flowers from countries like Thailand, Colombia and Israel , which give an advantages to Asian countries (including Vietnam) in order in bringing their products to international markets.

Having realized the importance of Vietnam’s flower production sector, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has just submitted a project for vegetables, flowers and ornamental plant development by 2010 to the Government which aims to properly exploit and promote the strength of this sectors improving the economic efficiency of flower production, meet domestic demand and enhance export, generate job opportunities for nearly 5 million people and strive for an export turnover of one billion USD by the year 2010.

Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Ly,

Dr,Prof Nguyen Xuan Linh

(Flower and Ornamental Plant Centre - Institute of Agricultural Genetics)

SoHafarm awarded the title
of "Hero of labour" for a second time

This is the second time Sohafarm has been awarded the title of "Hero of Labour" and a first-class Order of Labour. Since then, Sohafarm has become one of the three main high-tech agricultural production zones in the country. Sohafarm is situated to the west of Can Tho city, 4 km away from highway 91A.

Sohafarm has developed dramatically thanks to loans from banks and savings extracted from various funds, and is not bound by subsidiary mechanisms. Sohafarm has completed the reclaimation of paddy fields, established hydraulics works, (including irrigation schemes in combination with complete transport system) mechanized agricultural production, transformed 100 percent of its land area of one-crop paddy into two-crop paddy with an annual yield of 60,000 tons rice, combined between more than 5,670 ha of paddy cultivation and 5,000 ha of marine aquaculture. The integrated model (Paddy field – Hilly field – Garden – Fishing pond – Cage) has been popularly adopted over recent years, creating an improved and sustainable life for over 2,800 farm households.

Sohafarm has been gradually mechanizing its agricultural production. All stages of paddy cultivation inclusive of cultivating, processing, trading and consuming have been mechanized (for instance, land reclaiming, seed scattering, water pumping, harvesting, drying, post–harvest preserving and processing for export.). Sohafarm has taken the lead in adopting seed-scattering machines, harvesting machines, dry methods and post-harvest technologies.

With respects to commercial animal husbandry, Sohafarm invested in an automatic feeding system in an attempt to reduce the workday and increase productivity. Sohafarm has especially applied techniques to process high quality forage crops in order to improve the efficient utilization of feed.

In terms of forestry development, Sohafarm has applied a scattered tree planting method to grow 5,000,000 eucalyptus trees which are to be supplied for construction and timber-processing sectors, making the best use of the land area along transport roads and hydraulic canals. This is an efficient economic model that has been popularized over neighboring areas.

Sohafarm has shifted its extensive farming methods into intensive methods in order to develop its fisheries, creating a large volume of raw materials for processing and the export industry.

Sohafarm has over 5,000 ha for fish farming. It is now planning commercial aquaculture farming (such as lobster and tilapia) and producing raw materials for marine-product processing factories. Besides this, the farm is planning to grow 150,000 Hoa Loc mango trees, custard-apple, guava and longan for the purpose of both fresh fruit and process fruit production. With the aforesaid integrated model, the farm household economy has developed efficiently, reaching up to 50,000,000 VND/ha/year in revenue. The farm has succeeded in diversifying its agriculture, forestry, animal raising in both a centralized and dispersed way; producing raw materials for the processing sector; bringing into full play its land potential and preserving the ecological environment in order to develop sustainable agriculture. Particularly, Sohafarm is concentrating on applying bio-technology, to produce clean products and establish fresh shrimp breeding farms.

The farm has a highly -developed infrastructure and has invested in the equipment and facilities needed to improve the agricultural product processing industry. Sohafarm has 10 food processing workshops, four agro-product processing and canning workshops, one marine product processing workshop and one timber-processing workshop. The farm has also developed and export and import trade which has improved its reputation with international partners.

The Sohafarm has combined agricultural production with processing industry. The value of the farms agricultural production has decreased from 90% in the past to only 10% and obtained a value 90% worth of processing industry and services. The turnover gained 200-300 billion VND in 1995. Now this figure is more than 1,000 billion VND. At the same time, the farm created employment for over 3,000 labourers inside and outside the farm.

Sohafarm places an emphasis on investing in material zones in order to supply to factories. For instance, it invested in planting ginger and coffee in Daklak; banana, rambutan and bamboo shoot in the east and in growing 5,000 ha of pineapples in Can Tho province.

The farm has cooperated with science research institutes like the Mekong Delta Rice Institute, Can Tho University and Agro-Forestry University in order to introduce advanced techniques into production, especially related to studies on seeds and agro-product processing technologies.

Sohafarm has taken the initiative in introducing its products to international markets by sending its staff to go on study tours in more than 30 countries. These study tours aim to conduct market research in potential markets such as America, Europe and Africa for the purpose of studying customers’ demands in various markets, then developing appropriate production strategies.

To attain the objective of developing an advanced model of agricultural production and modernizing and industrializing agricultural and rural areas, Sohafarm has formulated a series of sound policies targeted at staff, involved in the organization of training courses, attraction of talented employees, establishment of mass organizations and a free-of-charge education .

Sohafarm deserves to be noted as an exemplary example of a Vietnamese agricultural enterprise

Contact:

Director Tran Ngoc Suong

Sohafarm

Thoi Hung commune,

Co Do district, Can Tho city

Tel: 84-71690201

Fax: 84-71690200

Website:http//www.sohafarm.com

On 1 April 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced that the bird flu epidemic had been stamped out all over Vietnam.

The bird flu outbreak began in late December of the year 2003 on a poultry farm belonging to a Joint Stock Company in the Ha tay province. Then, the epidemic swept over the Mekong Delta. Since the outbreak, the epidemic has been controlled one month earlier than the target set by the Government. All 54 provinces managed to control the epidemic within the time limit of one month, thereby ensuring the safety of farmers and bird flu control workers, preserving poultry stock and rare and precious poultry breeds, providing an adequate supply of quality breeds and restoring production.

The Steering Committee on bird flu has promptly found solutions to stamp out the epidemic, protect stocks, control slaughter house, processing establishments, the transportation and consumption of poultry-originated products. The national veterinary system has taken a lot of responsibility for this work. Vietnam also took advantage of the mass media in order to raise people’s awareness and understanding of disease control and prevention while international organizations such as OIE, WHO, FAO provided assistance to Vietnam to conduct the analysis of the samples of bird flu viruses and provide information and facilities to battle against the disease.

Since the epidemic was completely stamped out over the entire country, production, circulation and consumption of poultry have been normalized. The country has continued to control and prevent the epidemic by cleaning and chlorinating the environment, avoiding reoccurrence of the epidemic. The slaughter was encouraged to be conducted in the same abattoir and meat products were sold at shops and super markets. The poultry raising sector was re-structured, including production re-planning, production control, food transport, high quality breed production and pest control. Vietnam continues to build its capacity for the veterinary system by improving its capability to diagnose, test, promptly discover diseases and produce veterinary medicines within the country.

The Government of Vietnam plans to support producers who lost poultry and destroyed with an estimated amount of 215 billion VND. On top of this, it provided 100 percent financial funds for disease control for producers who lost poultry and for stock-producing establishments. The country also imported breeds in an attempt to supply enough birds for production rehabilitation. The State shall support 50 percent and the province shall provide 50 percent. For provinces in a difficult financial situation, the State will provide further financial support.

MISPA is a project granted to the Informatic Centre (former Information Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development - ICARD), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of France, for information capacity building for agricultural policy formulation. In MISPA framework, a Study Fund has been established to finance technical and socio-economic researches that support decision making and agricultural policy formulation.

Agricultural policy making has direct impacts on the livelihood of over 50 million farmers of Viet Nam. Adequate and reliable agricultural information and good review of practical experiences are required for this process. The Study Fund gives the opportunities to conduct policy analysis and commodity studies and thus provides decision-makers with useful, reliable information for policy formulation.

The Study Fund also strengthens the role of ICARD as a resource centre on agriculture and rural development and reinforces the linkages between ICARD and its partners. With the research results attained, ICARD and other divisions of MARD will analyse the impacts of different policies on different stakeholders. This will be an important improvement in the policy making process.

This is really a special fund that has been seen rarely any where but already proved its effectiveness. Its procedures include four steps: (i) topics selection, (ii) writing of terms of reference, (iii) bidding offer evaluation, (iv) contracting, study implementation and monitoring, and (v) results presentation.

Over the last two years, 8 research topics had been selected:

1. Study of land exchange and accumulation practices in some provinces of the Red River Delta. Policy recommendations for encouraging land exchange and accumulation and improving land use in the Delta.

2. Study of competitiveness of sugar industry and socio-economic impact of restructuring measures in the context of international integration.

3. Study of competitiveness of dairy production in Viet Nam.

4. Study of competitiveness of the main raw materials for animal feed industry (corn, soybean...)

5. Analysis of competitiveness of Robusta coffee commodity chain in Viet Nam.

6. Study of the competitiveness of the main agricultural commodities of Vietnam in AFTA integration context.

7. Analysis of customers’ satisfaction to ICARD and MARD publications - recommeding solutions for improving the information service effectiveness of ICARD and others .

8. Building economic model to assess the policy impact of policy on improving the economic effectiveness of household economic restructuring in Mekong River Delta.

Until now, most of the first five researches in the first bidding round have been completed. Two of them were reported in the workshops and highly appreciated by concerned experts, researchers and policy-makers.

After a period of implementation, the Study Fund has showned its usefulness and effectiveness for policy making process. The Fund has attracted the interest of the MARD and many other individual and organisations.

One of the unique characteristics of the Fund is that it is the open fund to welcome the contribution of domestic and foreign donnors, agencies or individuals who interest in such kind of study fund.

1. Functions and Madates

Functions

The Informatics Center is a service sector unit under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), that addresses the functions of collecting, processing, providing information and applying informatic technology to support the MARD’s state management and the business and productive activities of the sector.

Principal Mandates

1. Applying and developing information technology, establishing the infrastructure of information technology to support the management and operation of MARD and production and business activities of the objects in the agriculture sector, including:

a) Identifying the need and implementing the Electronic- Government Sub-Program of MARD;

b) Participating in developing plans, projects and schemes relating information technology application and development, and handling the implementation when those are approved.

c) Establishing and operating the information network of agriculture and rural development sector.

d) Participating in the establishment and sectoral implementation of approved regulations of information and informatic system.

2. Organizing the exploitation of the sector’s main database and coordinating the implementation of statistic and report regulations to support management and operation; supporting production and business activities, development investment under MARD in compliance with the legal system.

3. Consulting and implementing information and informatic activities for the sector, including:

a) Collecting, analyzing and providing information for strategy and policy formulation, and state management of MARD.

b) Information for sectorial science research and technology development.

c) Information of trade promotion, market forecasting research for the products of agriculture, forestry, irrigation and rural industries.

d) Training of informatic speciality for staff from MARD or other units based on demand.

d ) Doing research to produce and provide softwares for sectorial operations obeying the in-effect regulation.

4. Organizing and managing the library for agriculture and rural development.

5. Managing of funds, estates and other assigned resources.

2. Structural Organization

1.Director and deputy directors

2. Specialistic Divisions

2.1 General Division

Organization, general planning, international cooperation;

-Finance;

-Administration, paper work and management of assets,

equipment and means of supporting ICARD’s activities

2.2 Information Analysis Division

-Collecting information, market research, strategic

information and policy analysis relating agriculture and rural development

-Editing the Strategic Bulletin for Leaders

-Setting up and managing market and policy database

-Setting up and managing economic analysis models

2.3 Publication Division

-Collecting, editing, designing, plate making, printing

and publishing specialistic bulletins

-Translating and plate making books on special subjects

and publications supporting the agricultural sector

-Establishing and managing specialistic technical database

2.4 Information Technology Division

-Administering the computer system of MARD, consulting

and supporting the sector in terms of information technology;

-Training on information technology applications,

supporting the establishment of local information and

commodity information networks;

-Editing and administering the website of Agroviet;

-Researching and developing software in support of the development of agriculture, forestry, irrigation and rural industries;

-Communicating through mass media, trade promotion

fairs and exhibitions.

2.5 Library

-Managing the library of MARD, supporting readers

-Establishing, managing and exploiting the database;

operating the electronic library

-Keeping and preserving science & technology research

and sectorial survey documents

2.6 Representative office in Ho Chi Minh City

Organizing activities of ICARD in southern region

3. Principal Services

-Training on information and informatics specialitiy;

-Providing information serving strategy and policy formulation, and economic forecast of the sector;

-Providing information regarding science, technology and environment;

-Providing market price information and forecast;

-Consulting and establishing local information systems;

-Consulting and developing application softwares;

-Consulting and establishing LAN and WAN;

-Consulting and designing websites;

-Editing, designing, plate making and printing bulletins, process and norm, and other sectorial documents;

-Providing and guiding searching of reference information, fulltext information, database on specific subjects. Copying and providing materials.

Address: 2 Ngoc Ha Str., Ba Dinh Dist., Hanoi

Tel: (84-4) 8234841

Fax: (84-4) 8230381