Vietnam: UNIDO promotes post-harvest excellence for mangoes

Mekong River Delta

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the People’s Committee of the Dong Thap province invited over 120 high-level participants from the public and private sector to discuss opportunities to strengthen the mango value chain, and to build a modern mango export system for Vietnam.

With a total area of 43,000 hectares and an output of 500,000 tons per year, mango is one of the key fruit trees in, and one of the main income sources of the Mekong Delta with high international potential in markets such as China, Japan, Korea and Russia. However, at 27 per cent, the post-harvest loss rate is very high.

Karl Schebesta from UNIDO introduced the Centre of Excellence approach to strengthen the mango value chain: “The centre offers appropriate models and upgraded technologies to improve the quality of agricultural products; to reduce post-harvest losses; and to improve the organizational and managerial production structure in rural areas.”

Located in the city of Cao Lanh in the Dong Thap province, the centre was set-up in close cooperation with Kim Nhung Company to also serve as a model for replication and upscaling. By working with the centre, the company improved its capacity from 15 – 20 tons per day to 60 tons per day. At the same time, the post-harvest loss rate at over 300 participating farms reduced to 50, 30 and now 15 per cent.

“All these are key elements allowing to increase the income while improving the livelihood of small-holder farmers and their families,” MARD’s Nguyen Minh Tien told europeansting.com, adding: “This proves that applying proper post-harvest technology along the value chain is the solution, which can be scaled-up and applied to other agro value chains, also in other provinces of Vietnam.”

Publication date: 6/26/2018

Source: www.freshplaza.com