Tu Xa Cooperative starts safe vegetables partnership with VinEco

At the start of 2017, Tu Xa Safe Vegetables Cooperative, one of VECO’s partners in Phu Tho province, started a new collaboration with VinEco on safe vegetables supply. This article introduces this new partnership and provides some insights into Tu Xa’s transition towardsbecoming a reliable business partner.

Tu Xa Cooperative is a young cooperative created in December 2015 with the support of Lam Thao district in Phu Tho province. It is composed of 57 member farmers cultivating safe vegetables on 3.5 hectares of land. Since early 2016, VECO has supported 26 farmers to set up and implement a Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) for safe vegetables using the Basic GAP standard, a simplified version of VietGAP that was official recognised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in July 2014. The Cooperative’s current production capacity is around 9-10 tons of vegetables/month in summer and 6-7 tons/month in winter.

VinEco – a member of VinGroup – joined the agricultural industry in 2015 and works with farms throughout Vietnam to ensure high quality and safety standards of fruits and vegetables to be sold in the VinMart supermarket network. In 2016, it launched a nationwide call to cooperatives, looking for safe vegetables suppliers.

After successful field inspections and lab tests, Tu Xa Cooperative and VinEco signed a contract in October 2016 outlining the basic terms and conditions of their relationship. Since then, Tu Xa Cooperative has been supplying VinEco with malabar spinach, aromatic luffa, gourd, bitter luffa and Chayote. The Cooperative also passed the safety test to supply coriander, Japanese luffa and spring onion but is currently missing adequate equipment to process and package them in accordance with VinEco’s standards. In the future, chili and tomatoes are also expected to be added to the growing list of supplied vegetables.

Shipments to VinEco take place three times a week, with each shipment containing approximately 300 kg of vegetables. This collaboration allows Tu Xa farmers to sell their produce at a much higher price: about 1,5 – 3 times higher than that on the local market. This in turn generates more profit, contributing to the improvement of farmers’ livelihoods and the development of the Cooperative’s operations

In 2016, VECO Vietnam and its partner Phu Tho Quality Assurance Department supported Tu Xa Cooperative in several ways, including:

• Introducing and implementing PGS as a quality assurance model, including the establishment of the required PGS governance structure;
• Training on safe vegetable production and processing, including on the use of plant protection substances ;
• Training on Basic GAP as a standard for PGS inspection and certification;
• Introduction to potential buyers in Viet Tri and Lam Thao and coaching on marketing
• Participation in Hung Vuong trade fair

Tu Xa’s Participatory Guarantee System plays a key role in ensuring that the vegetables supplied to VinEco meet food safety requirements. PGS is a quality assurance system that has been applied in about 70 countries in the world, mostly to certify organic products. In Tu Xa, the project adopts the PGS methodology to ensure the quality of safe vegetables for consumers and contribute to securing farmers’ livelihoods and income. It involves the active and transparent participation of many different stakeholders such as farmers, retailers, local government representatives and consumers in the monitoring and certification process. Internal and external inspections are frequent, including random inspections carried out by the local PGS coordination board. This makes PGS a trustworthy and reliable quality assurance system for consumers, as explained in the video below.

VECO’s support enabled Tu Xa’s farmers to be ready for their collaboration with VinEco. Nevertheless, some challenges remain in the field of processing, packaging and quality consistency as the cooperative is still young and constantly learning. PGS monitoring plays an important in identifying emerging issues and bringing them to the eyes of the cooperative’s board. To tackle these challenges, regular meetings are organized to find solutions, provide guidance and raise farmers’ awareness and capacity on good production, processing and packaging techniques.

The cooperative committed to buying all quality vegetables produced by its members at a fixed price, ensuring security of income for member farmers. As the vice-chairman of Tu Xa Cooperative, Mr. Nguyen Van Nghia, puts it: “The members of the Cooperative have become more active since they started working with VinEco. They have done so in a series of ways such as expanding their production, committing production area for certain crops, keeping logbooks up to date and improving processing and packaging.“

In 2017, the Cooperative expects to expand the cultivation area by one more hectare and to increase the number of member farmers. The Cooperative also recently completed its first production plan for summer vegetables, a good practice it intends to replicate in future seasons. Building experience and learning from VinEco’s professional working methods will create new opportunities for Tu Xa Cooperative to work with other companies and to establish itself as a strong and reliable business partner in the future.