VietNamNet Bridge – Foreigners are increasingly taking over traditionally Vietnamese business industries – and agriculture is no exception – thanks to their innovative approach and willingness to take risks, according to one expert.

Over the past decade, the emerging middle class in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and other metropolitan areas throughout Vietnam have become increasingly concerned about the safety of the food they eat.

Like consumers throughout the world, most of them are willing and can afford to pay higher prices for ‘clean foods’ organically grown without the harmful pesticide and other chemical residues so commonly associated with Vietnamese agriculture.

Unfortunately far too few Vietnamese farmers have responded to this new and profitable market opportunity, which has created an opening for foreigners to move in and corner the market.

Take the case of Shiokawa Minoru, 32, from Japan. After spending five years working for a Vietnamese farmer utilizing traditional farming methods, he decided to take the risk and strike out on his own.

In July 2010, he leased a 1,000 square-metre patch of arable land in the city of Buon Me Thuot in Dak Lak province and embarked on growing organic vegetables without an abundance of experience or money.

However, he hit the jackpot and fortuitously found that the demand for organic vegetable in the Japanese community residing in Ho Chi Minh City was exceptionally high. He quickly decided to hire Japanese interns to work with him.

By the end of 2011, he was not only up and running but was receiving orders for his organically grown vegetables from households throughout Ho Chi Minh City and began regular door to door delivery services.

Initially, Minoru’s profit margin was low and the meagre income he did manage to earn was ploughed right back into the business. Despite adversity, he stuck to his dream and has now managed to expand to 5,000 square metres producing 100kg of clean vegetables daily.

As one leading expert put it, Vietnamese are failing to rise to the occasion and tenaciously seize the moment in the organic food market, which in turn has given foreigners the opening to move in and corner it.

“Foreign business owners generally exhibit a greater propensity for risk taking,” the expert said.

Or take the case of two young Japanese farmers Masahito, 34, and Takaya Hanaoka, 35, who in 2012 started a joint venture in Lam Dong province, with a Vietnamese stakeholder in the Lac Duong district.

Following traditional Japanese methods of farming they learned growing up in Kawakami Mura village, the joint venture rapidly grew to producing 13 varieties of vegetables on a 5,000 square metre farm.

Their An Phu Lacue brand of vegetables started in 2012 and in just under three short years is now one of the more popular brands sold in supermarkets throughout the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area.   

It’s not only Japanese people who are taking over the agriculture industry in Vietnam but many Overseas Vietnamese (OVs) who have lived in European countries have also returned to the motherland to pursue a career in agriculture.

Nghiem Van Minh, an OV resident of France, recently decided to return to Da Lat to start-up a high-tech agriculture farm growing strawberries and has had a great degree of success.

In addition to producing high yield and quality berries, Minh is now also growing melons on a 3,000 square metre strip of land.

Today, many companies from Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland have surveyed the market and expressed an interest in pursuing agriculture, especially in Da Lat City and the surrounding region.

The trend in foreigners taking over the agriculture market sees no sign of receding according to experts, and it’s possible, if not likely, to imagine that foreign business owners will in the future represent a stable, dominant component of Vietnam agriculture.

VOV