Circular Agriculture: Turning Garbage into Gold

​A group of scientists who are lecturers of the International University visited the cocoa garden at Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd (Dinh Quan). Photo by Binh Nguyen

Green production

The Cooperative Linking Production and Consumption of Organic Agricultural Products Thanh Binh, located in Trang Bom District is a pioneer in participating in the circular economy in the agricultural sector with the production model of dried banana peels for export. Previously, after harvesting bananas, farmers had to spend money to hire workers to cut down banana trees, now they can directly sell fresh banana trees or take the effort to separate banana peels and dry them to sell to cooperatives, earning tens of millions of VND per year. The dried banana peel products of the cooperative have been exported to Europe, Japan, etc. The banana fiber from the dried banana peel is the raw material for making many environmentally friendly handicrafts that are popular in the world market. The potential is still great. Mr. Ly Minh Hung, Director of The Cooperative Linking Production and Consumption of Organic Agricultural Products Thanh Binh said: “The cooperative is continuing to diversify processed products towards a closed processing process, leaving almost no part of the banana tree to help increase the value of this plant. This is the secret to help the cooperative remain stable and develop production during a difficult period due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic.

For many years, Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd (Dinh Quan District) has launched famous products with raw materials processed from agricultural wastes. The most unique product to mention is the specialty of cocoa wine, which is brewed from the flesh of the previous cocoa fruit, which was discarded during the production process. Cocoa pods are also milled and composted into reusable organic fertilizers for cocoa plantations. As a result, enterprises can greatly reduce the amount of waste released into the environment during production and processing.

In 2021, this enterprise cooperates with a group of scientists who are lecturers of the International University (Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City) to carry out research projects on processing foods and beverages with high quality and high economic value from cocoa waste products. New product lines under investment include: production of cookies and non-fried instant noodles with cocoa pod powder; production process of vegetarian sausage and pectin from cocoa powder; the production process of nutritious drink from cocoa fruit flesh, etc. The highlight of these products is the use of raw materials that are waste products such as fruit skin and cocoa fruit flesh to make valuable food which is nutritious and beneficial to human health.

Mr. Dang Truong Khanh, Director of Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd shared, The cooperation program between enterprises and scientists is part of the common goal of the enterprise, which is to focus on investing in deep processing and constantly diversifying products and foods processed from cocoa beans. In particular, high-value foods are processed from raw materials that are waste products in the production process, contributing to adding added value to the cocoa tree and contributing to environmental protection.

 Trends of the future

 

Model of organic fertilizer production from livestock waste in Xuan Loc New Rural District. Photo by Binh Nguyen

In many conferences and seminars on agriculture, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan always emphasized that restructuring the agricultural industry is not only about expanding one commodity or narrowing another, but also having to integrating values, bringing both local and global values; move from a single-disciplinary development thinking to a multi-disciplinary, multi-value integrated approach.

The above orientation has been effectively applied by farmers and businesses in the province. In order to help these models to continue to be replicated, it is necessary to synchronize support policies to create an ecosystem for circular agriculture to develop.

Huy Long An - My Binh Co., Ltd (Duc Hue District, Long An Province) is the first Vietnamese enterprise to export bananas with its own brand to large supermarket chains in Japan. To do this, from a dozen years ago, this business invested in farms growing hundreds of hectares of bananas in combination with raising thousands of cows under a closed process with fertilizers processed into organic fertilizers for plants; Banana stalks, after harvest, banana leaves are processed into animal feed. All agricultural wastes and by-products are utilized, so there is no waste to pollute the environment.

Talking about the circular economy associated with production recovery in the new situation, Mr. Vo Quan Huy, Director of Huy Long An Co., Ltd. who was honored as the "Banana King", "Shrimp King", "Cow King" of the country shared: agriculture will be difficult to reinvest quickly because all input costs increase too high. After the epidemic season, most people are still "stuck" with mortgage capital in banks. The epidemic also disrupted the mobilization of capital for farmers who wanted to reinvest. The State should deploy capital support in a new way to promote the recovery of production. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development must also quickly expand and train to improve quality, so that cooperatives have an important role as well as the ability to well organize planting areas, certify standards, and train members for traceability, consumption linkage, etc. so that agricultural products could meet export standards and have sustainable output.

Mr. Hoang Son Cong, Director of the Center for Startup Support and Technology Transfer of Vietnam's Retail Industry, is one of the members participating in the implementation of the "Vinh Cuu District Organic Agricultural Product Transparency Project" with many impressive agricultural start-up models in the province. According to Mr. Cong, farmers are currently under too much pressure, money for fertilizers, pesticides, land rent, labor and too many risks of pests and diseases etc. “We want to find a way to minimize input costs for them. Here, our first impact is to replace fertilizers and chemical pesticides with organic fertilizers and bio-medicines that farmers can make themselves at a low cost." In addition, farmers should have a perspective of bringing strong local agricultural products into processing, creating incomes 2 times, even many times higher. And in practice, many farmers and cooperatives have taken advantage of raw materials that are waste products and waste in local production such as: grapefruit peel jam, grapefruit peel tea, grapefruit essential oil, pomelo essential oil hair care, guava bud tea soaked in honey, hibiscus tea, etc.

This trend is also attracting the attention of young people. Dr. Le Ngoc Lieu, a lecturer in food technology from the International University, was the only Vietnamese lady to win the Green Talents Award for young talents of the Ministry of Education and Research of the Federal Republic of Germany with the research topic on renewable energy. In addition to her teaching job, this young lady is focusing on researching and taking advantage of waste sources of the agricultural industry to create environmental protection products with high added value.

Sharing the reason for choosing to follow this research direction, Dr. Le Ngoc Lieu compares that the agricultural industry generates a huge amount of waste products, which can be up to 70-80% of the total output. Discarded waste can have a great impact on the environment, while in itself contains a lot of valuable compounds. Some of her recent research projects are a collaboration with the University of Liege - Gembloux Argo-Bio Tech (Belgium) to take advantage of waste products from dragon fruit. The old dragon fruit branches are used to produce biofuel, in the production of biological packaging. She also joined a group of scientists from the International University in cooperation with Trong Duc Cocoa Co., Ltd. (Dinh Quan District) to deploy many research projects on food processing and products from fruit waste products of cocoa fruits.

According to this female scientist, currently, plastic packaging is an urgent environmental problem not only in Vietnam but around the world because it is not biodegradable but accumulates in the ground and in the ocean through hundreds, thousands of years. Therefore, developing biological packaging can help reduce the problem of environmental pollution. This is also a future trend because consumers today also increase their awareness of the environment, contributing to the direction of businesses to develop environmentally friendly products.

Binh Nguyen

According to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan, the agricultural sector must follow the trend of a circular economy, make use of agricultural wastes and by-products, and create more jobs in rural areas through the creation and development of new products. This is a testament to the implementation of the commitment of the Government of Vietnam to the world for sustainable development based on three pillars: Economy - Society - Environment.​