HCM City’s agro-forestry-fisheries value up in first three months hinh anh 1Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)
HCM City (VNA) - Ho Chi Minh City’s agro-forestry-fisheries value increased 1.65 percent year-on-year in the opening three months of the year, the municipal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has reported.

Cultivation grew 2.41 percent, aquaculture 1.8 percent, and animal husbandry 0.95 percent.

Pig and milch cow heads, however, fell year-on-year.

There are now 105,386 heads of cattle in the city, down 3 percent year-on-year. Of these, 51,329 are beef cattle, up 0.3 percent, and the remainder milch cows, down 6 percent. Pigs totalled 147,168 heads, down 9.1 percent.

The total output of aquatic products was estimated at 13,756 tonnes in the first three months, up 1.8 percent year-on-year. Of this, 7,902 tonnes were farmed, up 1.5 percent, while those caught totalled 5,854 tonnes, up 2.1 percent.

Regarding cultivation, the vegetable area was 5,508 ha, up 13.6 percent and with an output of 150,453 tonnes, up 9.6 percent.

Local companies exported some 76.9 tonnes of seeds, including 66.9 tonnes of vegetable seedss and 10 tonnes of rice seeds, down 31.2 percent year-on-year.

Since the beginning of this year, 137 cultivation establishments in the city with a total area of 309 ha and output of 35,905 tonnes per year received VietGAP certificates, raising the total number to 600 with 966 ha and annual output of 153,367 tonnes.

Director of the municipal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Dinh Minh Hiep said that, this year, the city’s agriculture sector strives to achieve gross regional domestic product (GRDP) growth of 2-2.5 percent and will grant VietGAP certificates to 76 percent of vegetable growing area.

In the near future, the city will step up its agriculture restructuring and instruct farmers, cooperatives, and businesses on how to develop key farm produce such as vegetables, flowers, milch cows, pigs, brackish-water shrimp, and ornamental fish, and adopt bio-technology to produce quality seedlings and breeding animals, towards turning the city into a hub of seedlings and breeding animals in the region./.
VNA