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Of over 9 tons salbutamol imported into Vietnam in 2015, only 10kg was used properly, the rest was mixed into livestock feed. The information was released by Mr. Phan Manh Thong -  Head of Unit 5, Environmental Crime Prevention Department (C49), Ministry of Public Security at the conference of reviewing peak period in food safety in agriculture. This conference was organized on 3^rd of March in Hanoi.

“High volume, low price” situation and market for agricultural products are inherent difficulties of farmers and it tends to be worse. However, changing farmers ‘habit in agricultural production in the context of integration is still a challenges for themselves as well as local authorities. As usual, when it comes to main harvest season, farmers growing watermelons in Gia Lai in particular and other provinces in general struggle to sell their products. While this situation hasn’t had solutions yet, recently thousands tons of watermelons in Gia Lai Province piles up.

This 85m2 public structure in Japan uses the light, air and water of its surroundings to grow local produce, from adzuki beans to watermelons. The project, a collaboration between graduate students from UC Berkeley and Japanese architecture firm Kengo Kuma, brings West-Coast style to Hokkaido. "Where the architectural approach comes from is not important if it can reduce the environmental cost," says team leader Hsiu Wei Chang.

The member states of Asean have taken a major step forward in pledging to work across various government ministries to improve nutrition at national level. An Asean consultation convened jointly by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Asean secretariat was announced last week. The consultation, involving Ministries of Agriculture, Health, Rural Development, Planning and Social Welfare, is focusing on food security and nutrition to address all forms of malnutrition.

Millions of Vietnamese farmers are facing major crop losses due to severe drought and an alarming intrusion of salt water into vast areas of agricultural land in the Mekong Delta. The situation is so urgent that the government has organized a meeting with relevant ministries and leaders of all Mekong Delta provinces on Monday to discuss solutions.

DONG NAI (VNS) — While pepper trees are promising a bumper crop this year, farmers in the southern province of Dong Nai are worried about harvesting the trees in time due to a shortage of labourers, local authorities said. Le Thi Hiep, head of Xuan Loc District's Agriculture and Rural Development, said pepper growers found it difficult to hire a large number of people to reap the pepper fruits. As many as 1,800ha out of 3,000 ha of pepper trees were waiting for harvest, she said.

NEW ORLEANS, U.S - A coalition of major farm organizations, commodity groups and agriculture technology providers (ATPs) debuted a tool designed to help farmers understand how their data will be used when they adopt precision agriculture technologies. New technologies and products are constantly entering the marketplace and generating millions of bits of data about farmers' fields, crops and equipment. A recent survey found that an overwhelming number of farmers do not know what happens to their data when they use these new technologies.

WHO’S IN CHARGE Hoang “Bill” Nguyen and his wife, Ha, started Pho 88 16 years ago. His father, a former soldier in the South Vietnamese army, was imprisoned for 10 years after the Vietnam War ended. With US help, he emigrated with his family and settled in Brighton. After five years as a waiter at the Brighton eatery Pho Pasteur, Nguyen saw an advertisement for the sale of a small Vietnamese restaurant in Lowell. He decided to take the plunge to become a restaurant owner, and so Pho 88 was born.

One remarkable thing about agriculture in Vietnam is that when they see the potential of one crop, they really get into it in a big way. Just like the dragon fruit farms in Long An province that we visited recently. Michael Nguyen Dinh Le, a businessman who is into investments and finance, brought us to the community where no less than 800 hectares were planted with dragon fruits, several years back. He explained that the place used to be devoted to rice. But a feasibility study made by experts convinced farmers to shift to dragon

Cultural aspects related to coffee-making and drinking, with emphasis on various distinctive tastes, are among the highlights of 'My Coffee My Identity' festival at Katara, the Cultural Village Foundation. Open to the public until Monday, from 10am to 10pm at Katara beach, the unique exhibition has been attracting a substantial turnout of visitors since it opened on Thursday. The cultural departments of 12 embassies have put up stands at the event displaying varieties of coffee and related products from their countries. There are 30 other stalls by a similar number of companies.

Coffee production, concentrated in just a handful of countries around the world, is feeling the squeeze of increasingly erratic weather patterns. Colombia, Vietnam, and parts of Brazil—among other coffee producers from Africa to Asia—have had dry weather since late last year, and in some instances the worst drought in decades, largely thanks to the weather phenomenon known as El Niño, which causes ocean temperatures to rise and upends weather patterns around the world. Although El Niño is expected to peter out in the first half of this year, the damage to coffee crops is just beginning to be quantified.

Israeli farmers work the land not just as a source of income, it is their connection to the land of their ancestors. The ministers of finance and agriculture have promised to lower the price of produce before the holidays, among other things by importing cheaper crops to encourage competition. The agriculture minister's position gets support, among others, from the Kohelet Policy Forum, which represents right-wing economic policies imported from the Americans.

HA NOI — The agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors are forecasted to face a shortage of 3.2million trained workers in 2020, labour experts said. The prediction follows human resources development planning adopted by the Prime Minister from 2011-20. It set a goal for the number of skilled labourers in agriculture, forestry and fishery to account for 50 per cent of the sectors' workers in 2020 compared to only 15.5 per cent in 2010. 

HCM CITY — Technological advances in food, drink and pharmaceutical processing and packaging made by leading global brands are on show at the 2016 Propak Vietnam which opened yesterday in HCM City. Germany, the world leader in processing and packaging equipment and technologies, has 16 companies at the German pavilion besides 25 independent exhibitors specialising in material handling systems; machinery for food and meat processing, bakeries, and packaging; automation and printing technologies; and components and other auxiliary equipment.

Despite difficulties, Vietnam’s rice exports have remained stable over the last few years thanks to low prices. However, this advantage may not help in the future as the world market has seen major changes. According to VFA, Vietnam exported nearly 500,000 tons of rice in January 2016, an increase of 56 percent in quantity and 46 percent in value.  The increase was explained by higher demand from the Philippines and Indonesia which had a serious drought and needed to buy rice for stockpile.

Vietnam's domestic coffee sales have picked up on higher prices, boosted by foreign buying demand and possible damage from dry weather, but the price gain could be short-lived, traders said on Tuesday. May robusta coffee settled up 3.4 percent at $1,413 per tonne on Monday, gaining for a second day in a row.  The increase raised robustas to 30,900-31,200 dong ($1.39-$1.40) per kg in Daklak, Vietnam's top growing province, from 30,700-31,100 a week ago, leading to more purchases by Vietnamese firms.