In the purple corn field of Quàng Văn Định’s family in Co Pao village, Thanh Nưa commune, the freshly harvested bags of corn were quickly purchased by traders right at the field for about VND 6,000/kg for unhusked corn. Nearly 800kg of corn from his family this year did not face a struggle to find buyers. As soon as the corn was picked, it was weighed, bagged, and taken away for consumption, providing the family with an additional stable source of income.

Định said that even before the corn reached the harvest period, many traders, enterprises, and cooperatives came to the field to place orders. However, depending on the intended use, the harvest time varies. For traders supplying the fresh corn market, they usually buy earlier, when the ears of corn are just full, plump, and still tender enough to be boiled and sold at markets and food stores. Meanwhile, processing enterprises and cooperatives often wait for the corn to mature and the kernels to become firm before harvesting to produce products such as crispy dried corn, cornmeal, and many other processed goods. According to Định, stable market demand makes purple corn quite easy to sell, with almost no worries about finding an outlet. “Whatever is planted is completely sold out; sometimes there is not even enough supply for customers,” Định shared.

Not only purple corn, but many pineapple areas in Na Sang commune and Mường Nhà commune are also experiencing quite favorable outlets. During the harvest season, traders from lowland provinces drive trucks directly into the production areas to make purchases.

The consumption reality of certain agricultural products shows that when products meet market demand and have stable purchasing connections, farmers feel more secure in investing in production. Post-harvest consumption pressure is also significantly reduced. However, not all agricultural products enjoy favorable and stable outlets like purple corn and pineapples. For many seasonal fruits, post-harvest consumption still relies mainly on small traders or farmers selling the products themselves. During the peak season, output increases rapidly while the shelf life is short, making the consumption pressure even greater.

In the middle of the sunny noon, on the sidewalk of National Highway 12 (the section near the provincial bus station), Sùng Thị Say from Cổng Trời village, Mường Tùng commune, was still sitting next to sacks of plums just transported down from the village. She poured the plums into small baskets to sell at retail to passersby. Say’s family grows quite a lot of plums. During the harvest season, the plums ripen en masse, but local consumption is insignificant. On days with a lot of goods, she packs them into sacks and sends them via passenger buses to the city, with the freight cost around VND 50,000/sack. After selling all the plums brought down, she returns to the village to pick more and then transports them down to continue selling. “Plums sold at the garden are only about VND 10,000/kg, but still, no one buys them. If I bring them down here to sell at retail, I can get about VND 25,000/kg. Even though the price is higher, it takes a lot of effort - from picking, bagging, and sending them by bus to the city, to sitting all day on the sidewalk to sell,” Say shared. She often rents a room in Điện Biên Phủ ward to sell plums. Sometimes she stays for nearly a week before going home.

Not only plums in Mường Tùng, but many types of plums in other localities such as Ham Xoong (Nà Bủng commune), Phiêng Ban (Nà Tấu)... are also currently sold by locals mainly through small-scale retail. Consumption depends heavily on roadside customers, small traders, or social media.

This reality shows that the outlets for many local agricultural products still lack stability and sustainability. Farmers mainly manage consumption on their own. For seasonal fruits, if not consumed promptly, they are very susceptible to price squeezing or quality degradation.

Many cooperatives and households today have paid more attention to improving product quality and changing production methods to meet market demand. However, one of the major difficulties remains the lack of long-term consumption linkages; the production scale is still small and fragmented; and post-harvest preservation and preliminary processing stages are still limited.

According to Trần Sỹ Quân, Deputy Head of the Sub-Department of Agriculture (Department of Agriculture and Environment), to improve the efficiency of post-harvest agricultural product consumption, specialized sectors have recently coordinated with localities to step up guiding farmers to organize production in association with market demand; supporting brand building, improving product quality, and strengthening agricultural product consumption connections. Functional sectors also encourage cooperatives and households to participate in production linkages, register planting area codes, and apply post-harvest preliminary processing and preservation techniques to improve product quality and reduce consumption pressure when agricultural products enter the concentrated harvest season. Establishing planting area codes also contributes to more convenient traceability, gradually affirming the brand of local agricultural products and building trust among consumers.

A stable outlet is always an important factor for sustainable agricultural development. Reality shows that, along with improving product quality, building brands, and expanding consumer markets, the formation of linkage chains from production to consumption is becoming an increasingly clear requirement for local agricultural products. As the post-harvest problem is gradually solved, agricultural products will be enhanced in value, simultaneously opening up opportunities for farmers to feel secure in investing in production, developing the economy, and step-by-step affirming their position in the market.