Tran Ban Hung This is not a new development for us. We have been rescuing agricultural products almost every year. Market glut is a normal situation in the country as farmers nationwide do not have a long-term production plan. However, I felt a little heartbroken when driving along the streets of Hanoi last week and seeing stalls selling farm produce at very low prices, like VND5,000 ($0.22) per kilo of carrot and VND3,500 per cauliflower, with notices asking people to "rescue" Hai Duong products. The director of the Hai Duong Department of Industry and Trade, Pham Thanh Hai, said there were thousands of hectares of onion, carrot, different types of vegetables, fish, chicken and eggs still in stock whose consumption "depended completely on neighboring localities." "All we can do now is to call the directors of industry-trade departments (in the neighboring localities) and ask them to send a message to their higher authorities for accepting products from Hai Duong," Hai said. Hai Duong is where one of the first cases of the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak was detected in late January. Since then, infections have risen to 681 in the northern province. A social distancing campaign began throughout the province on February 16. It was decided Monday that it would end on March 3. Amidst the Lunar New Year atmosphere, the most important festival in the country, many families in Hai Duong had to be placed under a lockdown, which meant their farm produce getting stuck because of "difficulties" in transportation. The thought strikes me: We have been fighting against the pandemic, yes, but in a way that we have also fought against the livelihoods of our people. People in central city of Da Nang "rescue" farm produce of Hai Duong in February 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong. Instead of letting each locality have its own policies to prevent and fight the pandemic, why don’t ministries and related agencies come up with an overall plan to …
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