According to Mr. Nguyen Van Thu, Chairman of the Board of GC Food Joint Stock Company (GC Food), the full utilization of agricultural by-products to develop organic production depends heavily on the scale of production. With large farms of a few tens of hectares or more, they can proactively use agricultural by-products and build a circular economy model.

As in GC Food’s Sunshine and Wind Farm, there are areas for growing grapes, apples, etc. Each year the company organizes the pruning of old branches so that the tree can produce new branches for the new season. All grape branches, apple branches … are used as fodder for goats and sheep. The excess land, scarred tail, and land that is difficult to cultivate are used to grow elephant grass to feed cows. The manure source is used to raise earthworms or mixed with aloe vera leaves and bark to compost into organic fertilizer to form a closed model.

Each year at Sunny and Wind Farm an estimated 1,800 m3 of aloe vera leaves are not of good quality to be processed. This foliar source is used by the farm to use probiotics or mixed with cow and sheep manure to make organic fertilizer and then fertilize other crops like apples, guava, cantaloupe etc. thus helping to produce products. At the same time, this amount of organic fertilizer is also applied to the areas where grass is grown as fodder for cows.

By making full use of local agricultural by-products, the Sunny and Wind farm itself produces around 5,000 to 1,000 tons of organic fertilizer each year.

In addition, Sunshine and Wind Farm also works with many farmers in the area to buy more grass for cows, buy straw to compost vines and apple trees, or feed cows when needed and use them as a biological pad. This will help many farmers increase their income from agricultural by-products…

Using agricultural by-products for circular economy production for large companies like GC Food is now quite convenient thanks to their large and concentrated scale. However, at the household scale, it will be more difficult to apply the circular economy to the development of organic production, since it is difficult to shut down production. Farmers, for example, lack liquid manure to fertilize crops, but have too much straw or too much grass and don’t know what to do.

Therefore, Mr. Thu said that farmers must form cooperatives. At the cooperative level, full utilization of agricultural by-products by cooperative members will bring much higher efficiencies than households doing their own business.

Companies that bring together farmers in the region to supply agricultural by-products for companies are also a good solution to promote the application of circular economy in local organic production.

However, there are still production models where small farmers can successfully apply circular economy to organic production, typically the shrimp-rice model in the Mekong Delta.

dr Nguyen Cong Thanh, director of the Asia Organic Agriculture Research and Development Institute, said that since the shrimp-rice model has the character of a circular economy, farmers apply circular economy in the field in a simple and therefore significant way, reducing production costs and increasing profits than in intensive rice areas.

As a result, currently 8 coastal provinces of the Mekong Delta have shrimp and rice production, 6 provinces have areas that have received international organic certification. Therefore, the shrimp rice area is one of the places with the most favorable conditions to apply circular economy to organic production.