Evaluating the Efficiency of Vegetable Production of Farm Households in Bac Ha District, Lao Cai Province

Bac Ha has a potential to develop vegetable production, but production efficiency is not high. The study aims to evaluate the efficiency and propose solutions to develop vegetable production for farmers in the district. The research was conducted through surveys of vegetable producers and in-depth interviews with vegetable managers and traders in the district. The study’s results show that there are three main vegetable production systems in the province, including the Vegetable-Vegetable production system; Temperate fruits - vegetables and rice - vegetables. In these production systems, off-season cabbage production provides a higher income than the production of other vegetables in all vegetable production systems. Other vegetables were mainly sold to consumers in the province, except off-season vegetables. The supply of off-season vegetables is often much lower than the demand both in and outside the province. The main difficulties of households in production include low awareness and capacity of vegetable production, limited access to markets, unstable consumption and price of vegetables, lack of input resources. The study proposes to implement solution to improve vegetable production capacity and market access, especially for indigenous and off-season vegetables to improve vegetable production efficiency in the district.