K-agriculture technology takes root in Vietnam: silkworms and peanuts transformed

The silkworm rearing room at the Vietnam Sericulture Research Institute (VietSERI) in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Wednesday. [Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs joint press corps]

A soft, steady rustling filled the rearing room at the Vietnam Sericulture Research Institute (VietSERI) in Hanoi on Wednesday. Thousands of young silkworms gnawed through freshly picked mulberry leaves, the sound rising in waves as workers placed new cuttings from the surrounding mulberry fields onto the rearing shelves. The thumbnail-sized larvae burrowed into the leaves all at once.

Along one wall stood a Korean-style cocooning frame — known as a "silkworm apartment" — where silkworms climb on their own to spin their cocoons. Farmers harvest the cocoons before the moths emerge and reel the silk thread from them. Once silkworm eggs are distributed to farms, cocoon production takes roughly two weeks.

Vietnam is the world's fourth-largest silk producer, but a shortage of high-quality silkworm eggs and heavy dependence on Chinese imports have long constrained the industry's growth. The Korea Program on International Agriculture (KOPIA), an official development assistance initiative run by the Rural Development Administration, has been working with local research institutions to co-develop and disseminate tailored farming technology to address those problems. KOPIA now operates in 22 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America; Vietnam was the first country to host a KOPIA center overseas, opening its doors in 2009.

Since 2019, the KOPIA Vietnam Center has collaborated with local researchers to develop a new silkworm variety, VH2020, and build a silkworm-egg production system. The variety received official registration from the Vietnamese government in 2023. The simultaneous introduction of Korean-style multi-tier rearing facilities boosted output by 15 to 20 percent while cutting labor by 20 percent. The center now has the capacity to produce more than 10,000 boxes of silkworm eggs annually, and Vietnam's national self-sufficiency rate for silkworm eggs rose to 9 percent last year. The target is 13 percent by 2028.

A meeting room inside the Vietnam Sericulture Research Institute (VietSERI) on the outskirts of Hanoi, Vietnam, on Wednesday. [Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs joint press corps]

Le Hong Van, director of VietSERI, said sericulture is a long-established industry in Vietnam but had stagnated for some time. "Since KOPIA launched its project in 2019 and advanced technology was introduced, the industry has been growing rapidly," he said.

Jo Myeong-rae, director of the KOPIA Vietnam Center, said Vietnam's mulberry trees grow year-round, allowing 10 to 12 silkworm-rearing cycles annually — compared with about two cycles a year in South Korea. "A Korean technician developed VH2020, the first double-cross white silkworm variety, through hybridization, and we are using that as the foundation to raise the silkworm-egg self-sufficiency rate," he said.

Sericulture is only part of what KOPIA has achieved in Vietnam. Since the first overseas KOPIA center opened in Hanoi in 2009, the program has carried out more than 20 agricultural technology cooperation projects covering vegetables, sericulture and strawberries, among others. It is currently pursuing sericulture and peanuts as nationwide scale-up projects.

A standout achievement is the local introduction of Korean vegetable varieties. Working with the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VAAS), KOPIA conducted local adaptation trials on 256 Korean vegetable varieties and registered 11 varieties across seven crops — including napa cabbage, radish, lettuce and oriental melon — in Vietnam.

In Kim Duc village near Hanoi, farmers grow 7 hectares of Korean-variety napa cabbage, 1 hectare of radish and 1 hectare of lettuce under contract. In Hoa Binh province, the cultivation area for the "Dongha" radish variety has expanded to 15 to 20 hectares each year, generating income of 400 million to 500 million dong ($19,000 to $24,000) per hectare.

Heo Su-yeong, CEO of Dong A Vina, explains how peanuts produced through the KOPIA project are processed and sold at a peanut butter processing factory near Hanoi on Wednesday. [Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs joint press corps]

Korean technology has also sharpened the competitiveness of Vietnam's peanut sector. Since 2014, KOPIA has worked to improve productivity for peanuts — a leading cash crop in Vietnam's dry regions — by developing superior varieties and building a seed production system. The disease-resistant varieties TK10 and L20 lifted both productivity and farm income by more than 50 percent. In January, 11 Korean-made agricultural machines — including soil tillers, threshers and hullers — were introduced to pilot villages to support full mechanization of the cultivation process.

The technology KOPIA spread has extended beyond individual farms into private business. Peanuts grown from KOPIA's improved varieties now serve as the raw material for Tubon Nuts, the peanut butter brand of Dong A Vina, a South Korea-Vietnam joint venture. After using 30 metric tons of the peanuts last year, the company plans to increase that to 50 metric tons this year.

The peanut butter is sold domestically in Vietnam and, since June, some volume has begun to be exported to South Korea as well. "Exports account for more than 80 percent of sales, and we have secured price competitiveness roughly 20 percent below imported products," said Heo Su-yeong, CEO of Dong A Vina.

The Rural Development Administration described the Vietnam peanut case as an example of leveraging ODA project outcomes to build trust with the recipient country's government and local institutions, then channeling that into private-sector business on the ground. "It is significant in that the KOPIA project has gone beyond simple technology transfer to establish a public-private cooperation model," the agency said.

y2k@heraldcorp.com