Vietnam, explained.
Vietnam’s agricultural, forestry, and fishery exports exceeded US$70 billion in 2025: The Hon Thom Cable Car on 19 March 2026 in Phu Quoc, Vietnam (Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
The harder task is making the data work across borders.
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Beyond the QR code: Vietnam’s push for traceable agricultural exportsBeyond the QR code: Vietnam’s push for traceable agricultural exports
A QR code on a bag of Vietnamese coffee may look like a small technological addition. But it points to a bigger question: how can Vietnam convince overseas buyers that its agricultural products are safe, reliable, and sustainably produced?
For an export-oriented agricultural economy (Opens in new window), credible traceability is becoming part of the answer.
Vietnam’s agricultural, forestry, and fishery exports (Opens in new window) exceeded US$70 billion in 2025, including more than US$8.5 billion in coffee and US$8.6 billion in fruit and vegetables. Vietnam is now aiming (Opens in new window) for US$100 billion in agro-forestry-fishery exports.
Getting there will require more than producing more. Vietnam will need to demonstrate where its products come from, how they were produced, and whether they meet the standards of overseas markets.
Vietnam’s major markets now want evidence about the origin and production of agricultural products.
For example, China (Opens in new window) has tightened requirements for growing-area and packing-facility registration, food safety, and traceability for imports such as durian. The EU (Opens in new window)‘s Deforestation Regulation, which begins applying to large and medium operators at the end of 2026, will require commodities entering its market to be demonstrably deforestation-free and legally produced.
Traceability is becoming part of market access.
Success should not only be measured by how many QR codes appear on Vietnamese products, but by whether buyers in Shanghai, Berlin, or Sydney trust what lies behind them.
Vietnam has responded. On 1 July 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment officially started operating its Agricultural Product Traceability System (Opens in new window), following a six-month pilot of durian. It uses international GS1 identification standards and QR-based digital links.
The rollout has been rapid. By mid-September 2026, over 800,000 products involving some 3,000 farming households and 207 businesses had been registered (Opens in new window) across 24 of Vietnam’s 34 provinces and cities. The government is now pushing ministries and localities to connect with the national system.
A QR code is an easy part. What matters is credible information (Opens in new window) behind it. A traceability system has international value only if buyers trust the information and their systems can use it.
The first challenge is data integrity. Vietnam’s agricultural supply chains involve millions of small farmers, cooperatives, traders, processors and exporters. Ensuring accurate and verifiable information will be difficult. Digitising unreliable data does not make it reliable.
The second challenge is whether Vietnam’s system can align with systems elsewhere. A national traceability platform that stops at the border will have limited value. Vietnam should therefore build around international standards wherever possible, allowing information to travel with products across borders.
Traceability could also help Vietnam demonstrate the environmental performance of its agricultural exports. Vietnam could gradually link traceability with credible environmental information, including water management and greenhouse gas emissions.
Rice is a good place to pilot. Vietnam’s one-million-hectare high-quality, low-emission rice (Opens in new window) program in the Mekong Delta is developing methods to measure, report and verify emission reductions, while Vietnam is exploring carbon finance for lower-emission rice.
Data showing where rice was grown, what inputs were used and how it was produced could also help demonstrate environmental performance. With credible methodologies and verification, such data may eventually support the measurement of agricultural emissions and emission reductions.
However, complicated digital requirements and certification costs can make it harder for smaller producers to participate. It will be crucial to keep the system simple and affordable.
The longer-term opportunity is to move beyond tracing a product’s origin towards showing how it was produced. An Australian buying a Vietnamese lychee could scan a code and verify its origin and whether it meets relevant standards.
Vietnam’s traceability system can help its exporters meet tougher market requirements. But its potential is greater than that. It could contribute to the infrastructure for a higher-value, lower-carbon agricultural economy (Opens in new window).
Success should not only be measured by how many QR codes appear on Vietnamese products, but also by whether buyers in Shanghai, Berlin, or Sydney trust what lies behind them.
If Vietnam gets the data right, makes its system work across borders, and gradually links traceability with credible environmental information, it could enable an genuine shift: from competing mainly on how much Vietnam exports to competing on what Vietnamese products can credibly demonstrate.
About the author
Thang Nam Do
Dr Thang Nam Do is a Fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.
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