Consecutive challenges
In 2025, the world situation will continue to develop complicatedly as trade tensions increase, along with higher requirements for traceability, food safety regulations in agricultural exports... affecting economic growth and development. In addition, natural disasters and extreme weather occurred widely in the US, China, India... strongly affecting commodity prices and world food security, increasing the price of input materials for agricultural, forestry and fishery production and trade.
In the country, natural disasters, extreme weather develop abnormally, prolonged heavy rain causes floods, flash floods, and landslides on a large scale, threatening agricultural production, aquaculture and people's livelihoods.
In that context, the agricultural sector still maintains its pillars. As of the end of November, the whole country has planted more than 7.1 million hectares of rice; the harvested area reached nearly 6.95 million hectares with an output of more than 42.5 million tons - maintaining domestic supply, while creating room for export.
In mid-2025, the outbreak of African swine fever caused significant damage in localities. Up to now, pig farming is gradually recovering, although the speed is still slow due to the impact of storms, floods and cautious behavior in herding. There was a time when the price of live pigs dropped very low to below the mark of 50,000 VND/kg, but has increased again due to high demand at the end of the year. It is estimated that by the end of November 2025, the country's pigs will increase by 0.3% compared to the same period last year and the poultry will increase by 2.8%.
Seafood maintained an increase of 2.9%, while shrimp increased by 5.5%, showing good rebound of key farming areas. However, fluctuations in marine weather and high technical standards have caused mining output to decrease compared to the same period. Meanwhile, forestry is at a disadvantage due to natural disasters, causing the rate of afforestation in some localities to slow down. Exploited wood output in November reached 22.9 million cubic meters, up 6.8%.
Exports increase sharply, market expands
In the first 11 months of 2025, agricultural, forestry and fishery export turnover reached 64.01 billion USD, up 12.6%. This is a significant increase in the context of escalating trade war and tightening tariff and standards barriers. This increase has helped the agricultural sector get closer to the set target of 65 - 67 billion USD and can reach a new mark of 70 billion USD.
Key product groups such as coffee, vegetables, wood, and seafood all have impressive figures such as coffee setting a record with an export value of 7.88 billion USD; vegetables and fruits reaching 7.91 billion USD; wood and wood products exceeding 15 billion USD...
The most obvious bright spot of Vietnamese agricultural products in 2025 is the shift from selling " quantity" to selling "quality". Coffee export prices increased by nearly 40%, cashews increased by only 4% in volume but increased by 19.5% in value. In particular, pepper export prices increased by 23.3% in value while decreased by 5.5% in output.
The export market also made a significant step forward with the market share of the European market increasing by 34.8% - a rare increase in recent years, Africa increasing by 77.3%. China, the US, and Japan are still the three largest markets and all recorded growth. This reflects the efforts of Vietnamese enterprises to diversify the market in addition to traditional markets.
However, in the general picture in 2025, besides the bright spots, there are still dark grams. Rice used to be considered a "shield" to food security but has reduced both output and export value. Adjusted world prices, competition from India and Thailand, and increased transportation costs put Vietnamese rice under great pressure. This is also a reminder that Vietnam's advantage in this group of goods is no longer absolute as before and needs to change towards increasing value, not just increasing output.
Some other industries are still under pressure from technical barriers and green standards. At the beginning of the year, the fruit and vegetable industry was in trouble, recording a sharp decline when China tightened durian inspection. Despite the drastic intervention of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the export value of durian has gradually recovered, but it is still a warning for the development of "hot" growing industries. In addition, great dependence on a few key markets also poses risks as geopolitical and trade developments become increasingly unpredictable.
"As of November, we can confirm that we will achieve the export target in 2025. It can be said that, along with the direction of the Party and the State and the continuous efforts, the entire agricultural sector has achieved very positive results. These results also put the entire industry at the finish line, ending the period of 2021 - 2025 with many difficulties to create a foundation towards the period of 2026 - 2030", Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Phung Duc Tien emphasized.
With positive results, agriculture continues to affirm its supporting role of the economy. The signals of 2025 show that Vietnam's agriculture is entering a new, more stable and promising growth cycle.
