Ben Tre province lies in the upstream of the Mekong River and is divided by four river branches of Tien Giang, Ba Lai, Ham Luong and Co Chien and a long coastline stretching over 65 km. Due to its geographical division, the Ben Tre agricultural production is divided into three specific production regions: freshwater (for fruit growing), brackishwater (for coconut, rice and sugarcane cultivation) and saline water (for aquaculture). Presently, Ben Tre is an agriculture-based economy in which production value of agriculture - forestry - fishery account for 52 per cent of GDP. Agricultural land area makes up for about 77 per cent of natural land.
In the past years, Ben Tre province has effectively implemented reform policies to develop agriculture, farmers and rural areas. The provincial agriculture has been quickly and effectively commerce-oriented. The average growth of agriculture - forestry – fisher approximated 7 per cent per annum. The production value on a hectare unit of arable land increased from VND31 million to VND59 million in the period of 2001 - 2008. The aquiculture and gardening economy also have many positive changes. Husbandry accounts for a significantly increasing proportion in agricultural production. There has appropriately quite formed the concentrating production areas each region, to meet the increasing demand of raw materials for processing industry. The rural economy of the province has continually increased toward expanding industrialisation and modernisation. The socio-economic infrastructure is invested and the rural area has been given a higher facelift.
Especially, Ben Tre has implemented effective restructure of livestock and crops to better exploit the potentialities and advantages in each ecological region, increase productivity, sustain development and gradually form traditional industries in rural areas. The province concentrated on investing and exploiting effectively the gardening and aquiculture economies. In the agriculture - forestry – fishery sector, the agriculture proportion decreased from 69 per cent to 62.45 per cent, fishery rose from 30 per cent to 37.20 per cent, and forestry dropped from 1.3 per cent to the 0.45 per cent.
Along with measures to restructure cultivated crops and livestock toward higher commercial value and productivity to ensure the marketability of local products, Ben Tre province has also organized many activities to expand trade promotion activities and widen wholesale agricultural and fishing markets. Apart from measures to organise traditional markets, the province has also boosts relationships between trading companies and farmers. Also, Ben Tre encourages farmers to join career associations and implements measures to produce products of consistent quality.
With an agriculture-based economy, to develop agriculture, Ben Tre province is set a target to build a modern and sustainable agriculture to lay the ground for lifting up socio-economic development. The province is striving to reach a production value of agriculture, forestry, aquiculture increase at an average of 6 - 6.5 per cent per year, reduce the agricultural workforce to about 52 per cent of the entire provincial workforce, treble farmers’ incomes from the current, decrease the disparity in the level of development of material and spirit life between urban and rural areas.
To complete the target, Ben Tre province has focused on improving quality and productivity of agricultural production toward modern and sustainable production and on development of processing industry and services in rural areas. The province has also renovated and improved the quality of research activities, transfer and application of science and technology, human resource training, creating a breakthrough for agricultural modernisation and rural industrialisation.
Quoc Hung
Vietnamese
