5 Years of New Rural Development Policy: Rural Development Slow and Unstable

As assessed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, after 5 years of implementing the Resolution, there are still some weaknesses in the agricultural sector. Growth rate has been showing signs of slowing down, from 3.79 percent in 2008 to 2.72 percent in 2012 and estimatedly 2.14 percent in 2013. Production structure has changed slowly. Income and livelihood of farmers is still low while the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. Competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products on the international market remains poor. Small - scale production and distributed facilities increase the risk of slowing down the mechanisation and industrialisation. Agricultural structure continues to base largely on farming, accounting for 72.1 percent while livestock only 26.5 percent. The quality of many agricultural products is low, plus the lack of food security raises social displeasure. Most exported agricultural products are in semi-processed form.

 

Despite all the difficulties, Minister Phat said that the introducing of Central Resolution 7 on three facets of agriculture has created excitement among the people, especially rural people, and became a mass movement in the country. After five years of implementation, the country’s agriculture, farmers and rural areas have produced positive changes and achieved important results. In the 2008-2013 period, the value of agricultural production had grown 4.6 percent/year, the added value estimated 3.28 percent/year. Over five years, rice production had increased more than five million tonnes (from 38.6 million to nearly 44 million); aquaculture production had also expanded from 4.6 million tonnes in 2008 to more than 5.7 million tonnes in 2012, 2013 is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes, with annual growth rate of 5.6 percent.

 

During the past five years, the agricultural sector has also innovated and built efficient forms of organisation, production and services in rural areas. Now there are 9,725 agricultural cooperatives, 20,603 farms with commodity value of more than VND90 million/farm; average income of VND44 million/farm/year.

 

The movement of building new rural areas has received widely support and soon spreading throughout the society. 75 communes have been recognised as meeting 19 criteria of new rural construction, equalled 7.87 criteria/commune on average.

 

According to Mr Tang Minh Loc, Director General of Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), the resolution provided the key to success for rural development programme. The project of agricultural restructure in association with rural development recently approved by the Prime Minister had assigned the agricultural sector with challenging and demanding tasks which cannot be failed. Currently, agricultural sector was focusing on research to work out some ideas to promote agricultural and rural development, at the same time continued to implement administrative reforms to improve the efficiency of state management for agriculture.

 

According to Minister Cao Duc Phat, the units of the Ministry would carry out two important tasks: agricultural restructure and new rural development. Mr Phat noted that it’s important for restructuring process to not only focus on economic efficiency but also the products’ quality and safety, the application of science and technology, to invest with target and prioritise key areas to motivate other areas and provide model for replication. The most important task in building a new rural life would be guiding farmers in expanding production and increasing income.