Day after day soaked in sweat working the fields, orchards or farms, quietly trying to confront the bitter reality of good season bad price, loss season high price, Vietnamese farmers have been silently facing all difficulties to make the country a top agricultural exporter. Meanwhile, their own lives remain poor and full of difficulties.
Dr Dang Kim Son, Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (IPSARD), once lamented that the agricultural sector restructuring had been launched too late, it should have started since 2000, or at least since 2005.
Focus on farmers
That lateness had resulted in agriculture leaning too much in resource exploitation, taking advantage of chemical fertilizers to raise productivity, resulted in products of low quality, cheap price and limited added value; in the other words, fast but unsustainable growth.
After rising to growth peak in 2000, Vietnam's agriculture has been going down and killing our own potential. A visible outdatedness but the too-long struggle of policymakers to find solutions has made tens of millions of farmers had to strive and gamble with nature, all by themselves.
Professor Vo Tong Xuan, a scientist who dedicates his life for the development of agriculture and farmers, said during 38 years of living in peace and unity, farmers were not able to make much saving due to the low income of farming, be it the South, Central and North. The mind-set transition in agriculture was too slow at the state level, plus unrealistic planning, restrictive, rigid and vision-lacking agricultural investment regulations had driven farmers to make rash decisions in planting.
Agricultural restructuring – late better than never, is a big undertaking and determination from the government and agriculture sector, presenting the life-changing hope for millions of farmers. Farmers now have become an important factor, placed in the central position and role for the implementation of the agricultural restructuring and new rural construction. Speaking at an online conference on implementation of 2014 agricultural plan, recently held in Hanoi, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung affirmed that agricultural restructuring is reorganized production to raise added value, increase farmers’ income and narrow the development gap between rural and urban people. Agricultural restructuring must be connected with new countryside construction; these are two close links in socio-economic development, a key political task.
Prime Minister directed the agriculture sector and localities to invest in infrastructure for rural areas; to boost vocational training to cater for agricultural and economic restructuring; to effectively implement programmes and policies for agricultural and rural development and poverty reduction, rural living improving; to protect environment, preserve and promote cultural identity and traditions, customs and practices of Vietnamese villages.
Selecting breakthrough products
As a long-time and experienced leader of Vietnamese agricultural sector, Former Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan believed that agricultural restructuring should take farmers as the centre point to “develop a agriculture of high competitiveness which revolves around the axis of stable advantageous industries to benefit farmers and contributes to socio-economic development”.
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In 2013, total agricultural growth reached 2.67 percent, holding steady from 2.68 percent growth in 2012.
The production value of agriculture, forestry and fisheries was estimated at over VND800 trillion, an increase of 2.95 percent compared with 2012.
Rice production rose to 44 million tonnes, an increase of 338,000 tonnes compared to 2012; coffee production reached 934,500 tonnes, up 8.2 percent; tea production climbed to 935,000 tonnes, up 1.3 percent.
Total production of meat reached 4.33 million tonnes, up 1.5 percent.
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Going through crisis, it’s clearly that agriculture is the backbone of national economy. That’s why it’s crucial to start as soon as possible the restructuring of agricultural growth model. Dr Pham Kim Son emphasised the need of a new policy capable of motivating investment and management for agriculture; a need for institutional change to encourage a creative environment which helps promote activeness of farmers. He also made a quite bold statement that in order to have that environment, it’s unavoidable to face the conflict between the superstructure from the planned economy and the infrastructure has been developing rapidly. Therefore, the innovation of agricultural model needs to start from the basis to create mechanism breakthrough and attract investment.
Of the five major groups of restructure measures, the most potential solution, from the viewpoint of IPSARD, was to select strategic industries. It must be an organisation which has a business council (including farmers’ representatives, exporters, and processors). This council would make decisions on product and standards for their products. Participating farmers would be entitled to use the infrastructure and services in the industry chain. This chain industry is also a way to industrialise agriculture.
Restructuring to sustainably develop agriculture sector is the right way to repay “debts” with millions of farmers, said Dr Pham Kim Son.
Thanh Yen
Vietnamese
