Prime Minister: 'Farmer must be center, rural is foundation and agriculture is impetus'

Prime Minister stressed the idea in a working session with the leaders of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on implementing regular, key, and urgent tasks of the sectors in the coming time, settling some questions and proposals from the sector as a pedestal of the economy on May 19.

The working session also saw the attendance of Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh and Minister-Chairman of Government Office Tran Van Son.

The meeting started with MARD’s report on the working result of the previous term and the first four months of the year as well as what experience to be learned to “move from the passive to the active status, actively handling problems” as the Prime Minister was quoted saying.

“Over the past five years, the Ministry has completed a huge amount of workload”, Minister of MARD Le Minh Hoan report. The ministry also proposed other competent agencies issue or directly issued 272 legal documents. Newly building and synchronously completing 7 development strategies for the whole industry, sub-sectors, and fields.

By the end of 2020, and the whole term of 2016-2020, there have been 15/15  key goals have been achieved or exceeded to set targets. The highlight should be the GDP growth rate of the sector in the past five years reached 2.62% per year while that of 2020 increased to 2.68%; the total export turnover in 5 years was more than US$190 billion, while that of 2020 was US$ 41.53 billion.

The forest cover rate in 2020 reached 42%, slightly higher than the rate of 40.7% in 2015. By the end of 2020, there were over 62% of communes meet new rural standards, far exceeding the target of 50%. The income of rural residents reached VND 43 million per person, up 1.92 times against that of 2015.

However, the Minister said that the development process still existed some unsustainable factors, the growth was unstable; some internal weaknesses hindered the industry to meet the requirements of the centralized, large-scale, and high-standard commodity production from the international market.

The industry needs to handle the aforementioned bottlenecks and obstacles in some fields including the organizational structure of the regional administrative apparatus; legal provisions on the conversion of forest land use purposes; several mechanisms, policies, and regulations on agriculture and rural areas were no longer consistent with reality and need to be amended and supplemented among others.

Developing cooperative economy and co-operative are vital

MARD Minister pointed out long-standing challenges, which have been considered bottlenecks namely the fragmentation, spontaneity, and scattering in agricultural production. As a result, the development of a cooperative economy and co-operative are vital and would be regarded as the foundation for the industry to overcome those chokepoints.

By 2025, the GDP growth rate of the whole industry is expected to increase from 2.5 to 3%, the export turnover grows from US$ 40 to 50 billion. To achieve such a goal, the Minister stressed that the industry must determine to create strong move including transforming the growth model, from  “agriculture production” to “agriculture economy”, from “agricultural supply chain" to "product value chain", “high-tech, ecological, responsible, sustainable agriculture” instead of “high-quality agriculture” among others.

Together with developing export markets, the domestic one with a consumption capacity of about 100 million people should also be paid attention to.

Sharing the most impressive aspects, Deputy Minister of MARD Phung Duc Tien mentioned some notable results of the industry. Despite the uncertainties of the pandemic, the large production chain was not broken. Under the influence of relentless floods and storms, the agricultural sector still achieved key targets, especially maintaining growth. Annual exports increase by nearly US$1 billion.

In charge of irrigation, Deputy Minister Nguyen Hoang Hiep said that Vietnam's irrigation system is currently considered to be among the top in the world. In recent years, investment in agricultural infrastructure has been quite large, just followed the investment in transport infrastructure. However, he expressed his concern that there has been no form of PPP investment in agricultural infrastructure. He proposed that the ministry wants to be created some mechanism to implement PPP in agricultural infrastructure, especially irrigation.

Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Tran Van Son acknowledged that one of the reasons for the outstanding development of the agriculture and rural development sector in recent years is due to institutions, mechanisms, and policies.

The cooperative economy is still the end, the foundation for the restructuring of agricultural production. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should pay attention to promoting typical cooperative models…

Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Tran Van Son acknowledged that one of the reasons for the outstanding development of the agriculture and rural development sector in recent years is due to institutions, mechanisms, and policies. The cooperative economy is still the end, the foundation for the restructuring of agricultural production. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should pay attention to promoting typical cooperative models…

For his part, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stressed that MARD’s achievements in the previous term and the very first months of 2021 have contributed to stabilizing the country's situation.

He also affirmed that they are agriculture, rural and farmers must be core pillar that contributes to the political stability and promote the development of industrialization and modernization of the country.

MARD needs to focus resources on three strategic breakthroughs, exploit effectively on land, improve added value. It is necessary to effectively use agricultural land and organize an agricultural cooperative model that is suitable for the new situation.

Regarding the key tasks, the Prime Minister said that it is necessary to develop strongly and rationally the cooperative system in association with the restructuring of the agriculture and rural development sector, agreeing that it is necessary to develop a resolution of the Government on the issue of agricultural and rural development.

Approving the proposal of the Ministry on the National OCOP Program (One Product Per Commune) from 2021 to 2025, the Prime Minister said that the program contributes to promoting large-scale production. However, it needs to identify five important points: identifying product brands; planning on the material area; finding businesses to ensure inputs and outputs; calling the participation of banks, and applying science and technology.