Stay ready with the scenerio of 'living with Covid-19 epidemic'

Center of agricultural resume

According to Pham Van Binh, Director of the Binh Phuoc Department of Agricultural and Rural Development, the unit established a production direction group to guarantee the agriculture industry's smooth administration. The organization has resolved problems in agricultural production, circulation, and supply connection in a timely manner through a hotline in order to better serve the needs of the populace.

Additionally, the agency recommended that communes and districts adopt a similar model, create a hotline, and designate personnel to be on call 24 hours a day to listen to producers' comments, advise, and troubleshoot in the restoration of production, processing, and business in the coming period.

Binh Phuoc province proposed two possibilities for proactively adapting to a Covid-19 pandemic crisis, with agriculture serving as the primary pillar.

Specifically, in the first scenario, once the Covid-19 outbreak is contained in September, all agricultural plans established at the start of the year will stay mostly unchanged. In the second scenario, if the Covid-19 outbreak worsens, the goals will be modified to accommodate both combating the epidemic and maintaining normal production and commercial operations.

According to Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung, Deputy Director of Binh Phuoc Agricultural Service Center, the locality will monitor, oversee, and guide production on a regular basis to guarantee the crop plan is followed. Keep track of the planted area's growth and predict harvests by week, month, yearly crop, and a group of fruit trees in each region.

Rice, maize, and vegetables, in particular, are directed for production in order to prevent local excess or scarcity. The municipality will focus on prompt forecasting of pests that affect crops, providing efficient preventive measures to assist farmers in resuming production.

Concerning Dong Nai province, Director Ca Tien Sy of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development stated that localities in the region are urgently reforming, developing new forms of agricultural production organization and consumption in response to digital transformation and agriculture's digital economy. They are concentrating their efforts on promoting the role and status of communal economies and cooperative systems across the agricultural value chain, from production to consumption.

Reduce investment costs, lower prices of products

Le Thanh Tung, Deputy Director of the Department of Crops Production, said that the rising price of fertilizers in recent months has shifted the cost of rice production (accounting for around 18-24 percent of the prices). Cost reductions, including fertilizer prices, are critical as a consequence of the rice production overview of important areas, including the Mississippi River Delta.

Although MARD formerly had a plethora of solutions and many synchronous technological packages aimed at cost reduction, it was not widely adopted. Therefore, in the future years, technical personnel and specialists will need to advise and assist farmers on how to decrease fertilizer usage by 20-30 percent while maintaining rice production.

Fruit trees must not only deal with the Covid-19 outbreak, but have also dealt with drought, salt, floods, and market changes in past years. As a result, individuals must now calculate, rather than just follow the market for a day or two. Prior to establishing a new garden for the purpose of planting fruit trees or remodeling an existing orchard, it is prudent to select according to the trend toward big cultivation.

It is necessary to maintain the specialized cultivation area; however, improving garden ditches, rejuvenating orchards, upgrading new varieties, improving crop quality, lowering costs, lowering production costs, focusing on food hygiene and product safety, among other things, will help increase the orchard's value.

According to Deputy Minister Tran Thanh Nam, Head of the MARD's Working Group 970, localities must prioritize production management, particularly the problem of guaranteeing the availability of plant types and animals. Simultaneously, conduct research and create strategies for maintaining and restoring production throughout and after the isolation phase to guarantee stable and long-term agricultural output and supplies.

On this premise, the working group also has a regional strategy to present to the Government's special working group. Since then, the provinces have worked together to accomplish "twin objectives" of preventing the outbreak and ensuring output.

Reorganizing production is difficult if farmers are not immunized

Agriculture's features in the Mekong Delta area must be interwoven and firmly transferred across provinces. As a result, some communities prioritize Covid-19 immunization for service workers who provide vital commodities, but not for producers, usually farmers, since the vaccine is ineffective.

If farmers do not vaccinate, reorganizing output will be tough. As a result, local governments will need to prioritize vaccination for participants in the agricultural production chain particularly farmers in the future.

Tran Thanh Nam, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development