Supporting up to VND 3 million/ha/year for high quality rice land

The Government has recently issued Decree No. 112/2024/ND-CP dated September 11, 2024, detailing regulations on rice-growing land, investment and investment support, infrastructure construction, and application of modern science and technology to plan areas of high productivity and quality rice.

Accordingly, the State budget will increase the support level for land specializing in rice cultivation starting from January 1, 2025. Land specializing in rice cultivation will receive support of VND 1,500,000/ha/year, and VND 750,000/ha/year for the remaining rice cultivation land.

Upland rice land is the only exception as it is spontaneously expanded without following the planning and land use plan. One thing to note is that the new Decree mentions additional support of VND 1,500,000/ha/year from the State budget for areas planned for high-yield, high-quality rice cultivation.

According to Decree 112, the provincial People's Committee establishes and submits relevant documents to the People's Council of the same level based on the actual local conditions, which include how people who are allocated or leased land for non-agricultural purposes by the State use the funds from land specialized in rice cultivation as per regulations and the State budget source to support rice production in the local budget balance expenditure estimate following the provisions of this Decree.

As for the specific support, rice land users can use legal rice varieties for production, apply production processes, technical advances, and technologies recognized by competent state agencies, build demonstration models, conduct agricultural extension activities, organize training, coaching, production linkage, product consumption, improve and enhance the quality of rice land.

Farmers also receive support in terms of assessing physical and chemical properties, building agrochemical soil maps of specialized rice growing areas periodically every 5 years, repairing and maintaining rural infrastructure works in the commune, and purchasing copyrights of protected rice varieties.

The Decree clearly states that enterprises are supported by the State budget up to 100% of the cost when investing in the construction of irrigation and traffic works in areas planned for high-yield and high-quality rice cultivation.

Projects applying certified low-emissions rice production processes; projects utilizing circular economic models; certified organic production projects; and projects linking rice production according to the value chain must have an area of ​​500 ha or more.

As for projects for food processing or projects for producing biologicals, processing raw materials and creating high-tech products and by-products from rice that meet the legal regulations on high technology, the total investment must be VND 30 billion or more.

These projects will be supported by the State budget of up to 40% but not more than VND 15 billion to purchase production lines, equipment, technology, and technology copyright.

Matters related to capital sources, objects, support processes, and procedures for implementing support are implemented according to Government regulations and policies to encourage enterprises to invest in agriculture and the countryside. Capital sources and support procedures for economic organizations with foreign investment capital are implemented according to separate provisions of law.

Investment projects to develop infrastructure in planned areas for high-yield and high-quality rice cultivation are allowed to use State policies in accordance with the Government's guidance detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Cooperative Law.

Cooperatives and cooperative unions must join together to implement one of the following projects in the planned area for high-yield, high-quality rice cultivation. Projects applying certified low-emissions rice production processes, certified organic production projects, and projects linking rice production according to the value chain must have an area of ​​100 ha or more.

Regarding funding, projects on the production and processing of food products; projects on the production of biologicals, and processing of raw materials for high-tech products and by-products from rice are supported by the State with a maximum of 100% of investment capital for project infrastructure construction costs, purchase of production lines, equipment, technology, and technology copyrights, but not exceeding VND 5 billion per project.

The document also clearly states that projects under the above provisions are supported by the State once. In case a project or project item has received support from the State budget under this Decree, it will not be entitled to receive support from the budget under other legal provisions and vice versa.