The Government is being urged to encourage private investment in agriculture to boost sustainablility and the use of technology by 2020 amid depleting natural resources and the growing threat of climate change.
A national project currently being drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Planning for the 2011-15 period aims to boost agricultural growth by 3 per cent annually, and to reduce the number of poor households and lower carbon emission contributed by agricultural activities by 2 per cent.
For the past 10 years, agricultural production has contributed about 3.7 per cent annually to the nation’s gross domestic product.
However, the sector has met numerous challenges, such as pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources and low levels of competitiveness due to small-scale production.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that more than half of Viet Nam’s labour force works in agriculture. But because the sector is not mechanised, rural workers have fallen behind their urban counterparts when it comes to socio-economic progress, experts warned.
Dang Kim Son, director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, said the Government should provide more favourable policies for businesses and the private sector to invest in agriculture.
He said that to increase the value of agricultural products, Viet Nam must monitor more closely the entire supply chain, from input materials, production and processing to storing, trading and transportation to consumers.
It has been forecast that over the next 10 years, food prices would continue to remain high and that agricultural food processing would generate higher revenue.
Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank director in Viet Nam, said by 2020 the world’s demand for food would at least double present levels.
Viet Nam has made remarkable progress in agricultural production but the sector has been unable to cope with global challenges that require major changes in farming models to improve farmers’ living standards and exploit natural resources more sustainably.
Steven Jaffee, co-ordinator of the World Bank Agriculture Department, said restructuring the agricultural sector required Viet Nam to attract private investment in areas such as technology transfer, agricultural branding and boosting competitiveness of the supply chain.
Dung said the growing trend in public-private partnership had proven effective in agricultural production, as evidenced by the successful establishment of model fields in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta. However, he said greater effort needed to be made to apply more advanced technologies to production and with providing more training for farmers.
Phat said the national project to restructure agriculture from 2011-15 would look at ways to change the breeding structure, apply high-technology and practise GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) to increase the value of agricultural products.
The animal husbandry sector will gradually shift from small-scale production to large farming models that meet industrial standards. In aquaculture, priority would be given to shrimp, tra fish, and with developing sustainable, large-scale growing models that also protect the environment.
