Ca Mau's agricultural sector has also made remarkable achievements. In the coming time, in addition to continuing to restructure the agricultural sector, Ca Mau will focus on developing high-tech agriculture and advancing new rural development.
U Minh Ha National Park, Cau Mau province features sustainable agriculture development
More bountiful crops
Over the past years, Ca Mau agriculture has focused all its efforts on implementing the Scheme on restructuring the agricultural sector in the 2016-2020 period and achieved quite comprehensive results. Gross regional domestic product (GRDP) of agriculture, forestry and fishery in 2020 reached VND20,746 billion with an average growth rate of 4.7%/year, accounting for 33.4% of the province's total GRDP. The production value per unit area of agricultural land reached VND91 million/ha. The income of workers in the fields of agriculture, forestry and fishery reached VND40 million/person/year, contributing to economic growth, and political and social stability.
The province's seafood export turnover, mainly shrimp, reached an average of VND1.2 billion/year, accounting for over 40% of the country's shrimp export turnover, of which the processing output was over 138,000 tons/year. Up to now, the province has 52/82 communes meeting new rural standards.
Aquaculture production has enjoyed steady development. The area of super-intensive shrimp farming has increased rapidly; the ecological shrimp farming area with international certification has expanded. Exploiting seafood in the direction of promoting offshore fishing and processing and exporting aquatic products have maintained the leading position in the country. Ca Mau has also developed high-quality rice, built organic certification zones and initially developed breeding production and concentrated pig breeding.
The value of intensively planted forests is increased; focusing on protecting and restoring special-use forests and coastal protection forests. Irrigation systems, dikes and embankments continue to be invested, gradually meeting production requirements and responding to climate change. Ca Mau also applies science and technology, transforming the structure of plants and animals towards adaptation to climate change; building and replicating linkage models that have gradually improved production efficiency. Investment in rural infrastructure has continued and farmers' lives have improved.
Agriculture in Ca Mau province plays the role of the backbone of the economy. It is an area that ensures the life and development of most Ca Mau people. In particular, in the face of the difficult situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the province's agricultural sector performed its role of supporting the economy even better, while still growing and contributing 33.7% to the province's GRDP at the end of 2021.
In the coming time, the agricultural sector will focus all its efforts on implementing tasks and breakthrough solutions for modern and sustainable agricultural development. The key tasks and solutions are set out as follows: Forming a region associated with the production of specialized farming goods in accordance with the planning on fishery, agriculture and forestry production; Investing and attracting investment in agriculture and rural areas, and focusing on supporting infrastructure for production, linking production with processing and consuming products; applying science and technology, innovation in production fishery, agriculture and forestry to create breakthroughs in productivity, quality and added value of agricultural products; reorganizing agricultural production in the form of cooperation and association associated with concentrated commodity cultivation areas; guiding market orientation for consumption and commercialization of agricultural products.
Priority given to high-tech applications
Favored by nature, the province has an aquaculture area of over 300,000ha, of which farmed shrimp accounts for over 280,000ha, with an annual output of about 210,000 tons. Ca Mau has strongly researched and applied high technology in farming, with some outstanding models such as white-legged shrimp farming with Biofloc and Semi-Biofloc processes for canvas ponds; 2-stage and 3-stage shrimp farming technology; closed water circulation shrimp farming process.
In addition, Ca Mau has the advantage of saline soil conditions, rich in trace elements. Rice is produced by natural water. Cau Mau also has diverse ecological zones and production types that have created many advantages for the quality of Ca Mau rice. In order to take advantage of available advantages, Ca Mau has oriented the development of the rice industry towards sustainability, increasing value in the direction of safe, ecological and organic production meeting certified standards. With an area of about 100,000ha of rice cultivation, the output is about 500,000 tons/year.
For the forestry sector, Ca Mau has about 165,000ha of forestry land (flooded - brackish - saline), in which, forest land is about 95,000 ha, with this potential and natural advantages. Ca Mau has enough capacity to supply domestic and foreign wood processing and consumption needs. With these advantages, Ca Mau is a promising land for high-tech agriculture in the future.
To make the most of those advantages to develop sustainable agriculture, in the next period, Ca Mau will focus on implementing solutions such as consolidating and reorganizing agricultural production; strengthening the work of calling for enterprises to invest in the development of hi-tech agriculture; widely propagating programs, policies, schemes and projects to support people/enterprises in developing hi-tech agriculture; and strictly implementing high-tech agricultural projects, programs and models.
The province's top priority is to effectively implement policies on attracting investment in agriculture and rural areas in order to attract investment resources into the province's agriculture. Especially in the coming time, the agricultural sector will research and prepare to call and attract investment to build a fishery focal center in the province, which will play the role of a specialized coordination center for fisheries connecting the port system, seafood trading market with a complex of aquaculture, production, processing and fisheries services.
Areas that the province is interested in attracting investment in agriculture include cooperation, association and construction and development of large-scale concentrated agricultural production zones associated with product consumption and creation of raw material areas; and attracting investment in the construction of processing facilities for key agricultural products toward export. Simultaneously, Ca Mau will promote the implementation of the policy of developing raw material and commodity areas, supporting the most optimal conditions for businesses when investing in this field.
From 2016 to now, Ca Mau province has attracted and licensed 21 projects in agriculture and rural areas with a total capital of more than VND7,095 billion. Investment projects in agriculture are mainly in the fields of farming, aquatic product processing, wood processing, and animal feed processing. These projects have made important contributions to the development of the agricultural industry, creating a driving force to promote the socio-economic development of Ca Mau province, increasing budget revenue, and creating jobs for local workers.
Thanh Binh (Vietnam Business Forum)
Vietnamese
October 2024
Hanoi