In recent years, Quang Nam's agriculture and rural development sector has created many movements and strong milestones in restructuring. Mr. Pham Viet Tich, Director of Quang Nam Agriculture and Rural Development Department, shared with Vietnam Business Forum’s reporter on these changes.
After seven years of implementing the Agricultural Sector Restructuring Project towards increasing added value and sustainable development (according to Decision 2277/QD-UBND dated August 20, 2013 of the Provincial People's Committee), what are the outstanding results that Quang Nam province has achieved?
In recent years, the agriculture and rural development sector of Quang Nam province has achieved outstanding results. Agricultural restructuring made positive progress. The total value of agricultural, forest and aquatic products increased by over 4% annually in the 2016 - 2020 period. The structure of the internal sector reduced the share of agricultural value and increased the share of forest and aquatic value. The cultivated yield value increased from VND64.58 million per hectare of land in 2013 to VND88 million in 2019 and VND92 million in 2020. Nearly 5,000 ha of rice land was used to grow high-value crops.
The province has strongly developed large-scale husbandry and shifted the farming area from densely populated areas to thinly populated ones. Livestock quality improved and environmental pollution was restricted.
Aquatic output increased over the years: 2020 witnessed a 1.14-fold growth over 2016. The share of offshore fishing reached 45% of total commercial fishing.
The forestry sector posted a strong growth of 11.03% a year. The province has nearly 10,000 ha of FSC-certified planted forests and 3,500 ha of Ngoc Linh ginseng, financed by credit funds.
The rural economic structure has positively changed. Production and service forms in rural areas have developed. The province has more than 400 agricultural and rural development enterprises, of which 164 projects are engaged in agricultural, forest and aquatic production and processing.
Irrigation and production infrastructure has been increasingly upgraded. Scientific and technological application has been accelerated.
By the end of 2020, as many as 118 communes were recognized to meet new rural development standards. After three years of implementation (2018-2020), Quang Nam province had 206 OCOP products recognized by the Provincial People's Committee, including 179 3-star products, 26 4-star products and one likely 5-star product.
To increase investment flows into the agriculture and rural development sector, the province introduced a lot of documents and policies on business and investor support. How do you assess the enactment of these policies?
Currently, there are now many policies on agricultural investment attraction, specifically Decree 57/2018/ND-CP of the Government and the Resolution 45/2018/NQ-HDND of the Provincial People's Council on mechanism and policies on agriculture and rural development investment incentives for enterprises in Quang Nam province; and Resolution 17/2019/NQ-HDND on incentive policies on agricultural production and consumption cooperation. The province’s mechanisms and policies have created favorable conditions for investors (especially small ones) to step into agriculture and rural development.
The province has supported VND93.793 billion for 15 projects since 2015 and the support will increase much in 2021. But, in the course of implementing policies some issues need to be attended, specifically:
First of all, a very few investors have access to preferential and support mechanisms and policies because some of them do not know how to carry out investment procedures and incentive procedures. Besides, there are overlapping documents, while some investors only care about their own business matters rather than seek supporting policies. Currently, the agriculture and rural development sector has worked with other agencies and sectors to advise the Provincial People's Committee on active solutions to deal with such issues.
The second is inappropriate policy exploitation: Some investors act as agricultural investors to get loans but invest in other categories. This is a complicated issue that requires the attention of many industries and banks.
The Department will coordinate with the Department of Planning and Investment, other departments and sectors to research and integrate the agricultural planning into the provincial master plan. At the same time, it will review and propose planning for specialized farming areas. Then, the department will have solutions to mobilize resources for infrastructure investment to entice investors, especially for high-tech agriculture and agricultural processing factories in the province.
Quang Nam has attracted many large agricultural and rural development investors such as T&T, Truong Hai and Kraig Biocraft Laboratories. What does it mean to welcome giant investors to this sector? How is the province promoting the connection between giant investors and smaller ones (SMEs and cooperatives)?
Drawing large-scale investors is very important for agricultural and rural development of Quang Nam. The province expects positive changes from major investors, including: (1) Changing agricultural manufacturing and processing technology to have quality products to meet market requirements and higher daily tastes; (2) Changing farmers' thinking from smallholding production to market-oriented commercial production, and (3) Solving concerns about product consumption for people.
In market economy trends, the linkage between large investors and smaller ones, cooperatives and farmers is important, and the province has introduced many solutions to strengthen it, including improving the investment environment, reviewing the land fund for investors, and supporting enterprises to make cooperation in business development.
In addition to investment attraction policies for the agriculture and rural development sector under Resolution 45/2018/NQ-HDND and Resolution 17/2019/NQ-HDND of the Provincial People’s Council, Quang Nam will quickly complete land fund arrangement for investment projects. Currently, the province is encouraging organic production and consumption (rice, shrimp, forest, vegetable and fruit) and achieving high-effect results. Therefore, when large investment projects are deployed, Quang Nam will have many advantages to connect large investors with smaller ones, cooperatives and farmers.
Realizing the Resolution of the 12th Provincial Party Congress, in the 2021-2025 period, Quang Nam will study policies on land accumulation, agricultural restructuring and rural development. Could you please describe this approach?
To accelerate agricultural development with higher added value and higher productivity, it is necessary to change the way it works. The province will reorganize commercial agricultural production and align agricultural development with new rural development. Quang Nam will develop key products of highly competitive advantages, based on local potential and advantages, to meet domestic consumption as well as export demand. It will apply scientific and technical advances and mechanization, expand organic products and restructure crop and livestock products to adapt to climate change. It will develop agriculture and rural areas and strengthen comprehensive connectivity between regions, urban-rural areas, combine agriculture, forestry and fisheries with tourism to create correlative ties in sustainable development.
The province will gradually form a high-tech agricultural-industry-service complex by sector (agriculture, forestry, and fisheries), closely link with farmers by building a sustainable agricultural production model, and carry out agricultural, livestock production, cultivation and processing projects.
Furthermore, the province will study and exploit the carbon credit market to buy, sell and transfer 0.8-1 million tons of CO2 for US$4-5 million. This is a valuable source of income that produces economic and environmental effects and creates livelihoods for people.
Source: Vietnam Business Forum
Vietnamese
October 2024
Hanoi