Abolishing product planning in the agricultural sector is a huge step forward.

Speaking before the parliament, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan gave two opinions, the first related to the Law on Planning and the second related to product planning in the agricultural sector.

According to the Minister, this is one of the contents that the National Assembly Standing Committee's Supervisory Delegation is very interested in, whether there should be product planning or not, and what can we use to adjust supply and demand.

Winter-spring rice harvest. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Need for self-adjusting space

Regarding the Law on Planning, citing the definition of "VUCA" which means immobile, volatile, complex and ambiguous, Minister Le Minh Hoan said that re-shaping a plan to shape it for 5 years, 10 years, or even several decades is not simple at all.

According to him, facing the rapid changes in science, technology, and the market, we cannot have a comprehensive plan, but we should divide it into two levels that will be reflected in our planning level.

Specifically, the hardware part is the part where the State can intervene and the second part is that we leave a capacity, a space for the market to self-regulate and then at each level there will be a space for us to be flexible, to adapt to changes.

"We see that five years ago we did not talk about the green economy or we did not talk about climate change, but the issue of climate change and the green economy has dominated our entire economy from industry to agriculture and all other issues," Minister Le Minh Hoan cited.

Therefore, the leader of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development believes that we should first reposition all levels, and stop at each level in each planning, and not go too deep because the deeper we discuss the issue, the more likely it is that a week later the story will be different.

"Therefore, I suggest that even if it's late, we should have more in-depth seminars so as not to go from one extreme to another. Sometimes it's difficult not to have a plan, but having a plan is even more difficult because we have to adjust and depend on changes from the outside," the Minister added.

Abolishing agricultural product planning is a huge step forward.

Regarding product planning, the head of the agricultural sector said that eliminating product planning, especially in the agricultural sector, is a huge step forward, because agriculture is an open sector.

"For an agricultural product, we are both the seller and the buyer. For a market, we want to plan agricultural products to sell. At the same time, many countries with the same type of agricultural product are also selling to this market," Mr. Le Minh Hoan gave an example.

According to the Minister, we cannot imagine how the market will be disrupted when Covid-19 comes, or how the conflict in Ukraine will develop. All of these things are never fixed, so we should be too rigid in a product industry planning.

Answering the question of whether there are any alternative tools to help us minimize risks in the agricultural sector, Minister Le Minh Hoan said that we must shift from agricultural production thinking to agricultural economic thinking, and must diversify products and markets.

More specifically, the head of the agricultural sector said of course we will not abandon it, but we do not have to determine how many hectares or how much output there is, but we need to plan each ecological region to shape an investment strategy, a support strategy, thereby creating an ecosystem, an industry.

Citing examples of some agricultural countries in the world, Mr. Le Minh Hoan said they have an ecosystem, first of all industry associations, cooperatives are agencies, organizations, and institutions that advise farmers to decide what to plant, what to raise, how much to plant and how much to raise, the State cannot impose.

If we impose and introduce rigid planning, Mr. Le Minh Hoan raised two issues: first, whether all products in the planning area can be protected or not, and second, whether products outside the planning area are legal or not, and whether they can be brought to market.

"I think it is impossible for us to do that. Therefore, in the rural agricultural development strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, we must urgently form industry ecosystems.

Besides, the State only supports through market information, science and technology, capital, consulting and training to educate farmers, and the industry will mobilize itself," Minister Le Minh Hoan added.