The government is ready to 'go to the market' with farmers

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue speaks at the forum. Photo: VGP/Thanh Chung.

Politburo member and Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue emphasized this at the 3rd National Farmers' Forum with the theme "Unleashing Vietnamese agricultural products" organized by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade on October 14 in Hanoi.

Glorious achievements and difficulties and challenges

At the forum, Chairman of the Vietnam Farmers’ Association Thao Xuan Sung affirmed that in 32 years of national renovation, our country’s agriculture, farmers and rural areas have developed strongly and achieved many important and proud achievements. Notably, the contribution of agricultural products to the country’s exports has continuously increased and created impressive breakthroughs.

In the first 4 months of 2018, for the first time, the export value of fruits and vegetables in Vietnam exceeded that of crude oil. It is forecasted that in 2018, Vietnam's agricultural, forestry and fishery exports will reach about 40 billion USD. In the domestic market, the consumption of agricultural products is also increasing according to people's income and the speed of industrialization and urbanization.

According to Mr. Thao Xuan Sung, although our country's agriculture and rural areas have achieved glorious achievements and made great contributions to the cause of national renewal, in the context of deep international integration, climate change and internal difficulties of the domestic economy, our country's agriculture, farmers and rural areas will face many difficulties and challenges in the production and consumption of agricultural products. In many places, at many times, there is still a situation of good harvests but low prices, and stagnant agricultural products. This is also one of the concerns of the Vietnam Farmers' Association.

With the theme “Unleashing Vietnamese agricultural products”, farmers from all over the country attending the forum raised questions for economic experts, policy makers and leaders of relevant ministries and agencies on issues such as building quality and image for Vietnamese agricultural products; developing markets and trends in the coming time; reducing costs and prices in production, cutting out intermediaries in product consumption; linking farmers and businesses; policies to respond to the trend of agricultural product protection in importing countries...

The 3rd National Farmers' Forum with the theme "Unleashing Vietnamese Agricultural Products" is an activity in the series of events of the "Pride of Vietnamese Farmers" Program. The main event of the Program is the Ceremony to honor 63 outstanding Vietnamese farmers taking place tonight, October 14 at the Hanoi Friendship Cultural Palace.

What to do to make agricultural brands truly sustainable?

Answering the common question of many farmers about how to build a good brand, meeting the requirements of demanding market partners such as: US, Japan, EU, Middle East ... Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh affirmed: The issue of branding is extremely important. Currently, many of our agricultural products have brands, have built brands but cannot maintain them. Therefore, for a truly sustainable brand, agricultural products must meet two important requirements: Quality and ensuring food hygiene and safety.

To meet these two requirements, over the past time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has always had a program to select high-quality plants and breeds, and at the same time, coordinate with the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to develop standards suitable to the requirements of each export market. Only then can we hope to build a sustainable brand for Vietnamese agricultural products.

Director of the Department of Trade Promotion, Ministry of Industry and Trade Vu Ba Phu said: The Ministry of Industry and Trade has a program to support brands for a number of Vietnamese agricultural products exported abroad. Specifically, the National Brand program gathers a series of reputable brands and exporters to introduce and export products abroad. To date, 88 reputable brands have participated. The Vietnam Food Brand Program aims to promote the brand of quality Vietnamese food to the world market...

Through these programs, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and related ministries will promote Vietnamese brands to the world market through Vietnamese agencies abroad and foreign press to build awareness in foreign markets about Vietnamese agricultural product brands...

Mr. Le Quoc Doanh also said that the Government has just issued Decree No. 146 on credit in agriculture, including credit support policies to encourage farmers and businesses to participate in developing linkage chains; directing all levels and sectors to implement the Project to develop 15,000 new-style cooperatives, which is an effective solution to help farmers develop effective production and make agricultural products easier to consume.

Overview of the forum. Photo: VGP/Thanh Chung

Promote market and production linkage

Speaking at the forum, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue highly appreciated the Vietnam Farmers' Association for choosing a topic that emphasizes the consumption and development of Vietnamese agricultural products - one of the biggest challenges that agriculture needs to overcome.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, Vietnam has 10 agricultural export products with a turnover of over 1 billion USD, of which 5 products have a value of over 2 billion USD. In 2018, Vietnam's agricultural sector had many meaningful events, such as the first World Rice Conference, attracting the attention of many domestic and foreign delegates.

Many Vietnamese agricultural products have a good harvest, with record high output, but thanks to proactively organizing good consumption, doing a good job of trade promotion and advertising, consumption is still favorable and has good prices, typically the lychee crop in Bac Giang, the longan crop in Hung Yen and Son La... The recent lychee crop in Bac Giang alone achieved a record revenue of 6,000 billion VND, of which about 3,700 billion VND was collected directly from lychee, the rest was from other services.

The Deputy Prime Minister said: “The US Department of Agriculture is completing procedures to recognize Vietnam’s tra fish export procedures. The US side has conducted field inspections and assessed that Vietnam produces tra fish very well, and it is expected that the tra fish procedures will be completed by the end of this year. Recently, the anti-dumping tax on shrimp exports has also been lifted. This is very positive information.”

However, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, agricultural production in our country is still mainly fragmented and small-scale, and the situation of agricultural products in some places still having surplus and in others still having shortage is quite common. The reason is that there is no connection with the market both domestically and internationally. According to the law of the market, more supply will not make the price good, but if the consumption stage is done well, it will still be sold at a good price. The link between production and consumption, the connection between supply and demand is still the weakest link in our agricultural value chain.

To understand the market, the new cooperative model is the most effective solution to connect and share information between farmers, businesses, and other economic organizations on commodity production. Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said that the policy of connecting the "5 houses" (farmers, "bankers", businesses, scientists and the state) must be further promoted, in which the leading role of cooperatives is very important, as a bridge connecting farmers with businesses. However, the proactive participants in this connection must still be farmers, the state only plays a bridging and supporting role.

The Deputy Prime Minister believes that the two core issues pointed out in this forum, namely promoting the consumption market and linking production, will be important solutions to effectively implement new rural construction and restructuring the agricultural sector.

"The Government promises farmers that it will further improve policies to promote agricultural development, trade and investment, and is ready to "go to the market" with farmers," the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized.