Policy is difficult to put into practice
It has been more than 2 years since the Prime Minister's Decision 63/2010/QD-TTg on supporting loans for equipment investment to reduce post-harvest losses in agriculture and aquaculture took effect, but in Nghe An, no subject has received loans from this policy. Meanwhile, each year our province loses about 100 billion VND due to post-harvest losses in aquatic products.
(Baonghean) -It has been more than 2 years since the Prime Minister's Decision 63/2010/QD-TTg on supporting loans for equipment investment to reduce post-harvest losses in agriculture and aquaculture took effect, but in Nghe An, no subject has received loans from this policy. Meanwhile, each year our province loses about 100 billion VND due to post-harvest losses in aquatic products.
Our province is considered a locality with a large seafood exploitation, fishing and aquaculture industry in the North Central region. The annual exploitation output is more than 100,000 tons of all kinds. Among them, there are objects with high export value such as squid, mackerel ... However, the loss rate after catching is about 15 - 20%, that is, a loss of about 20,000 tons, equivalent to about 100 billion VND. The main cause of these losses is that fishing vessels at sea are mainly small in capacity, lacking equipment to preserve products after exploitation. Most vessels apply the method of preservation with crushed ice, even many vessels still maintain the traditional preservation method by salting, only vessels with large capacity arrange insulated tanks, classify and preserve products for fresh consumption and as raw materials for processing and exporting. Most of the remaining small ships often lack space to classify products, and many ships do not have storage compartments, which reduces the quality of products after harvest.
Mr. To Ngoc Truong, Minh Son village, Tien Thuy commune (Quynh Luu) said that his boat has a capacity of 420CV, mainly catches seafood in the fishing grounds of Bach Long Vi island (Hai Phong) and the coastal provinces of the Central region, staying offshore for 10-15 days, but due to the use of manual preservation technology by grinding ice, it is difficult to preserve the products for a long time, the boat has to dock early to sell. “To have good seafood equipment requires a lot of capital, while it is difficult for us to access bank capital sources because offshore fishing is risky and the ability to turn over capital is slow. Each trip to sea, we catch about 7 tons of fish. However, when we dock and sell to traders, the amount of fish is only about 6 tons, ensuring quality. The loss rate is about 15%” - Mr. Truong said. Besides, there are currently no boats providing services at sea, so the products that people exploit cannot be transported to the mainland in time, so the quality is reduced.
Buying fish at Lach Quen fishing port (Quynh Luu).
Investment in fishing port infrastructure and fishing logistics services in many localities is still limited. In fact, fishing ports in the province such as Lach Van, Lach Quen, etc., although they have been invested in dredging and expanding, they still cannot meet actual demand. These fishing ports currently do not have areas for receiving and classifying seafood, and there is still a long distance between the wharf and the receiving area, so the products are exposed to sunlight, reducing the quality of seafood. The markets in the fishing ports have not been invested in a synchronous manner, so the products after harvest are not preserved in the best way. Currently, the whole province has about 100 establishments for purchasing, processing, consuming products and supplying materials and fuel, but most of them are small-scale, mainly distributing products, and the processing stage is still rudimentary and manual.
In December 2010, the Prime Minister signed Decision No. 63/2010/QD-TTg on supporting loans for investment in equipment to reduce post-harvest losses in agriculture and aquaculture. Particularly in the aquaculture sector, organizations, households and individuals are entitled to loans and interest rate support to purchase machinery and equipment for aquaculture seed production; materials and equipment for construction and renovation of aquaculture ponds; equipment and means for aquaculture, harvesting and transporting aquatic products. Refrigeration and freezing equipment, ice production equipment on fishing vessels, storage tunnels for long-term exploitation at sea. In addition, organizations and individuals from all economic sectors investing in projects to build a reserve warehouse of 4 million tons of rice, cold storage for vegetables and fruits, aquatic products, and temporary storage warehouses for coffee according to the planning are exempted from land rent...
However, more than 2 years have passed but no individual or organization in our province has been able to access this preferential capital source. Mr. Tu Lam, Head of the Department of Agricultural, Forestry, Fishery and Rural Sector Processing (Department of Rural Development) said: Although Decision 63 and then Decision 65 have been implemented in our province, no one has participated. In fact, before these 2 decisions, our province issued many policies to support agricultural production, specifically Decision 10 and currently implementing Decision 09, which have been well received by the people and shown to be highly effective and practical. Meanwhile, Decision 63 is difficult to apply in our province. Because in the decision there is a requirement that machinery and equipment produced by organizations and individuals with a domestic production value of over 60% are included in the list of supported products.
Discussing this issue, Mr. Hoang Duong, Head of Credit Department, Provincial Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, said: After Decision 63 took effect, the Provincial Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development issued a document directing local banks to focus on propaganda and guidance for those in need and with sufficient documents to complete loan procedures. However, up to this point, no one has completed the procedures. The reason is that the province has many policies to support agricultural production, so there is no need to participate in borrowing capital under Decision 63. In addition, currently, organizations and enterprises in the area are small-scale, so there is no need to borrow capital to invest in large machinery and equipment systems. The machinery in the list of machines supported under Decision 63 is mostly produced by enterprises in the South. This is what makes our people hesitant to participate in borrowing capital.
To reduce post-harvest losses in seafood exploitation to below 10% by 2020 according to the target of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the State needs to support the agricultural sector to promote the implementation of scientific projects in the field of improving the quality of post-harvest preservation of seafood, including the need to develop technological processes for processing and preservation on offshore fishing vessels. Localities need to promote the establishment of offshore production groups for fishermen to help each other in exploitation and invest in logistics services to improve the quality of post-harvest preservation of products. In addition, every year there needs to be funding for investment in fisheries logistics services to synchronously build preservation stages, and have preferential loan policies for fishermen. In addition, banks need to simplify procedures to create favorable conditions for fishermen to borrow capital due to their limited qualifications...
Article and photos: Pham Bang
