Should agricultural land be redistributed?

(Baonghean) - Will agricultural land be redistributed by 2013? This question has been raised numerous times by newspapers and television stations, especially in recent years. It is indeed a major question, not only for leaders and managers at all levels, but also a matter of particular concern for every farmer.

As farmers, exercising our agricultural land use rights under Government Decree 64 for nearly two years now, we have found that this policy is entirely appropriate, meeting the increasingly high and sustainable demands of farmers for agricultural production development, as well as the management of agricultural land, ensuring food security both in the short and long term. With rights to use, inherit, mortgage, transfer, convert, and lease in accordance with regulations, it has fundamentally satisfied all needs regarding the reasonable exchange of agricultural land use rights, ensuring that "the tiller has the land." The issue is that further adjustments and additions are needed to ensure these rights are implemented even better.

Through numerous land consolidation and reallocation efforts, along with the planning of irrigation and transportation infrastructure, field boundaries, etc. (according to the criteria of building new rural areas), the current land situation is generally favorable for household farming, using manual labor and partly small-scale machinery. This is the foundation for agricultural production development; the next stage is land accumulation, transforming small-scale household farming into cooperative and integrated production towards industrialization and modernization of agriculture when all the necessary elements are in place.

Currently, in some localities in the delta region, pilot projects are being implemented to build large-scale model fields, applying scientific and technological advancements and mechanization to reduce costs, increase productivity, quality, and efficiency. These large-scale model fields are created from land parcels divided according to Decree 64/CP, contributed jointly by farming households. Thus, it can be said that the current agricultural production practices in our country and in the coming years do not present an objective need to redistribute agricultural land. Redistributing agricultural land simply for time-sensitive reasons could very well cause unnecessary and complex disruptions.

Therefore, in our opinion, the State should continue to extend the right to use agricultural land according to Decree 64/CP, with adjustments and additions to the provisions, in order to better meet the requirements of sustainable agricultural production development for farmers, while strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of the State's management of agricultural land.

Nguyen Bui Lam