Investing in agriculture: Wide open opportunities

(Baonghean) - In the field of agricultural production, Nghe An has many very "unique" potentials. However, in recent years, despite many efforts, investment in agriculture in the province is still not commensurate, so there are still many open opportunities for businesses.

Orange harvest in Dong Thanh commune (Yen Thanh).

Nghe An's agricultural land area is about 200 thousand hectares with a variety of crops. Of that total area, rice covers over 90 thousand hectares, with an annual output of 1 million tons, of which about 2/3 is consumed, the remaining 1/3 is used as goods. In addition, Nghe An has about 55 - 60 thousand hectares of corn every year, mainly winter corn, which dominates both area and yield. Nghe An's peanuts are also among the top in terms of output and quality in the country. In the period 2011 - 2013, the peanut area reached about 20 thousand hectares, with an average yield of about 23 quintals/ha.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Lap, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nghe An has very favorable natural conditions for developing raw material crops such as sugarcane, rubber, tea, fruit trees, especially the concentrated orange growing area of ​​about 2,600 hectares in the districts of Quy Hop, Nghia Dan, Con Cuong, Yen Thanh, which if developed, can increase the area to 4,000 - 5,000 hectares. Currently, the province has planned to increase the sugarcane area to 30 thousand hectares, tea area to 20 thousand hectares, rubber area to 23 thousand hectares. In addition, there are sub-regions where special seedlings can be arranged such as passion fruit (Que Phong), Tuyet Shan tea (Ky Son), duck (Quy Chau), Mong cow, black chicken, black pig (Ky Son, Tuong Duong) ...

Regarding forestry, in addition to the area of ​​more than 200 thousand hectares of land planned for planting raw materials, there are also large areas of natural forests, which can exploit the potential for planting and restoring some precious medicinal herbs under the forest canopy... Nghe An has also formed a model of agricultural production applying high technology in dairy farming of TH Milk Food Joint Stock Company. The whole province has built 16 "large-scale field" models in production, creating a breakthrough, implementing well the "4-house" linkage... Despite such diverse potential, production development as well as calling for investment in the agricultural sector is still not really commensurate with the potential.

The reasons can be seen from the internal unsustainable agricultural development, low product competitiveness, and inadequate utilization of resources for sustainable commodity production. The economic restructuring and innovation of production methods in agriculture are still slow, and the agricultural, forestry, and fishery processing industry has not yet developed. The production method is still small-scale, and there is not much large-scale, systematic investment as at present, which has led to many shortcomings. Post-harvest technology is limited, so product quality is not high; research and transfer of science and technology is still slow, in some areas there has not been a technological breakthrough to rapidly increase productivity and product quality; there has not been attention paid to developing product brands, leading to poor competitiveness in the market. Dependence on consumption and price instability is something that farmers are currently having to accept and still have many concerns and worries.

Currently, in addition to the relatively stable raw material areas for industrial crops such as tea, sugarcane, and rubber with businesses investing in production, building processing facilities, and purchasing products, other crops still have many shortcomings. Some businesses have joined in the production of high-quality rice seeds, such as Nghe An Agricultural Materials Joint Stock Corporation, Vinh Hoa Company Limited, Thai Binh Seed Company... but not many. Most farmers are still "swimming" on their own with small-scale and fragmented production methods. Although there are nearly 1,000 hectares of Tuyet Shan tea in Ky Son, the quality is very good, but the economic value is not commensurate because the processing technology is still very rudimentary, 20,000 hectares of peanuts with hundreds of tons of high-quality products but still depend on the private trading system, exporting raw materials to China...

To overcome these problems, the solution identified by the province is to make efforts to call for investors in the agricultural and rural sectors. In the field of cultivation, it is necessary for investors to participate from production to harvesting, processing and consumption of products. In the coming years, Nghe An has determined that in addition to focusing on exploiting the potential of rice land area, gradually shifting to producing high-quality rice varieties to increase the value of goods, it will also focus on suitable crops, currently considered the "strengths" of the province such as food vegetables, tea, peanuts, rubber, oranges and especially medicinal plants. The medicinal plant area will be planned with plants such as passion fruit, ginger, turmeric... on the land of forestry farms and households to create a raw material area for the processing factory with a capacity of 50 thousand tons of dry medicinal plants/year.

Recently, at a meeting with the agricultural sector to discuss the implementation of a special policy project to encourage businesses to invest in the rural agricultural sector in Nghe An, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Dinh Viet Hong emphasized: The strength of Nghe An's rural areas is still agriculture, especially in the fields of agriculture, forestry and fishery. Therefore, in the province's policy, it is always determined to give utmost priority to businesses investing in these economic sectors. However, the number of businesses concentrated in rural areas accounts for only about 26.3% and tends to decrease. Although in recent times, we have attracted a number of large-scale projects to rural areas such as TH Milk Factory, wood, pineapple and cassava processing factories, etc., in general, businesses operating in the agricultural sector are mainly small-scale. It can be seen that although the government has implemented policies to encourage investment in rural areas, they have not yet been effective or the impact of these policies is not large and not really effective. This is a limitation that we need to study to find solutions to attract businesses to invest in this field.

Through research, some businesses believe that the reason for this situation is due to risks when investing in agriculture such as natural disasters, epidemics, low awareness of rural workers; the link in raw material production between farmers and businesses is not tight, affecting production development, rural infrastructure has not really met the needs of businesses... To attract businesses to invest in Nghe An in general, the agricultural and rural sectors in particular, our province has issued many preferential policies in a number of important decisions. Every year, the province allocates a budget of 13 - 60 billion VND to support businesses investing in the area, of which the rural agricultural sector in recent years has always been at the level of 18 to approximately 27 billion VND/year, mainly supporting the construction of roads in raw material areas, leveling and compensation for site clearance.

Currently, the province is continuing to develop a project on Special Policies to encourage businesses to invest in agriculture and rural areas in Nghe An province. Accordingly, the average annual capital demand is up to about 160 billion VND/year, of which the central budget is 75 billion VND and the provincial budget is 85 billion VND. This is considered a significant effort in attracting businesses to invest in this field, especially when Nghe An is being identified by the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as a key area of ​​high technology science in the North Central region. Thus, the opportunity for investment in agriculture is very open to all businesses. That process, in addition to preferential policies of the State, along with the "enthusiasm" of businesses, requires the active participation of localities, the political system at the grassroots level and the people to unite and join hands for the development goal.

Phu Huong