Nghe An Farmers' Association must demonstrate more clearly its role in promoting changes in farmers' production thinking to adapt to new conditions.

Nghe An Newspaper respectfully publishes the full text of the speech directing the Congress by comrade Thai Thanh Quy - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council, Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province.

Dear Comrade Bui Thi Thom - Vice President of the Central Executive Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union!

Dear Presidium of the Congress!

Dear delegates!

Today, I and my comrades in the Provincial Party Standing Committee are very pleased to attend the 10th Provincial Farmers' Association Congress, term 2023 - 2028 - an important political event, a great festival for all cadres and farmer members in the homeland of beloved Uncle Ho!

On behalf of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, I would like to send my warmest congratulations to the distinguished guests and 304 official delegates of the Congress. Wishing the Congress great success.

Dear comrades!

Our province has the largest agricultural land area in the country, about 1.48 million hectares, converging all geographical regions, rural residents account for over 80% of the province's population and have traditions and experience in agricultural production. Therefore, agricultural, farmer and rural development has a strategic position in the province's economy and is one of the province's top key political tasks. In fact, in recent times, the agricultural sector has had strong development steps, contributing very positively to the province's overall achievements, being a solid support for the economy. The appearance of rural areas has improved a lot; people's lives have been improved, and the environment has been increasingly protected. In those results, there is a direct and very important contribution role of the Association at all levels, cadres and members of farmers in the whole province.

Through the creative and effective implementation of movements and campaigns such as: "Farmers compete in production, good business, help each other get rich, reduce poverty sustainably", "Building new rural areas", "Building and developing economic models"..., the role of the subject has been promoted, encouraging farmers to make efforts in production, strive to get rich legitimately, and contribute to building an increasingly rich and beautiful homeland. The proof is that in the past 5 years, 150,000 farmer members have achieved the title of good production and business, with hundreds of typical economic models; the whole Association has contributed over 3,500 billion VND, donated over 930,000 m²land, participating in over 1.5 million working days of new rural construction... Thereby, contributing significantly to making Nghe An a typical locality in the country with creative and effective ways in new rural construction. Up to now, 309 communes have met new rural standards, 53 communes have met advanced new rural standards, 9 district-level units have completed new rural construction targets; the locality is in the top of the country in the "One Commune One Product" (OCOP) program, the economic structure has shifted in a positive direction.

Through the movements, the Farmers' Association has been increasingly consolidated and developed with over 55,000 new members admitted during the term; many typical examples of Nghe An farmers in the fields of agriculture and rural areas have been honored and rewarded.

On this occasion, on behalf of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, I warmly congratulate and commend the efforts, attempts and outstanding achievements of the cadres and members of the Provincial Farmers' Association during the past term.

Dear comrades!

The political report and comments presented to the Congress have quite fully and frankly stated the shortcomings and limitations in the work of the Association and the farmers' movement in the province in the past term; specifically and in detail identified the goals, directions, tasks and solutions for the new term. The Vice President of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union also gave an important and profound speech directing the Congress, pointing out the key tasks that the Provincial Farmers' Association needs to focus on and implement in the coming time. At today's solemn forum, I raised and emphasized a number of tasks for our Congress to discuss and decide:

The first:Resolution No. 39 of the Politburo on the construction and development of Nghe An province until 2030, with a vision to 2045, identifies agricultural development, especially high-tech agriculture, as one of the five pillars of the economy. However, in recent times, some production areas have been fragmented and inefficient; farmers have always had to worry about the adversity of "good harvest, low price", and unstable income.

The goal of reducing the proportion of the agricultural sector in the economic structure while increasing production value is a big challenge. To improve farming efficiency, so that farmers can truly become rich on their land, it is necessary to accelerate the process of industrialization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas, associated with restructuring the agricultural sector, strongly shifting from traditional agricultural production to agricultural economic development.

Accordingly, the Provincial Farmers' Association must demonstrate more clearly its role in promoting changes in farmers' production thinking to adapt to new conditions. That is the thinking of cooperation and association in production, ready to go together to go further; association with businesses to lead the formation of agricultural product value chains; knowing how to produce products that the market needs, not producing according to one's own will.

It is the mindset of safe and sustainable production, thinking about the health of others, not harming the common interests of the community; it is the way of thinking, the way of doing business on a large, long-term basis, focusing on building brands and national trademarks for some agricultural products with strengths associated with geographical indications, aiming at export markets to achieve higher value.

Along with that, we regularly support farmers in terms of loans, training, vocational training, updating new knowledge and techniques, improving the ability to adapt to climate change, preventing and combating natural disasters and epidemics in production, such as the past few days, heavy rains in the western region of the province have caused flooding, directly affecting people's lives and production, which we all have to focus on overcoming.

The Association needs to pay attention to supporting farmers to improve their ability to access and apply information technology, the Internet, and digital technology so that they can easily step out of the bamboo fences of the village, learn about the market, learn from outside production experiences, bring their products to consumers faster, more, further, and more effectively on e-commerce platforms and online sales channels, helping farmers to have less work to do, and become a professional, dynamic, civilized, and modern production force.

Monday:Our province continues to identify that building new rural areas is one of the major, central tasks of the entire political system, with the set goal that by 2030, the whole province will have 90% of communes meeting new rural standards, 15% of communes meeting advanced new rural standards. From the successful lessons in the implementation of the new rural program in the past time, the Provincial Farmers' Association needs to continue to better promote its role as "the center and core for the construction of new rural areas", strongly arousing the people's strength, the spirit of hard work, creativity, self-reliance, self-improvement, and the desire to get rich among cadres and farmer members.

Paying attention to mobilizing, accompanying, and supporting each member to become a positive factor in effective economic development, building village and neighborhood relationships; each household has a beautiful garden; each alley undertakes to carry out a project of "bright, green, clean, beautiful, safe country roads", each commune has one quality product (OCOP) will contribute to making our province's countryside peaceful, harmonious, unique, and worth living, realizing the great goal of developing "ecological agriculture, modern countryside, civilized farmers".

Tuesday:The Congress needs to analyze and evaluate more clearly the diverse factors and characteristics of the province's geographical regions to determine tasks and solutions to accompany and effectively support farmers in production development as well as building the Association.

With the Western regionThe vast area accounts for more than 83% of the area and more than 36% of the province's population, with strengths in developing forest economy, forest canopy economy, ecotourism associated with environmental protection, conservation and promotion of ethnic cultural identities. In recent times, tea plantations, rice fields, orange gardens, plum gardens, rose gardens, brocade weaving groups of farmers have become resources and attractive tourist destinations for domestic and foreign tourists. Agricultural and rural tourism has been initially promoted in many localities such as Con Cuong, Que Phong, Nghia Dan, Thanh Chuong districts... becoming a new direction with great potential in our province. The Farmers' Association needs to seize this opportunity and pay due attention to pioneering, supporting, connecting, and accompanying its farmer members in that development process.

With the midlands, pay attention to supporting members in developing specialized industrial crops associated with planning of raw material areas; specialty fruit trees; concentrated livestock and poultry farming, farms associated with good environmental treatment.

With plains and coastal areasActively encourage members to develop quality-standard crop fields to serve urban areas and tourism; accompany and support fishermen to go offshore and stick to the sea, associated with protecting sovereignty over seas and islands; build and replicate effective and sustainable aquaculture models associated with processing... From this approach, the form and method of activities of the Association must also be organized creatively, flexibly, appropriately, prioritizing the formation of groups, teams, and production cooperatives according to industry, profession, and locality.

From another perspective, with the current urbanization and industrial development of our province, the labor force in this field will increase rapidly, estimated to increase by about 100 - 130 thousand workers by 2025. On the contrary, the agricultural labor force will gradually shift to non-agricultural and tend to age. The Congress needs to pay due attention to thoroughly analyzing this issue to find effective adaptation solutions, especially supporting career transition, equipping vocational skills, organizing activities, gathering members, etc.

Wednesday:Actively coordinate with departments, branches and localities to effectively implement socio-economic development programs and projects related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas; especially the national target program on new rural construction, socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas; sustainable hunger eradication and poverty reduction, programs and projects on building infrastructure works for agriculture and rural areas; maintaining political security, order and social safety in rural areas;...

Perform well the functions of social supervision and criticism; encourage farmer members to actively participate in building and implementing democratic regulations at the grassroots level; Grasp and deeply understand the thoughts and aspirations of farmer members, promptly protect the legitimate and legal rights and interests of members.

The year is:Regularly pay attention to and take care of training, fostering, and creating a source of cadres for the Farmers' Association with inheritance, steadfastness; closeness to members; effective in advising; skillful and flexible in organizing and implementing, meeting the requirements of tasks in the new situation. Pay attention to honoring, rewarding, and replicating advanced examples and typical models to inspire many other members to be confident and strive to assert themselves.

I recommend that Party committees, Party organizations, authorities, the Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations at all levels need to thoroughly grasp, raise awareness and responsibility, focus resources on agricultural development, rural economy, new rural construction, improve farmers' lives, and create more favorable conditions for the Associations at all levels in the province to operate effectively.

Dear comrades!

An important task of the Congress is to elect the Executive Committee of the Provincial Farmers' Association, Term X, and the Delegation to attend the 8th National Congress of the Vietnam Farmers' Association, term 2023-2028. I request the Congress delegates to uphold their responsibility, promote democracy, and wisely select comrades who are truly exemplary in terms of qualities, capacity, and prestige to participate in the Executive Committee of the Provincial Farmers' Association, Term X. At the same time, select and elect excellent delegates, representing the will, aspirations, and voices of more than 499,000 cadres and members of Uncle Ho's homeland to attend and contribute to the success of the Congress of the Vietnam Farmers' Association.

On this occasion, on behalf of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee, I would like to express my sincere thanks for the valuable attention and assistance of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union, the active support of Farmers' Unions in localities across the country; and hope to continue to receive more support and companionship from you for Nghe An province as well as the work of the Union and the farmers' movement of the province in the coming time.

Promoting the revolutionary tradition, the spirit of solidarity, hard work and creativity of the peasant class in the heroic Soviet homeland, the homeland of beloved Uncle Ho, we believe that the 10th Congress of the Farmers' Association of Nghe An province, term 2023 - 2028 will be a great success, the work of the Association and the farmers' movement of Nghe An province will continue to achieve new milestones, contributing positively and effectively to the development and integration of the province.

With that belief, the Provincial Party Committee, People's Council, People's Committee, and Fatherland Front Committee presented the 10th Congress of Nghe An Provincial Farmers' Association, term 2023 - 2028 with a banner: Nghe An Farmers' Association "Solidarity - Creativity - Cooperation - Development".

(Title by Nghe An Newspaper).