Towards clean, high-tech agriculture

(Baonghean.vn) Currently, the task of agricultural production is raised to a new level, not only producing agricultural products such as rice, corn, peanuts, shrimp, fish, fresh vegetables, tubers, and fruits for daily consumption needs, but also creating raw materials for the processing industry to produce foods, drinks, refreshments, and other consumer goods to meet the increasing demands of people.

In recent years, Nghe An agricultural production has received attention, direction, guidance and support from the Government and the participation of Party committees at all levels, authorities and specialized sectors, creating new steps of development.

Every year, despite facing severe natural disasters: cold, drought, storms, floods, epidemics... the agricultural sector still achieves the target of over 1 million tons of food, ensuring food security and producing thousands of tons of fresh vegetables, fruits, meat and fish to serve the consumption needs of over 3 million people and supply to the market in the province and the country.

Tea harvesting by machine. Photo: Mai Hoa

In particular, through policy mechanisms, specialized areas for growing crops and livestock with high commodity value have been formed, associated with processing factories, such as: High-tech dairy farming area of ​​over 15,000 cows associated with 2 milk processing factories; sugarcane area of ​​over 20,000 hectares associated with 3 sugar processing factories with a capacity of 1.7 million tons of sugarcane/year; specialized tea growing area of ​​over 8,000 hectares associated with 5 tea processing lines for export; specialized peanut growing area of ​​over 20,000 hectares; specialized coffee growing area of ​​2,000 hectares in Phu Quy; paper raw material growing area of ​​nearly 100,000 hectares concentrated in 10 mountainous districts; raw cassava growing area of ​​6,000 hectares in Thanh Chuong, Nam Dan, Yen Thanh districts; pineapple area of ​​2,000 hectares serving the concentrated pineapple processing factory of 5,000 tons/year; Aquaculture and fishing areas in coastal districts are associated with seafood processing facilities... In 2011, agricultural production value increased by over 5%, and the internal industry structure is shifting in a relatively reasonable direction.

That result is very valuable, but compared to the requirements of building a sustainable agricultural development, great efforts are still needed. Because most of the agricultural products produced by the people are generally of low quality, high cost, fragmented, not concentrated, low competitiveness; the value obtained per unit area as well as production efficiency are not high.

Land resources have not been well exploited, many places are still left fallow while farmers' lives are still very difficult. For example, the whole province currently has tens of thousands of hectares of poor forests, but has not yet been renovated to plant new economic forests combined with protective forests. Regarding rice, the whole province has achieved the target of over 1 million tons of food, but most of that rice is hybrid rice, the percentage of high-quality pure rice is very small.

Consumers who want to eat high-quality delicious rice must find Thai rice or Tam Thom rice produced elsewhere. Or in terms of food production, especially meat, the lean meat ratio of all types of meat (buffalo, beef, pork) is much lower than other countries, so it cannot be exported. Or vegetables, tubers, and fruits are not uniform, have bad appearance, and have not yet built a safe, clean brand, so they are not attractive to consumers.

Not to mention some agricultural products due to the abuse of plant protection chemicals in pest control, in product preservation, causing large residues in agricultural products, seriously affecting the health of consumers. The situation of poor quality, unclean, unsafe agricultural products not only exists in Nghe An but is common in many localities across the country and is creating loopholes for agricultural products, vegetables and fruits from countries in the region to flow into our market. That is also one of the main reasons why the output of agricultural products is difficult.

Agricultural production in our country in general, Nghe An in particular, is undergoing a period of deep integration, so our agricultural products have many opportunities to reach the world market, but also cannot avoid fierce competition in terms of quality and price of agricultural products of other countries. That reality requires all levels and sectors of agriculture, especially production leaders and farmers, to be more serious in their awareness and organization of production.

In addition to the concern about quantity and variety, it is necessary to focus on quality, price and efficiency. To achieve the criteria of good agricultural product quality, it is necessary to pay attention to synchronously solving intensive farming measures, in which it is necessary to pay great attention to applying technical advances, especially new technology in production.

The State should have policies and mechanisms to create conditions for businesses and individuals with the will to get rich, quickly access new science and technology, especially creating conditions to access preferential capital sources, advances in varieties, technology for producing safe and hygienic agricultural products; increase joint ventures and associations to produce large-scale concentrated goods.

In the immediate future, it is necessary to effectively implement the policy of mobilizing people to consolidate and accumulate land, associated with the construction of model fields and specialized areas for the production of high-tech agricultural products, with enterprises cooperating with farmers to organize production and consume products.

Organize medium and small-sized livestock farms using high technology, develop industrial-oriented chicken and super-lean pig farming associated with good output solutions, good environmental treatment... soon build centers for producing plant and animal breeds using biotechnology according to the people's model, with State support to solve the source of breeds for production - the decisive factor in productivity, quality, and efficiency of agricultural production. On that basis, build brands of safe agricultural products associated with indications of origin - creating trust for consumers, contributing to the formation of a clean, high-tech agriculture with sustainable development.

Literary Group