Nghe An: Identifying the right key seedlings to restructure agriculture

Review and re-select key plants and animals.

According to the assessment, in the period of 2014 - 2019, the selection of 19 key seedlings with 21 criteria for investment and development was too spread out and not close to reality because the project almost did not "miss" any existing plants or animals of Nghe An. Meanwhile, Lam Dong identified 4 key subjects (vegetables, flowers, coffee, tea and dairy cows); Quang Tri identified 8 subjects; Bac Giang selected 8 products...
Because of identifying many subjects, while resources are weak, investment and investment support are scattered, lacking focus, lacking connection between resources (including scientific resources), making it difficult to attract businesses. Therefore, it is difficult to connect the chain, there are not many deeply processed products, output products have low value, are unstable, have uneven quality, are difficult to control, and have low competitiveness.

Harvesting farmed shrimp in Dien Trung commune (Dien Chau). Photo: Xuan Hoang

As a result, out of 21 targets set out in the project, only 7 targets exceeded the project target, reaching 33%; 4 targets reached, accounting for 0.14%, and 10 targets were not reached or were difficult to reach, accounting for 47.0%. Therefore, reviewing and re-identifying Nghe An's key seedlings is a necessary issue.

With the vision of a manager, an expert in the agricultural sector and having a long-term association with Nghe An, Mr. Ho Xuan Hung - Chairman of the Vietnam General Association of Agriculture and Rural Development, former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, former Chairman of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee said that it is necessary to have a consensus on the concept and criteria of key agricultural products of Nghe An to facilitate the implementation and policy development.

On that basis, a list of key agricultural products suitable for the period 2020 - 2030 was proposed. Mr. Hung proposed that cassava should not be included in the group of key crops because it only contributes about 0.7% to the production value of the industry. On the other hand, this is a "land-destroying" crop and does not really attract much labor, both in terms of social, economic, environmental criteria and preferential development directions.

Some traditional export products such as peanuts, frozen seafood, processed livestock, etc. have seen their export turnover decrease, and are even no longer on the list of export products. Photo: Archive

Mr. Hung also proposed to consider re-evaluating peanuts when removing them from the project. Nghe An has a peanut growing area of ​​nearly 15,000 hectares (10% of the country). This is a traditional peanut growing area, although it contributes only 1.53% of the industry's value, it attracts a lot of labor, especially households in sandy soil areas and has a short, environmentally friendly crop season, improves the soil and also has the effect of intercropping and spreading crops. Separate avocado trees into the main crop in the near future and include seedless lemon trees in the main crop planning. For livestock and aquaculture, Mr. Hung proposed to retain buffaloes, cows, dairy cows; shrimp, freshwater fish.

Engineer Doan Tri Tue, Nghe An Plant Breeding Association, former Head of Technical Department of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, proposed that the project should only select and retain 7 plants and 4 animals, including: Rice, corn, peanuts, sugarcane, industrial tea, oranges and medicinal plants. Regarding animals, focus on investing in developing buffalo, cows (including dairy cows), pigs and poultry (chickens, ducks).

Nghe An's poultry flock has also increased sharply in recent years, as people in the midland and mountainous districts have increasingly invested in raising livestock in the form of farms and semi-free-range farms. Photo: PV

Based on comparative advantages and market opportunities, considering the actual advantages to participate in the national key product chain, the representative of the Department of Science and Technology proposed 6 subjects of key products, namely: fruit trees (including citrus trees, avocado); tea trees of all kinds (including Shan tea, Oolong tea and yellow flower tea); poultry meat and eggs (focusing on chicken); shrimp of all kinds; pork; wood and wood products (including bamboo).

At the same time, it is necessary to identify a number of key products of the province that are not yet national key products, including 3 subjects: Dairy cows and beef cattle; sugarcane and sugarcane products; medicinal plants and pharmaceutical products. In addition, districts, cities and towns, based on the key products of the province, select products to participate in the chain, and at the same time need to identify their own specialty seedlings to participate in the OCOP program.

Main objective of the Project for the period 2021-2025: The average growth rate of the production value of key plants and animals in the period 2021-2025, with a vision to 2030, will reach 4 - 4.5%/year. The production value structure of key plants and animals by 2025 will account for 70-75% of the total production value of the agricultural, forestry and fishery sector. The export turnover of key plants and animals will reach about 360 - 380 million USD.

Development solutions

After re-identifying key products, the development of a plan to focus on investing in the development of these products in conjunction with restructuring the agricultural sector to create high added value, accelerate growth quality, develop sustainable agriculture, contribute to promoting the implementation of the national target program on new rural construction and the overall economic growth of the province is also an important content raised at this workshop.
Accordingly, one of the criteria for key agricultural products is the ability to provide large, safe, and stable output in the long term. To have large-scale commodity production and apply science and technology synchronously and simultaneously, it is necessary to gradually accumulate land.

Nam Dan farmers mechanize agricultural production. Photo: Hai Vuong

Therefore, according to many experts, the province needs to have a plan and encourage land accumulation in many other forms such as: Transferring land use rights, leasing land, linking production between cooperatives or cooperative groups with enterprises to rebuild into joint stock cooperatives for business and agricultural services, farmers mainly contribute shares in land.

In addition, it is necessary to define concentrated production areas for each subject, and stipulate the minimum area to participate in the chain to facilitate the application of science and technology, specialization and mechanization. For example: Dairy cows are concentrated in the Northwest region, beef cattle in the Southwest region; fruit trees are concentrated in the Midlands; medicinal herbs are concentrated in low and high mountains...

Each region and each subject needs to have a policy of specialization in the following stages: Seeds, fertilizers, cultivation, harvesting and post-harvest processing, and services. Support the development of technical infrastructure, especially electricity, transportation, preliminary processing, and preservation. And especially, there needs to be a key enterprise to lead the whole region for each product.

The project focuses on the application of science and technology, advances in varieties and processing technology in agricultural production. Photo: PV

At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to building brands, promoting and advertising products and connecting market networks across the province, region and country. Each product needs to clearly identify its strategic market, whether it is domestic or foreign, in order to have appropriate trade promotion solutions and product strategies.

Many orange varieties grown in many localities such as Yen Thanh, Thanh Chuong, Con Cuong, Tan Ky... have high quality, meeting market demand. Photo courtesy of Xuan Hoang

As a delegate contributing his opinion at the workshop, Mr. Ho Xuan Hung affirmed: At the end of 2019, Nghe An's agricultural economic structure still accounted for 19-20% of the province's GDP. In general, Nghe An is still an agricultural province, with 42% of agricultural workers and more than 85% of the population living in rural areas.

In fact, in the next few decades, in my opinion, Nghe An's comparative advantage over the rest of the country will still be agriculture. Therefore, Nghe An needs to seize the opportunity, especially after establishing key agricultural products, along with the province's specialties and characteristics, with appropriate policies to promote rapid development, creating breakthroughs and sustainability.

To achieve the above growth rate and targets, the investment capital demand for the period 2020 - 2025 is expected to be 45,000 billion VND (at current prices). It is expected to be allocated as follows: Investment capital from the state budget: 11,250 billion VND, meeting 25% of the total investment capital demand; Investment capital from enterprises: 13,500 billion VND, meeting about 30% of the investment capital demand; Capital mobilized from the people: 18,000 billion VND, meeting about 40% of the investment capital demand; Foreign investment capital: 1,110 billion VND, meeting about 2.5% of the investment capital demand; Credit capital: 1,140 billion VND, accounting for about 2.5% of the total investment capital demand.

Nghe An builds a set of key plants and animals for central and key investment

(Baonghean.vn) - After 5 years of implementing the project to develop key seedlings in Nghe An, in addition to the achieved results, there are still shortcomings and limitations that need to be learned from to continue reviewing, adjusting, and selecting truly key and suitable crops to focus investment resources on.