Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc: Strengthening clean agricultural production

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attended, chaired and directed the conference; co-chaired by Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong. At Nghe An, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Dinh Viet Hong chaired.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired the online conference to review the agricultural sector. Photo: Internet

In 2018, the agriculture and rural development sector nationwide achieved high and comprehensive results, creating a clearer and more substantial change in 3 strategic breakthroughs, restructuring the sector associated with growth model innovation and new rural construction.

The main aggregated indicators all exceeded the yearly plan and were higher than the previous year: GDP of agriculture, forestry and fishery increased by 3.76%, the highest in the past 7 years; production value increased by 3.86%; forest cover rate reached 41.65%.This is a very high figure compared to the world average of only 29%. Agricultural, forestry and fishery exports reached 40.02 billion USD.

Nationwide, 42.4% of communes and 61 districts completed new rural construction, exceeding the target assigned by the Government to the sector in 2018. The agriculture and rural development sector contributed 8.7% to the overall growth of the economy in 2018.

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Dinh Viet Hong and leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development chaired at the Nghe An bridge. Photo: Phu Huong

In Nghe An,In 2018, all 27/27 basic targets on agricultural and rural production were completed, exceeding the plan. The economic growth rate of GTSX was estimated at 5.09%; The production structure changed strongly, all production sectors achieved good results; 30 communes and 3 district-level units met the NTM standards.forest cover reached over 57.7%...

In 2018, Nghe An Agriculture and Rural Development Department was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Prime Minister for restructuring the agricultural sector; the Provincial Party Committee awarded a Certificate of Merit for summarizing 10 years of implementing Resolution 7 of the 10th Party Central Committee on agriculture, farmers and rural areas. In 2019, Nghe An continued to focus on restructuring the agricultural sector with solutions to increase productivity, quality and value of agricultural products, ensuring sustainable development.

Speaking at the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc acknowledged and highly appreciated the results achieved by the agriculture and rural development sector in 2018. The Prime Minister stated that these results have affirmed the real effectiveness of the transformation and restructuring of the sector, especially in the fields of agriculture and aquaculture. Most noticeably, the production structure has continued to be adjusted in the direction of shifting from quantity targets to quality and added value; shifting from small-scale, segmented production to large-scale, closed-loop production in the value chain, creating a concentrated, commodity agricultural production foundation, increasingly meeting the needs of the domestic market as well as export.

Farmers in Thanh Lien commune, Thanh Chuong district earn billions from Dien grapefruit trees. Photo: Phu Huong

To achieve the set goals, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc requested the agriculture and rural development sector to develop a specific plan for the 2019 goals, from which to propose reasonable solutions for implementation, especially solutions to remove current difficulties and "bottlenecks" such as: restructuring the sector has not been implemented evenly in localities, innovation and development of production forms have not met requirements, organization of production according to value chains is not popular...

The agriculture and rural development sector needs to continue to promote restructuring, improve productivity, quality of agricultural products and production and business efficiency, and strive to achieve the highest growth target of the year. Strengthen strict management of fertilizers and pesticides; coordinate well with relevant ministries and branches in performing tasks. Increase the connection between farmers and businesses; especially synchronously implement solutions to have a clean agricultural production to ensure people's health as well as target demanding export markets, increase the production value of the agricultural sector. Rural development focuses on implementing the national target program on new rural construction.

Clean agricultural production is an inevitable requirement today. Photo: Internet