Continue to innovate thinking to create strong breakthroughs in agriculture

Resolution "backbone" of agriculture and rural areas

On November 26 and 27, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Government leaders, the Government and the Central Steering Committee held a national online conference and national exhibition on achievements over 10 years of implementing Resolution No. 7 of the 10th Party Central Committee on agriculture, farmers and rural areas.

Scene at Nghe An bridge. Photo: Lam Tung

The 7th Conference of the Party Central Committee (10th tenure) issued Resolution No. 26 - NQ/T.Ư "On agriculture, farmers, and rural areas". This is a comprehensive resolution on agriculture, farmers, and rural areas with correct viewpoints and policies, in line with the people's wishes, and received the people's support and response. The Resolution has been seriously and actively implemented by Party committees at all levels and the entire political system, achieving many great results, accelerating the process of industrialization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas, significantly improving the lives of the majority of farmers, making an important contribution to promoting the socio-economic development of the whole country. People's trust in the Party and the government has been enhanced.

However, due to many objective and subjective reasons, some of the goals set out in the Resolution are likely to not be achieved. Many shortcomings and weaknesses are slow to be overcome, especially in production organization, quality, efficiency and sustainability of agricultural production, rural economy and new rural development. In the plan until 2030 and vision until 2045, the Central Government has proposed strategic, long-term but also very specific solutions, aiming to build a modern agriculture with high competitiveness, adaptability to climate change, clean, high added value and sustainable development; a diversified rural economy, faster improvement of the lives of rural residents, as a basis for implementing industrialization and modernization of the country, contributing to firmly ensuring national defense and security, and protecting the ecological environment.

High-tech clean vegetable farm in Quynh Lien (Hoang Mai). Photo archive

After 10 years of implementation, Nghe An has achieved great achievements.Most of the important targets set were met and exceeded. Agriculture developed at a high and stable rate in the direction of commodity production. The rural economy shifted towards increasing industry and services; forms of production organization continued to innovate and develop.

Restructuring of the agricultural sector is being implemented synchronously and comprehensively.The internal economic structure is shifting in a positive direction.;High-tech agricultural production has become an inevitable development trend.The income of the majority of rural residents has continuously increased, the rate of poor and near-poor households has decreased rapidly, especially in poor districts under Program 30a.By the end of 2017, the whole province had 181/431 communes, 46 villages and 3 district-level units meeting NTM standards.

Continue restructuring the agricultural sector

In his concluding remarks at the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated: 10 years of implementing the three agriculture, farmers and rural areas is a very important period in the development of agriculture, farmers and rural areas in Vietnam.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the Conference. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu

The entire political system has taken strong and systematic action, the whole society has recognized the practicality of the Resolution and joined hands to implement it. The results have affirmed the correctness of the Resolution when it has entered life, changing agricultural production towards modernity, large-scale commodity production, and high competitiveness. The face of the countryside has changed, the lives of the majority of rural residents have been improved.

Overview of the conference. Photo: Lam Tung

However, after 10 years of implementation, many shortcomings have been revealed. The efficiency of agricultural production is not commensurate with the potential, production is still fragmented, the number of enterprises investing in agriculture is small, mainly small and micro enterprises; the amount of credit capital for rural agriculture is still limited; high-tech agriculture has not developed strongly; processing industry is still limited...

Many households in Quynh Bang (Quynh Luu) have applied clean production processes in shrimp farming. Photo courtesy

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also affirmed to continue to comprehensively restructure the agricultural sector. Transforming pure agriculture into an agricultural economy, integrating deeply. To do that, it is necessary to clearly recognize the opportunities and challenges in the current period as well as in the coming years. Quickly overcome the shortcomings and weaknesses in current agricultural and rural development.

State and local agencies continue to review documents and regulations to find ways to remove difficulties for investors; encourage land concentration for commodity production. We must change our thinking and ways of doing things; agricultural production must be linked to demand; there must be solutions to expand export markets as well as pay attention to the domestic market.

The Prime Minister also requested the banking sector to have a reasonable mechanism for providing capital sources; the transport sector to have solutions to provide effective transport services to serve agricultural and rural development.

The agricultural sector must pay attention to improving farmers' qualifications and production capacity, supporting start-ups, building comprehensive and sustainable new rural areas associated with urbanization. Promoting hunger eradication and poverty reduction, ensuring social security, especially in remote areas and ethnic minority areas; protecting rural resources and environment, improving the ability to adapt to climate change, preventing natural disasters; perfecting the socialist-oriented market economic institution, mobilizing resources for agricultural and rural development, proactively integrating and cooperating internationally.