Why do businesses not want to invest in agriculture?

Delegates at the New Rural Development Forum said that the rate of businesses investing in this field is still low.

According to the report of the Office of the National Target Program for New Rural Areas, up to now there are about 3,700 enterprises with a total investment capital in agriculture of about 40,000 billion VND. However, enterprises investing in rural agriculture are still few, specifically in 2014 the number of enterprises operating in the field of agriculture, forestry and fishery accounted for only 0.96% of the total number of enterprises, the total investment capital also accounted for a low proportion, about 1% and accounted for 2.3% of the labor force, in addition, the scale of enterprises operating in this field is mainly small and micro enterprises...

At the forum “Promoting the role of enterprises in building new rural areas” organized by VCCI on the morning of October 22 in Hanoi, delegates said that: investment by enterprises in agriculture and rural areas in recent times is still very limited and not commensurate with the potential and development needs of Vietnam's agricultural sector.

The reason for this situation is that agricultural production is still widespread, small-scale and scattered, mainly based on household economy, and the agricultural labor force is poorly trained, with over 90% of workers still being simple and traditional, without training.

Many businesses are still not interested in the agricultural sector.

Ms. Bui Thi Hanh Hieu, Director of Bao Minh Agricultural Products Joint Stock Company, pointed out a reality: The quality of agricultural products is uneven, production is not concentrated and the support of sanctioning departments to bring products into systems for consumption, for example in supermarkets through too many tests. Enterprises have to undertake too many steps from training for knowledge, then through departments to ensure sufficient conditions, enough food hygiene and safety for products to meet standards, this problem is really very difficult for enterprises.

Delegates said that in order to attract businesses to invest in agricultural and rural development, there needs to be an insurance policy in agriculture, as well as a policy to support insurance purchases for rural workers, especially workers on farms and small businesses.

In addition, it is necessary to promote the encouragement of enterprises to invest in science and technology, innovate production technology to produce quality products. For human resources in this field, the Government should provide direct support, assign enterprises to sign labor training contracts to serve their own enterprises and have policies to support human resource training for small and medium enterprises...

Mr. Tang Minh Loc, Director, Chief of the Central Office for New Rural Area Coordination, said that in policies to support businesses investing in rural agriculture, the most important thing is to support them in investing in infrastructure projects and it is necessary to specify each industry.

However, according to Mr. Loc, because this field faces many risks, there needs to be a preferential credit source for businesses investing in this field so that they can access it in the most convenient way, to ensure that agricultural production reduces costs and increases profits./.

According to VOV