Building large model fields towards modern agricultural production
(Baonghean)Implementing the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on building large-scale fields (LMPs), promoting advantages of land and abundant labor resources, Nghe An is taking the first quite effective steps. Nghe An Newspaper had an interview with Comrade Ho Ngoc Sy, Member of the Provincial Party Committee - Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development about this issue.
Summer-autumn rice harvest in Hung Nguyen. Photo: Sy Minh
PV: Sir, what are the advantages and difficulties in implementing the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on building large-scale fields in Nghe An?
Comrade Ho Ngoc Sy:Nghe An has an agricultural land fund of over 195,000 hectares, including large plains that have now formed concentrated commodity production areas such as Dien Chau, Nghi Loc peanuts, Nam Dan, Quynh Luu vegetables; rice in Dien Chau, Yen Thanh... We also have an abundant labor force, accustomed to intensive farming, hard-working, a large team of highly qualified technical staff. However, we also determined that there will be many difficulties and challenges; harsh weather, farmers still have a conservative mindset, even waiting and relying, it is very difficult to find pioneers. The connection between enterprises and farmers has been through contracts but is not tight, lacking cohesion, many people do not pay much attention to the signed commitments, so when problems arise, they do not discuss and solve them.
In addition, the participation of local authorities is not high; scientific and technological units and agricultural extension units have not participated much; especially the number of enterprises that can join farmers to build CĐML is not much. A part of farmers are not serious in investing to ensure the process or implementing technical measures. Agricultural production is mainly small-scale, not developing commodity production according to market demand. In particular, although we have actively implemented land conversion for more than 10 years, the fields are still fragmented and small, making it difficult to select areas with suitable scale to build CĐML; and if there are, there are too many farmer households participating in a CĐML.
PV: So far, what results have we achieved in the large-scale field construction program, comrade?
Comrade Ho Ngoc Sy:In my opinion, the most obvious is that we have increasingly expanded the specialized commodity production fields, creating large volumes of products to meet market demands. After the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development issued a policy on building the CĐML in the Northern provinces, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development advised the Provincial People's Committee to direct the implementation.
On the other hand, at the end of 2011, the Provincial People's Council passed a Resolution on the Policy to support the development of agricultural production, including support for the construction of model fields (CĐM). On that basis, some localities have coordinated with enterprises to implement right from the spring crop of 2012, mainly on rice, corn and peanuts, typically Nghe An Agricultural Materials Joint Stock Corporation has successfully implemented many rice and corn models. Some enterprises such as Vinh Hoa Company Limited, Thai Binh Seed Joint Stock Corporation; Nghe An Seed Joint Stock Company, Nghe An Seed Center,... through production and seed consumption contracts with cooperatives have formed CĐMLs.
In fact, the cooperatives have higher productivity, output and efficiency than mass production, at least reaching over 10%; this is a remarkable increase. In particular, farmers have initially become familiar with concentrated production, approached new technical advances and know how to calculate their production efficiency. The link between enterprises and farmers has been established; the local authorities have also paid attention and participated in the process of reorganizing production as well as managing and supervising the implementation of enterprises and farmers.
In particular, the models under the "agricultural competitiveness" program, with a total capital of nearly 8 million USD, with funding from the World Bank; up to now, in many localities, concentrated raw material areas with many types of high-quality agricultural products have been built, applying scientific and technological advances, bringing mechanization into production such as Dien Thinh peanuts (Dien Chau), or the high-quality green tea production model in Thanh Mai (Thanh Chuong) ..., have opened up prospects for replicating linkage models between enterprises and farmers, creating price stability, ensuring sustainable development for both people and businesses. In fact, the alliances all have similarities with the criteria set by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on building CĐML.
Based on these premises, Nghe An is preparing to build CĐMLs in the whole province. In 2012, the focus will be on building 4 main crops: rice, peanuts, sugarcane and corn with a total area of over 2,500 hectares, with a minimum scale of 30 to 40 hectares per field. The construction of these CĐMLs will be carried out on rice from the summer-autumn crop, peanuts from the spring crop, corn from the winter crop of 2012 and sugarcane from the 2012-2013 crushing crop. In the immediate future, we will continue to consolidate and exchange plots, and implement policies for farmers to lease land to enterprises and investors.
PV: What are the mechanisms and policies to encourage businesses to participate in building the CDML that we are currently applying, comrade?
Comrade Ho Ngoc Sy:Currently, we are applying the policy to support agricultural production development in Decision 09 of the Provincial People's Committee to implement the construction of the CĐML, according to which only a part of the materials is supported for farmers, but enterprises have not received any support. However, after the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Provincial People's Committee assigned the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to develop a mechanism and policy to build the CĐML, and currently we are continuing to coordinate with the sectors and localities, continuing to complete it for the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the Provincial People's Council. Accordingly, to successfully build a truly effective CĐML model, there must be a synchronous policy, that is: Support to complete the field infrastructure system; support to bring mechanization into production; support farmers with a part of the materials; for enterprises, it is necessary to support the following items: investment promotion, market research, brand building and possibly integrate other policies (post-harvest, ...) to support the purchase of machinery and equipment, build storage warehouses, etc.
In my opinion, the key issue to successfully build the CĐML is that first of all, the Party committees and authorities must really get involved and successfully organize the CĐML so that farmers have higher incomes. At the same time, promote land conversion, build field infrastructure to synchronously apply mechanization and technical equipment to production. Mobilize science and technology officers and agricultural extension officers to work closely with and guide farmers to properly implement technical steps. The province needs to encourage and invite more businesses to join with farmers to build the CĐML. In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to propaganda to raise people's awareness, so that people clearly understand their responsibilities and rights in participating in building the CĐML. And finally, there must be a synchronous policy. In the condition that the State budget is limited, we need to choose appropriate contents to support and encourage both farmers and businesses to participate in building the CĐML.
PV: Thank you, comrade!
Phu Huong (performed)
