Cooperatives in a new era: Agent creating value, elevating Vietnamese agriculture

Vietnamese agricultural products already reach markets worldwide, and many sectors have carved out an international standing. But behind these achievements, fragmented, small-scale production and unstable linkages remain a persistent bottleneck, and in many places farmers still occupy the lowest-value end of the chain.

Shifting from agricultural production to an agricultural economy first requires reorganizing production. In that process, cooperatives must become agents that create value, connect markets, and raise farmers' standing.

Reorganizing production, a fundamental requirement for the new period

Vietnamese agriculture stands at the threshold of a profound transformation: from agricultural production to an agricultural economy, from small-scale production to value chains, from resource extraction to efficient resource use, and from growth driven heavily by inputs toward green, low-emission growth increasingly built on knowledge, technology, and added value.

Our products have entered global markets, but production organization in many places remains scattered. As the value of the chain keeps growing, the share that reaches producers directly does not always keep pace.

The bottleneck, then, lies not only in production technique but increasingly in the capacity to organize production and connect with markets. A single household farming alone can hardly build a large supply area, invest systematically in technology, meet standards, maintain traceability, or have enough leverage to negotiate with businesses.

In an agricultural sector made up of millions of individual households, cooperation is not merely a choice of organizational model, it is the way to overcome fragmented production, build the strength of scale, and raise farmers' standing within the value chain.

That means the way cooperatives are viewed must change. A cooperative should not simply be a recipient of support policy, it must become an important economic agent in reorganizing production, developing the agricultural economy, building a modern countryside, and driving green transformation.

The measure of development must change accordingly. The goal is not more cooperatives, but genuinely stronger cooperatives, strong in governance, in the capacity to organize production and connect with markets, and, more importantly, capable of creating additional value and raising income and standing for their members.

The state should not do the work of the cooperative; it should focus on building institutions, clearing bottlenecks, and creating a favorable environment for development. Cooperatives must be self-reliant, modernize their governance, adapt to the market, and put members' interests at the center. The state builds institutions, cooperatives govern themselves, businesses form linkages, the market leads, and members remain the center.

From small households to supply areas and value chains

One of the major bottlenecks in Vietnamese agriculture is production that remains small-scale and scattered. Many sectors hold real potential but still lack an agent capable of bringing farmers together, organizing production to uniform standards, and building sustainable linkages with businesses.

Cooperatives need to become the nucleus that organizes supply areas and bridges farmers with businesses and markets. Through a cooperative, scattered resources of land, labor, capital, and technology can be pooled while still safeguarding the rights and interests of each individual household.

But thinking about supply areas must change too. A supply area is not merely a space for production, it must become an organized economic space. It is not enough simply to "have a supply area"; that area must meet standards, remain stable, and have a market; it needs a core cooperative, linked businesses, production standards, traceability, infrastructure and logistics, and a mechanism that fairly shares both benefit and risk among farmers, cooperatives, and businesses.

Only then can we truly shift from "producing what we have" toward "organizing production of what the market needs, to the standards the market demands." This is also the shift from a production mindset to an agricultural-economy mindset.

Alongside organizing supply areas, cooperatives of this new period cannot rely on experience alone to govern themselves. They must gradually move toward governing by data, producing according to process and standards, and doing business by reading market signals.

Digital transformation must go hand in hand with green transformation, helping cooperatives organize production more effectively, achieve traceability, use resources efficiently, cut emissions, reuse byproducts, and better meet market standards. Through this, farmers gain not just access to technology and markets but also the chance to participate in and benefit from the new values of the green economy.

From standalone policies to a value-creating ecosystem

A cooperative seeking to grow needs capital, land, technology, workforce, infrastructure, and a market, all at once. The issue, then, is not simply adding more policies or more resources, but organizing policy and resources more effectively.

Cooperatives cannot be developed through standalone policies. What's needed is a whole ecosystem for developing cooperatives and creating value. Within that ecosystem, the state builds institutions and coordinates resources; localities implement; cooperatives organize production; businesses invest, form linkages, and connect to markets; banks provide capital; scientists and technology firms supply knowledge and technology; and the Viet Nam Cooperative Alliance represents, connects, and stands alongside cooperatives.

The approach must shift from "each program supporting one piece of the work" toward an integrated approach: one value chain, one supply area, one core cooperative, one integrated package of resources. State resources must serve as seed capital, leading and activating further investment, drawing in far greater resources from businesses, credit, public-private partnership, and society at large.

Alongside reorganizing resources, a breakthrough in people is also essential. Vietnamese agriculture needs to build a generation of cooperative entrepreneurs, people who can do more than manage an organization; they must think like businesspeople, understand markets, finance, and technology, manage risk, organize value chains, and connect resources to create additional value for members. In the end, the ultimate measure of a cooperative is not its size, but how much additional value it creates for its members and community.

Elevating cooperatives, raising farmers' standing

By 2031, what matters is not simply a rising number of cooperatives, but the emergence of a new generation of cooperatives: not small in ambition, not simplistic in governance, not standing outside the value chain, not standing outside digital and green transformation, and not passively waiting for state support.

These must be cooperatives with genuine, engaged members, professional governance, standardized production, market-oriented business practices, sustainable linkages, and technology adoption.

But developing cooperatives is not an end in itself. The higher goal is to use cooperatives to reorganize production, build the strength of scale, raise the competitiveness of the agricultural sector, and elevate farmers' standing within the value chain.

Farmers cannot remain forever at the start of the chain, producing raw material and selling it off. They must gradually take part more deeply in the value chain, gain a stronger voice in the market, and receive a fairer share of the value from what they produce.

When farmers grow stronger, cooperatives truly grow stronger. When cooperatives grow stronger, the value chain becomes sustainable. And when millions of farming households are better organized, Vietnamese agriculture can shift from the advantage of individual producers to the strength of an organized, modern, and highly competitive agricultural economy.

In this new period, then, a cooperative is not simply a place to "cooperate in production together." It is a place to cooperate in mastering the market together, to cooperate in creating value together, to cooperate in developing together and sharing the fruits of that development together.

That is the new role and mission of cooperatives in building an ecological agriculture, a modern countryside, and a civilized farming community, contributing to elevating Vietnamese agriculture and building a prosperous, civilized, happy, and sustainably developing nation.