Secure investment capital is the key to avoid failure

There should be policies to attract investment

Vietnamese leading experts in the field of agriculture and experts from international organizations recently had a discussion about the proposal to build the Scheme for sustainable production of 1 million ha of high quality rice cultivation in the Mekong Delta.

Providing a deeper view on the goal of 1 million ha of high-quality rice, Dr. Dang Kim Son, former Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD) raised a number of statements: Firstly, rice organization is to rely on advantages and be considerate of adaptation to climate change in the Mekong Delta. Arrangement For rice production in terms of area, seed variety and interaction system will vary between regions. Accordingly, policies and investments must be appropriate.

Secondly, the synergy of the central, local, enterprises, farmers and international must be promoted to acquire investment sources. Thirdly, pay close attention to the market, based on information gathered from the market to determine the production scale, standards and techniques to build a sustainable process. Fourthly, it is necessary to build an organizational and institutional ecosystem that is closely linked between enterprises inside and outside the country, enterprises and cooperatives, local and central.

Supportive policies can be applied to reduce labor in specialized farming areas and create conditions for skilled farmers and cooperatives to accumulate land. Previously, Dong Thap also boldly set out policies for farmers to borrow money, creating favorable conditions for people to carry out land consolidation procedures.

According to Dr. Dang Kim Son, investment attraction policy is considered vital in order to complete the scheme. “This scheme may end up in failure if we cannot secure the investment capital for it. The breakthrough point will lie in focusing on bringing together private and international investment, the participation of localities and coordination with the Central Government. There must be policies to support businesses to form ecosystems in the direction of methodical organization, large enterprises connecting with small enterprises, domestic cooperatives and enterprises connecting with foreign enterprises.”

Dr. Dang Kim Son also emphasized the importance of building up specialized farming areas. “The specialized farming area is not only an area to adapt and encourage the people, but I think the State should further invest in infrastructure, irrigation systems to gain proactiveness in irrigation and reduce irrigation water, which will ultimately reduce carbon emissions. We support the building of internal links and external processing clusters, connecting to the logistics axis, which means that we have to be relatively in sync with infrastructure as well as seeds and plant protection systems. I think this is where the role of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development comes into play.”

Optimizing the potential of specialized farming areas

Also at the discussion, Dr. Vo Tong Xuan, an expert with many years of experience in the field of agriculture, raised the issue of organizing production and finding markets for Vietnamese rice.

Having listened to the proposal of the Department of Crop Production on research and development of quality rice varieties, Dr. Vo Tong Xuan said that Vietnam already had rice varieties that were good enough. “What needs to be concerned about is the organization of production to ensure both efficiency and sustainable development. To do this well, the application of scientific and technological achievements plays a very important role.”

Regarding market search, Dr. Vo Tong Xuan said that Vietnam was a country that has established relations with many countries around the world. This is the premise for the agriculture industry to reach out to the world to find and expand the rice consumption market.

Believing in the fact that the scheme will not only stop at 1 million ha of high-quality rice but also expanded further in the future if the market can be identified, Dr. Vo Tong Xuan suggested the agriculture industry develop mechanisms and policies to attract businesses to actively participate in the implementation of this scheme as they will be the ones to help find markets, diversify products, thereby improving the value of Vietnamese rice.