The workshop is a preparatory activity in response to the "6th Vietnam Rice Festival" taking place in Hau Giang.
Accordingly, the Workshop proposed solutions to help the Vietnamese agricultural sector seize opportunities, increase export competitiveness and solve the problem of profits for the rice production industry; at the same time, proposed policies to remove bottlenecks to help farmers earn higher profits, businesses develop, and improve Vietnam's competitive position in rice exports.
Mr. Truong Canh Tuyen - Permanent Vice Chairman of Hau Giang Provincial People's Committee - said that with the strong fluctuations in rice prices in recent times, rice farmers in Hau Giang are extremely excited because they can sell at higher prices than previous crops.
Mr. Tuyen said that although rice prices have increased, he is still worried because the cost of fertilizers and input materials for production has also increased significantly, and at the same time, the negative impact of climate change has also greatly affected rice productivity and output in recent times.
The Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee shared that if the situation of agricultural materials and other expenses continues to increase as it is now, even if the price of rice increases, the real profit of farmers will still not increase significantly. In the long term, the possibility that the beneficiaries of the opportunity of increasing rice prices are not necessarily farmers.
Mr. Tuyen added that currently, in Hau Giang province, 7 rice growing areas have been built that are produced according to safety standards and have been granted growing area codes that meet export standards to foreign markets with an area of 282.12 hectares/161 households, with an annual output of about 3,635.5 tons.
In addition, to increase the value of rice production, Hau Giang Department of Agriculture has also gone to the locality to propagate and expand the production area applying improved farming techniques, increasing the proportion of rice area certified with SRP, VietGAP, GlobalGAP, organic standards... according to the actual needs of the market, striving to have over 95% of the area producing high-quality rice with low production costs by 2025.
Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Ba Bong - former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) - said that to overcome this problem and help rice growers become more prosperous, farmers also need to increase the size of their households, concentrate and accumulate rice land.
From there, it will impact on increasing rice production efficiency and income. Reduce production costs, improve quality, link large-scale field cooperation and cooperatives.
In addition, we cooperate with businesses, diversify income sources, and improve the production environment. Thereby, contributing to food security, exports, environmental protection, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change.
According to Mr. Bong, the 2021 survey by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development showed that there are 3 rice consumption channels including farmers selling rice directly to export processing enterprises, accounting for 12.1% of total rice output; farmers selling rice through cooperatives (accounting for 37.5%) for redistribution to processing/export enterprises or through traders; farmers selling through traders (accounting for 49.5%) and redistributing to other subjects. The rice production area with links between farmers and enterprises only reached 10%.
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