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Farmers suffer from excessive production
There has long been a paradox in Vietnamese agriculture: Farmers aren’t happy even when they reap a bumper crop because their products are unsalable or priced cheaply. It’s urgent to find out the root of the problem.
Bumper crops, prices down
Vietnamese catfish are known worldwide but are now filling up the small ponds in the Mekong delta because they are growing day by day without anywhere to go. In a commune of the coastal central province of Khanh Hoa, thousands of fully-grown giant sea perch are “trying to escape” in vain. In the northern province of Bac Giang, thousands of tonnes of litchi flood the markets at incredibly low prices but still do not sell well. In the southernmost province of Ca Mau, investors raising crocodiles are unsuccessfully managing to sell thousands of crocodiles in stock as there have been obstacles in exporting them to the sole Chinese market.
Similar stories occur repeatedly in many localities nationwide in various fields of agriculture. Suffering the most from this vicious circle are farmers, followed by processing enterprises and exporters. The economy as a whole is also affected.
When the price of catfish went up, a huge number of farmers in the Mekong Delta rushed to buy land to breed this fish irrespective of warnings of possible excesses in the near future. In the central highlands, locals tried to expand their acreage for planting coffee trees although the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development ordered halting the expansion of the coffee planting area in the region to ensure sustainable development. It’s simply because the price of coffee continued going up in recent times.
“Six knows”
In the current process of global integration, it’s important to have up-to-date information and respond to it quickly. To many Vietnamese enterprises, information tends to come too late and is not used in time. This fact is blamed on many parties, including manufacturers, traders and state agencies that are tasked with planning and managing the relevant fields.
For example, when informed of the increasing prices of giant sea perch, both the locals of a commune and its people’s committee chairman immediately made massive investments to breed these fish. As a result, they all got stuck later with their ponds full of fish.
The demand for information is often discussed at many seminars and conferences in almost all localities, ministries and agencies, including those of the Government and the National Assembly. In fact, Vietnam has a large number of information agencies, such as the information centre of the Trade Ministry, the information centre of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and information centres of localities and trade and market promotion agencies. However, these information centres have not yet met the requirements demanded by businesses.
Most recently, a series of measures for both mid-term and long-term periods have been intensified to provide assistance to aquaculture breeders in the Mekong Delta region. Banks have extended the length of loans for aquaculture breeders and provided businesses with financial assistance worth thousands of billion of VND to purchase fish from farmers to help them process and preserve the fish. All of these measures used the State budget with the aim of saving tra and basa catfish in the Mekong Delta. The problem is whether there is enough state budget to support other seafood products. Furthermore, businesses and farmers still find it difficult to sell seafood products.
In another case, many farmers have destroyed their cashew nut gardens to grow cassava in the hope of getting a quick return on this investment but they do not know that the country still lacks a large volume of raw cashew nuts for processing factories and has to import tens of thousands of tonnes of raw cashew nut annually. Moreover, the price of cashew nuts is increasing rapidly on the global market. Few Vietnamese farmers know that although the price of pepper on the world market is rising, the demand and supply is nearly balanced.
Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan has made a fact-finding tour of Luc Ngan district in the northern province of Bac Giang to inspect the litchi harvest. He affirmed that to increase the efficiency of agricultural production in general and litchi growing in particular, farmers and investors should follow the “six knows” measure. They should know the efficiency of the investment, consumer demand, markets, cultivation techniques and the State’s incentive policies, he added.
Zoning plans are needed
Nguyen Huu Dung, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Association ofd Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP), pledged that his association will work with the leaders of the Mekong Delta provinces to discuss plans for sustainable development of tra and basa catfish. Top priority will be given to farmers who already have contracts and links to businesses and banks. The local authorities will have to implement measures to prevent tra breeding activities without planning.
Dr. Nguyen Minh Chau, head of the Southern Fruit Research Institute, said that in New Zealand, farmers are not allowed to grow trees of their own free will, but have to follow the government’s zoning plans. Provinces and cities nationwide, especially those in the Mekong Delta, should learn experience from New Zealand. More importantly, it is necessary to identify who is responsible for the implementation of the zoning plans, Dr. Chau noted.
VOV
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