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Gov’t discusses food security plan
Ministry officials and experts met on Thursday in HCM City to figure out how to raise a targeted 3.6 million ha under rice cultivation by 2020 in to ensure food security.
The Department of Cultivation organised the seminar, National Food Security Strategy until 2020 and Vision until 2030, to collect opinions and propose policies for food producers to ensure short and long-term national food security.
The target of the food security strategy set for 2010 is to keep rice growing on about 4 million ha. The area will be reduced from the current 3.8 million ha under cultivation to 3.6 million ha by 2020, with 3.5 million ha to be maintained between 2020 and 2050.
Rice harvests should come in at 36.5 million tonnes by 2010, 39.8 million tonnes by 2020 and 40.5 million tonnes by 2030.
The strategy’s overarching objective is to ensure food security in every household nationwide by boosting food production, especially rice and maize, maintaining the area under wet rice cultivation, and applying intensive farming to increase output and profits.
Under the proposed strategy, farmers will be given VND3-5 million per ha of crop to buy seedlings and fertiliser, receive training to modernise food production and be exempted from irrigation fees.
Seminar attendees agreed that a national strategy for food security was essential in the face of a global food crisis, an increased risk of natural disasters and epidemics due to climate change, and the demands of industrialisation and modernisation.
Viet Nam’s population is set to boom at 1-1.2 per cent per year in the next few decades, and is predicted to reach 100 million people by 2020 and 120-130 million people by 2030.
Demand for food for human and animal consumption will continue to go up while agricultural harvests are expected to gradually decrease with input materials and fuel prices constantly on the rise.
If drastic measures are not taken, the area of rice farms will continue to shrink, eventually threatening national food security, according to participants.
The World Climate Change Organisation forecast that around 1.5-2 million ha of agricultural land, mostly in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta and coastal provinces, will be submerged as sea levels rise an additional metre in the next 100 years.
In the past ten years, farmland has given way to aquaculture and other non-agricultural purposes.
A report by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment shows that the country currently has 4.1 million ha of land under rice cultivation, down 361,000ha since 2000 or an average decline of 51,000ha per year.
However, rice output skyrocketed from 1997 to 2002, with national rice output last year averaging 4.98 tonnes per ha, an increase of 1.02 tonnes per hectare or 25.7 per cent over 1998’s figure.
The rise in rice output has slowed in the past five years to a pace of 1.41 per cent, compared with 2.21 per cent between 1997-2001.
Seminar participants also pointed to shortcomings in food security system and policies as well as the domestic food distribution network.
The shortcomings could hinder access to food sources if unfavourable climate and market fluctuations occur.
Nguyen Tri Ngoc, head of the agricultural ministry’s Cultivation Department, said the national food security strategy identified a number of key crops, with rice plants in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta representing 52-55 per cent of the national output.
Rice from the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta will account for more than 90 per cent of the national volume for export.
Prof Vo Tong Xuan proposed the board in charge of drafting the National Food Security Strategy Project to review and map out a national master plan for rice production in each region of the country.
The plan would be submitted to the National Assembly for final approval, he said.
Prof Xuan emphasised the need to issue a law on land zoning to stabilise agricultural areas.
An information system on food security should also be established to control rice production and harvesting activities as well as rice output to ensure stockpiles for reserve and export, he added.
The United Nations reported that by May this year more than 850 million people worldwide faced severe food shortages as the world food reserve last year fell to the lowest amount in the past 25 years.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation announced a list of 37 countries worst hit by the food crisis, most of which are in Asia, Africa and Central America.
VNS
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