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Farmer support programme: Money not yet reaching farmers
Farmers still do not know whom they should contact and what formalities they have to complete to borrow capital under the programme on supporting farmers in the purchase of agricultural equipment and materials.
Prime Minister Decision No. 497 on the interest rate subsidy programme to help farmers purchase agricultural equipment and materials went into effect three weeks ago. However, the implementation of the decision has been going very slowly; farmers, the main targets, still haven’t got detailed information about the policy.
Slow moving
Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Farmers’ Association Nguyen Duy Luong said that the association is ready to help farmers fulfill procedures to get preferential loans.
Luong also said that in the past, the association, in cooperation with the Vietnam Engineering and Agricultural Machinery Corporation (VEAM), and local authorities of 24 provinces and cities, carried out a programme on helping farmers to purchase machines and equipment for production. The money for the programme was sourced from the local budget (every province provided VND500 million to one billion dong for the interest rate subsidy programme).
However, the programme wasn’t as efficient as expected. In Hung Yen province, which was considered the locality where the programme saw the greatest efficiency, only 300 agricultural machines were provided. In other provinces, only 200 machines were supplied, though the demand was far greater.
Under Decision 497, farmers only can use the money they borrow from the support programme to purchase domestically-made products. However, Luong said that in order to persuade farmers to purchase domestically-made products, producers needs to provide products at reasonable prices and quality that are suitable to the land in local fields.
Farmers in the north, for example, cannot use combine harvesters with high horsepower like farmers in the south. If machine producers do not know this, demand and supply may not ‘meet’ each other.
Helping boost sales of foreign-made products?
According to Le Phan Hai, Deputy Head of the Market and Business Division under VEAM, besides the 24 provinces which have been carrying out the preferential loan programme, VEAM will focus on sales in 15 key provinces. It will send product catalogues to more distant provinces, instead of going directly to the provinces.
But to date, farmers still do not know whom to contact and what to do to borrow capital.
Hai said that if the programme could be carried out well, 200,000 machines could be provided this year.
He added that VEAM and other local farm equipment companies are absolutely able to provide machines, so there is no need to worry about supply. It is more important to think of how to get the money to farmers and control the money to ensure that it is used for the right purposes.
Hai has said it could happen that farmers use the preferential capital they borrow to purchase foreign-made products.
He affirmed that China-made products are not much cheaper than Vietnam-made ones, but they are attractive as the sellers are exempt from taxes. In these cases, VEAM cannot interfere in the case, because only commercial banks have the right to make loan decisions.
VietNamNet, NLD
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