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Food security plan to guard against menaces
Vietnam Communist Party’s Politburo last week officially approved the nation’s food security project.
The project, designed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), states that by 2030, Vietnam’s rice cultivation area must be kept permanently at 3.8 million hectares, including 3.2 million hectares of paddy rice.
“The project is of vital importance to the fast-industrialising Vietnam as the nation’s rice growing areas are being devoured by mushrooming industrial parks, urban areas and golf courses,” said Nguyen Tri Ngoc, director of the MARD’s Crop Production Department.
“The Politburo has concluded that if Vietnam wants to ensure its national food security and socio-economic stable development, it must permanently keep its rice land to ensure farmers’ lives and rice exports,” Ngoc said at last week’s conference on Vietnam’s food security jointly held by the MARD’s Information Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
According to the MARD, Vietnam’s rice plantation area had reduced from 4.47 million hectares in 2000 to 4.1 million hectares. On average, the nation witnessed a reduction of nearly 59,000ha per year. The disappearance of each hectare can affect 10-13 labourers.
Consequently, some 53 per cent of households whose rice land were reclaimed are financially worse off, while 34 per cent have seen their living standards drop significantly. Suresh Babu, IFPRI programme senior leader, said though Vietnam’s economy had over the past years strongly developed, the nation still faced hunger.
Though being the world’s second biggest rice exporter, in 2007, Vietnam was home to 6.7 per cent of households living in food insufficiency. In rural areas alone, the rate was 8.7 per cent. At present, one million of people living in mountainous areas still have to eat non-rice food such as cassava and maize. “The problem for Vietnam is that how to protect the poor while having to boost investment into agriculture,” Babu said.
“Meanwhile, the nation’s population has increased by over 1 per cent a year. It is expected that it will increase to over 100 million people in 2020 and 110 million people in 2030,” Ngoc said. Teunis Van Rheenen, coordinator of IFPRI’s Partnerships, saw climate change impacts as one of the biggest menaces to the country.
According to the United Nations in Vietnam, the nation is regularly afflicted by up to seven natural disasters annually, which destroy crops and food resources, as well as seeds, fertilisers and other resources in vulnerable areas.
Ngoc said the MARD was drafting a governmental Rice Cultivation Land Management Decree with preferential policies stressing on protecting rice cultivation land and helping farmers to keep their rice farming.
The draft decree stipulates that any plan to convert 5ha of rice cultivation land upwards must be approved by the prime minister.
Over the past years, rice land has been massively reclaimed by provincial and municipal authorities without reporting to the government. “No country in the world can reclaim rice cultivation land as easy as Vietnam can,” Ngoc said. “It is clear that rice cultivation brings in fewer profits than other sectors. But food security is a national-level issue needed to be prioritised,” Ngoc said.
VietNamNet, VIR
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