Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the event (Photo: VNA)The PM pointed out that largest obstacles hinderingagriculture development include land limitation, poor capacity of agricultural businessesand slow application of science and technology.
He showed disappointment at the limited use of e-commerce inthe trading of agricultural products, the small production scale, landwastefulness and forest destruction.
The reservoir and irrigation system has been degraded,threatening people’s lives, while inspection in agriculture has been poor, henoted.
Along with information technology and tourism, agricultureis considered a strength of Vietnam and a comparative advantage, the PM said,adding that the sector is also employing 40 percent of the population.Therefore, he stressed the necessity to pay more attention to value rather thanraw volume, and strengthen the building of trade mark.
The PM highlighted that Vietnam’s agriculture sector, whichis vulnerable to climate change, should restructure its production towardssmart agriculture with strong application of science and technology, thusenhancing products’ value and increasing farmers’ income.
At the same time, it is necessary to focus more onprocessing to raise products’ value, he said, asking the Ministry of Scienceand Technology to pay attention to developing science and technology serving agriculture.
This year, the agriculture sector has faced manydifficulties. Extreme cold spells in early this year ravaged 14 northern mountainouslocalities, while historic droughts devastated the south central and CentralHighlands regions, and record drought and saltwater intrusion in 100 yearsseriously hit the Mekong Delta region. Since October, serious floods have sweptthrough eight south central localities.
Natural disasters led to water shortage for about 1 millionpeople, harming 300,000 hectares of rice fields.
According to the MARD statistics, natural disasters killed253 people and caused losses worth 39 trillion VND.
In the first half of this year, the sector’s growth suffereda drop of 0.18 percent, with falls in exports of almost all major products.
According to MARD Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong, the sector’s1.2 percent growth in a challenging year showed the efforts of localities andfarmers.
He noted that exports of vegetables and fruits surpassedthat of rice, hitting 2.4 billion USD, a rise of 31.2 percent year on year. Animalhusbandry also saw a 5.4 percent rise in production value over 2015.
In 2017, the sector aims at a GDP growth of 2.5-2.8 percentin agro-forestry-fishery and 32.5 billion USD in export earnings, said theministry, adding that the sector will also raise forest coverage ratio to 41.5percent, and the percentage of communes fulfilling new-style rural areabuilding to 28-30 percent./.
VNA
