A 2016 report released by the Central Steering Committee for Agricultural, Rural, and FisheryCensus showed that of the total farming land area of 27.3 million hectares,24.4 million hectares (or about 90 percent) were allocated to users. The resthas been managed by the People’s Committees of communes.
Among thefarming land users, 98.7 percent are households and domestic economicorganisations. Each household on average owned 2.5 plots with a combined averagearea of 1,800sq.m.
According to DrLe Thanh Y from the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), the legalframework is ultimately the deciding factor that turns land into goods. Only landplots meeting all legal conditions can take part in market activities. Heunderlined that land use certification is one of the foundations to ensuringthe legality when using farming land as goods.
Currently, 90percent of agricultural land has been allocated to specific owners, includingfarmers and agro-forestry-fisheries companies who are the secondary supplysources for the market.
However, duringthe modernisation process, the growth of industry and service sectors led to adecline in the number of labourers in the agricultural sector, and as such, adrop in the faming land demand.
The redundant areaof farming land by households has increased and changed into non-farming land,creating major supply sources for the market. The equitisation and dissolution ofagro-forestry-fisheries companies have also generated about 452,000 hectares ofland for the market.
Moreover, themarket demand of agricultural land has increased, mostly from big farmerhouseholds and businesses investing in the agricultural sector. The number ofsuch firms increased by 49 percent to 3,846 in 2016, from only 2,569 in 2011.
A survey by theCIEM covering 3,700 households in 12 provinces saw that the land trading activitieswere busier than land renting activities. The ratio of households conductingland transfer activities was 16.6 percent, while the rate of renting was only7.1 percent. The engagement of big firms in the agriculture sector has changed productionpractices, with the formation of giant farms with average areas of 250 hectares.
The Land Law2013 has hindered the accumulation of farming land – as a non-agriculturaleconomic organisation cannot receive the authority to use farming land – togetherwith land use limitations.
Therefore, inorder to boost the efficiency of land use and avoid the waste of land resources,many experts held that it is necessary to build a more suitable policyframework, aiming to deal with existing obstacles facing the expansion of theagricultural land market.
Experts alsopointed to six specific areas inland use policy that needs adjusting, namely land use planning; land renting; therights of land users; limits and land renting duration; infrastructure servingthe transactions of land use rights; and land reclaiming.-VNA