The Asian Farmers’ Group of Cooperatives (AFGC) in collaboration with the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance held the 10th annual conference in Hanoi on Feb. 24 to discuss measures to raise capacity for agricultural cooperatives and farmers’ organisations.

Participants discussed issues relating to global climate change and its impacts upon agricultural production, farmers, food security and energy as well as action plans for cooperatives and farmers’ organisations.

They said that in order to raise effectiveness and competitiveness, agricultural cooperatives should research and adjust business strategies and orientations for products and services’ development. Cooperatives also need to build trademarks and strategies to promote consumption of products in the country and boost exports.

Besides, cooperatives need to strengthen their partnerships to set up a federation in terms of trade and economic fields and region to improve competitiveness.

Vietnam now has 8,680 agricultural cooperatives with most of them being small-scale institutions. They face difficulties in capital and technology, as well as human resources./.