Five agricultural and forestry material areas to be set up

At the event. (Photo: VNA)

HCM City (VNA) – The Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has signed a cooperation agreement with 14 agencies, enterprises and banks to develop raw material areas across the country and restructure the agricultural sector.

The signing of the deal took place within the framework of a meeting held on March 29 by the MARD to deploy a pilot project on setting up standard raw agricultural and forestry material areas for domestic consumption and export and a project on community agricultural extension for 2022-2025.

The project aims to form five concentrated raw material zones with a total area of more than 166,000 hectares, including orchards in the northern mountainous region; certified sustainable timber growing  in the central coastal region; coffee cultivation in the Central Highlands; rice planting in the Long Xuyen Quadrangle and fruits in Dong Thap Muoi.

According to the MARD, due to the shortage of raw material areas associated with processing and consumption enterprises, the implementation of State policies has not been carried out synchronously, especially those relating to agricultural credit and insurance policies. These shortcomings have affected the competitiveness of agricultural products, production efficiency as well as farmers' incomes.

The project will help create linkages between raw material areas with processing and consuming enterprises, manage the quality of the areas in line with value chain and solve the problem of having bumper crops, farmers gain small benefits due to plummeting prices which occurs almost every year, the ministry said./.