Farmers harvest rice in Gia Vien district, the northern province of Ninh Binh. Land accumulation has been expected to change the face Vietnam’s agriculture yet showed several shortcomings in need of proper solutions (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - Scattered, small-sized land lots hamper farmers andstop companies from investing in agriculture, while barriers set by landaccumulation policies also marginalise farmers and hinder the development of Vietnam’sagriculture.
Thesewarnings were voiced by experts at the Vietnam Autumn Agricultural Forum 2019 –the largest gathering of researchers and policy-makers to discuss the impact ofland policies on agriculture hosted by Vietnam Institute for Economic andPolicy Research (VEPR).
Accordingto a report issued by VEPR, Vietnam is among the countries with the lowestfarming area per capita.
The areaof agricultural land per capital in Vietnam is 0.25 ha, below the world andregional averages of 0.52ha and 0.36ha, respectively.
Thecountry’s agriculture depends heavily on some 10 million farming householdswith more than 76 million small land lots, hindering efforts to apply techapplications, collaborate with enterprises and establish concentratedproduction areas in the context of intensive global integration and risingclimate change.
Landaccumulation has been set to tackle these issues yet has fallen short ofexpectations due to inadequacies of current policies involving agriculturalland.
Vu TrongKhai, former director of the Central Agricultural Cooperative Management SchoolII, stressed upon the standardisation of terms and theoretical frameworks to evaluatepolicies and come up with development plans based on the market-driven economy.
There isan inevitable trend to establish big farms specialising in fruit trees, foresttrees or fish breeding to utilise advantages of the economies of scale and technologies,”he said.
First andforemost, Khai stressed that agricultural land must be made available forlong-term rental.
Skilledlabour force is the second essential factor to accelerate good farmingpractices and high-tech agriculture.
A stronglegal framework is necessary to protect and encourage farmers and enterprisesto invest in agriculture.
Tran CongThang, Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture andRural Development (IPSARD), said fees and taxes applied to the transfer ofagricultural land are the same as other real estates. Meanwhile, domesticprivate enterprises can only hire agricultural land because property rights toagricultural land are not guaranteed like other land types.
There isno official instruction on changing land use purposes from planting to animalfarming as well as the Government’s roles in assisting enterprises to hireland.
Thangrecommended reinforcing monitoring on the minimum area of an agricultural landlot to avoid scattering fields, reduce taxes and fees related to transfer ofagricultural land, encourage enterprises to invest into agricultural supportservices and develop an electronic land surveillance system to providedigitalised data on land use rights and transfers to ensure the market’stransparency.
In 2018,agriculture contributed 14.7 percent of Vietnam’s GDP with the export value of 40billion USD.
Thecountry has witnessed an upward trend in a number of enterprises participatingin agricultural production. Up to 90 percent of them are small enterprisesemploying 10 to 50 workers with the average capital of 1-5 billion VND (43,000-215,000 USD) and the annual income of 3.6 billion VND (154,800 USD)./.
Thesewarnings were voiced by experts at the Vietnam Autumn Agricultural Forum 2019 –the largest gathering of researchers and policy-makers to discuss the impact ofland policies on agriculture hosted by Vietnam Institute for Economic andPolicy Research (VEPR).
Accordingto a report issued by VEPR, Vietnam is among the countries with the lowestfarming area per capita.
The areaof agricultural land per capital in Vietnam is 0.25 ha, below the world andregional averages of 0.52ha and 0.36ha, respectively.
Thecountry’s agriculture depends heavily on some 10 million farming householdswith more than 76 million small land lots, hindering efforts to apply techapplications, collaborate with enterprises and establish concentratedproduction areas in the context of intensive global integration and risingclimate change.
Landaccumulation has been set to tackle these issues yet has fallen short ofexpectations due to inadequacies of current policies involving agriculturalland.
Vu TrongKhai, former director of the Central Agricultural Cooperative Management SchoolII, stressed upon the standardisation of terms and theoretical frameworks to evaluatepolicies and come up with development plans based on the market-driven economy.
There isan inevitable trend to establish big farms specialising in fruit trees, foresttrees or fish breeding to utilise advantages of the economies of scale and technologies,”he said.
First andforemost, Khai stressed that agricultural land must be made available forlong-term rental.
Skilledlabour force is the second essential factor to accelerate good farmingpractices and high-tech agriculture.
A stronglegal framework is necessary to protect and encourage farmers and enterprisesto invest in agriculture.
Tran CongThang, Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture andRural Development (IPSARD), said fees and taxes applied to the transfer ofagricultural land are the same as other real estates. Meanwhile, domesticprivate enterprises can only hire agricultural land because property rights toagricultural land are not guaranteed like other land types.
There isno official instruction on changing land use purposes from planting to animalfarming as well as the Government’s roles in assisting enterprises to hireland.
Thangrecommended reinforcing monitoring on the minimum area of an agricultural landlot to avoid scattering fields, reduce taxes and fees related to transfer ofagricultural land, encourage enterprises to invest into agricultural supportservices and develop an electronic land surveillance system to providedigitalised data on land use rights and transfers to ensure the market’stransparency.
In 2018,agriculture contributed 14.7 percent of Vietnam’s GDP with the export value of 40billion USD.
Thecountry has witnessed an upward trend in a number of enterprises participatingin agricultural production. Up to 90 percent of them are small enterprisesemploying 10 to 50 workers with the average capital of 1-5 billion VND (43,000-215,000 USD) and the annual income of 3.6 billion VND (154,800 USD)./.
VNA
