Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs jointly held a regional conference on food security in Hanoi on March 22.
Addressing the opening of the two-day event, MARD Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh urged participants to seek cooperation initiatives and measures to promote smart agricultural practices in Vietnam.
He noted that Vietnam is an agriculture-based country with nearly 70 percent of the population living in rural areas. Thanks to the government’s policies to develop agriculture, from a country suffering food shortage, Vietnam has ensured its domestic food supply and provided a large amount of food to the world.
Along with rice, seafood, coffee, cashew, vegetable and fruits have also considerable hard currency earners for Vietnam. However, the country has been among five most vulnerable countries to climate change which has ravaged many localities across Vietnam, he said.
He stated that the agricultural sector has reformed to increase farm produces’ productivity, quality, respond to climate change and minimise climate change impacts by choosing cultivation methods as well as plant and livestock and aquaculture varieties to suit climate situation in each locality.
At the same time, the sector has enhanced research and application capacity to deal with newly emerged challenges due to climate change, including sea level rise, said Doanh.
He stressed the need for a smart agriculture sector as well as the setting up of institutions to support farmers, especially in information, service and capital access.
He also highlighted the significance of close coordination among countries in ensuring food security to the humankind amidst climate change.
The same day, delegates joined a technical conference on food safety, innovative fishery farming and smart agriculture adapting to climate change, as well as food wastefulness and loss.-VNA
VNA
