Challenges of sustainable agricultural development

​Farmers are thinking about cutting down mango trees because mango prices are falling, consumption is in difficulty. Photo: Harvesting mangoes in Phu Cuong Commune, Dinh Quan District. Photo by Phan Anh

The above program sets many high targets in terms of growth and quality for the agricultural industry to move towards sustainability. This is a big challenge in the context of inflation causing high production costs, unstable consumption, and disrupted link chains.

High Targets

Dong Nai Province's sustainable agricultural development program for the period of 2021 - 2025, with a vision to 2030, sets many goals such as: Integrated and multi-sectoral development, coordinated regional linkage, sectoral linkage with the restructuring the agricultural sector and building new rural areas towards modernity and efficiency, making the most of the region's potentials and advantages; make the most of opportunities and advantages in the context of international economic integration to promote production development and expand agricultural product markets.

Building a multi-functional agriculture, both producing agricultural products and goods, and combining the development of eco-tourism and creating a good landscape and environment for people; agricultural products must be produced according to GAP standards; applying high technology in all stages of the agricultural production process, from selecting, creating, and producing varieties to the production and processing, preservation, and consumption of agricultural products.

Especially shifting to the organic production is focused and promoted. The goal is that by 2025, the percentage of value of products produced by Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) or equivalent will reach over 25%; the rate of value of agricultural, forestry and fishery products produced in the forms of cooperation and association reaches 50%; rate of value of agricultural products applying high technology shall reach at least 50%; the rate of agricultural cooperatives operating effectively is at least 80%.

Socially, the living standards of rural residents have been improved, the per capita income in rural areas will reach VND80 million per person per year and increase to VND108 million per person by 2030.

 
Grapefruit farmers in Binh Loi Commune, Vinh Cuu District have faced difficulties because for many months, the price of pomelo has been continuously at low levels. Photo by Phan Anh

Many difficulties

Export of fruits has faced difficulty; the story of cutting and replanting has become a hot issue in many rural areas such as Binh Thuan farmers have continuously cut down dragon fruit trees. Somewhere in many rural areas of Dong Nai Province, farmers have been continuing to cut down cashews and mangoes, etc. because of the low price to switch to other crops. The vicious story of cutting-planting and planting-cutting is still not out of date in rural areas, which is not a small barrier to sustainable agricultural development according to the set goals; especially in the period when the agricultural product market was constantly congested due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, causing the export to be halted.

Because of the above problems, our country's agriculture, rural areas, and farmers still have many problems such as: agricultural growth tends to slow down and is not sustainable; many production inputs depend on the import market; the processing industry develops slowly, post-harvest losses are still high, production linkages along the value chain are limited, the market is not stable; The results of the construction of new rural areas in some localities are not sustainable, etc. The above limitations are revealed more clearly in the situation of rapidly changing climate, increasingly complicated natural disasters, and epidemics; inflation is spreading globally; The consequences and negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic are continuing to severely affect agriculture, rural areas, and farmers.

Accordingly, the transformation of safe production and organic production is a goal that the province is interested in promoting. Specifically, the province has set high goals in redirecting and converting safe production to high organic production. The area of orchards reached 75,000 hectares with 500 hectares of organic certification; the area of ​​industrial crops reached 86,000 hectares with 630 hectares of certified organic; vegetable cultivation area is 18,000 hectares; organic area is 200 hectares. Breeding certified for organic agriculture with the number of pigs is 5,000; poultry has 200,000 heads, cows have 800 heads, honey is about 100 tons, bird nests weighed 300 kg. Forming 7 to 10 aquaculture areas meeting VietGAP standards with an area of ​​150 hectares; developing the organic aquaculture zones with a water surface area of ​​200 hectares. The above targets will continue to be upgraded to a higher level by 2030.

However, if this program is implemented according to the movement, it will waste money and effort of farmers. Because of the fact, the organic agricultural products have not yet been recognized by the market and paid a fair price, which is a big "bottleneck" for the mass implementation of this program.

Phan Anh 

Difficulties in the market due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, the consolidation and improvement of the operation quality of cooperatives also encountered many limitations and difficulties. As reflected by many localities, the target of establishing new agricultural cooperatives has not been achieved; The operational efficiency of many agricultural cooperatives is also not high; Organizational forms of production are also slow to innovate, etc. Accordingly, the role of cooperatives is still unclear, has not really become one of the important links to build a chain of links in the large, long-term and sustainable production of goods as expected.