Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong (second from the right) chaired the conference in Son La provincce on 30 September 2020.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in collaboration with Son La province, has recently organized a conference on “Promoting Agricultural Restructuring in Northern Midland and Mountainous Provinces in 2021-2025.”

After more than 7 years’ implementation of the Agricultural Restructuring Scheme toward improved value added as well as sustainable development, and almost 4 years’ implementation of the Agricultural Restructuring Plan in 2017-2020, the Northern Midland and Mountainous Region has made positive and remarkable progress in its agriculture. However, despite such achievements, there remain a range of problems: slow and ineffective restructuring as well as production innovation. Linkage and partnership between businesses, cooperatives and farmers in value chains have not been widely applied. Commercial production in agriculture remains fragmented, resulting in difficulties in forming large-scale commercial production zones. The current post-harvest processing and storage technologies have been for only primary processing and produce low value added, which limit the value and competitiveness of region’s  agricultural products.

Speaking at the conference, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong emphasized that the region was of importance in the national security, defense, energy, water security and environment. The Minister requested that the region promote further their forest protection and sustainable development. Besides crop production, provinces in the region need to focus on cattle and poultry production; and form safe livestock production zones which apply advanced high technologies. They should shift from small-scale to farm and industrial scale husbandry that matches the local conditions. At the same time, they should develop aquaculture in hydraulic and hydropower reservoirs as well as reverine water bodies.

The Minister also required that the region define clearly 4 important restructuring orientations, including hilly economy, OCOP development, linkage of agriculture and tourism, and ethnic identity.

Participants in the conference thought that the strategic thinking, production transformation based on market signals, utilization and integration of various investment sources, promotion of people’s resources… were crucial elements to realize the average production value growth of 3.68% for the whole region in 2013-2020, higher than the national rate.

Based on what have been achieved, the conference participants also proposed that to maintain the momentum for development, the regional agriculture should implement effectively the mechanisms and policies which motivate investment in processing and storage of agricultural products; focus on production based on partnership and large scale linkage in value chains; and enhance trade promotion of key products.

Agricultural restructuring targets of the Northern Midland and Mountainous Provinces in 2021-2025:

- Annual value growth rate of agricultural, forestry and fishery production: 3.5%

- Value of agricultural, forest and fishery products produced under partnerships and linkages: about 20%;

- Forest cover: 54.2%;

- Percentage of communes meeting new rural development standards: 60%; percentage pf districts fulfilling new rural development targets: 30%;

- Percentage of rural people having access to sanitary water: 96%.