On February 15-16, 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Hai Phong City held a “Conference to Instill Some New Knowledge on New Rural Construction in 2021-2025.” The conference attracted 500 delegates from across the country.

BASED ON THE RURAL MODEL, A NEW RURAL BECOMES SMART

Mr. Ngo Truong Son, head of the Central New Rural Development Coordination Bureau, said the National New Rural Development Target Program has been evaluated by party and state leaders as grand, comprehensive and effective.

By this time, 18 provincial-level provinces have 100% of the municipalities meeting new rural standards, of which 5 provinces have been recognized by the Prime Minister to complete the task of building new rural areas.

Rural new construction has undergone many changes towards depth, efficiency and sustainability, where the issue of preserving and promoting cultural values ​​with national identity is central. The rural economy has undergone major changes, which has a direct impact on the income and lives of rural people.

Based on the results of the program for the period up to 2020, on February 22, 2022, the Prime Minister issued Resolution No. 263/QD-TTg approving the National Rural Construction Target Program of the new period 2021-2025. During which many goals, contents and tasks of this phase have changed, 6 thematic programs were published in addition to 11 partial contents.

Up to this point there were over 70 legal documents and documents guiding the implementation of the National Target Program for New Rural Development; sufficient basis for central and local ministries and branches to have a basis for implementation.

Neue Landschaft is a program that has a beginning but never ends because the criteria are continuously improved over time. Originally, the communities were striving to achieve new rural standards, and now many new rural communities are upgrading their quality to new advanced rural areas and becoming exemplary new rural areas.

After the new landscape model, it will be upgraded to “Smart New Rural”. Smart New Rural is a digital transformation application in all areas of communities, villages, hamlets… from installing security cameras on village streets and alleys, applying the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, production control, farming and all aspects of rural life .

The aim of this training conference is to provide information about new orientations in rural new construction, to exchange and disseminate new topics, such as B.: Application of information technology (digital transformation) in agriculture and rural areas; develop community-based agriculture and rural tourism; Problems of cooperative economy, cooperatives, synchronous mechanization, quality management of agricultural products; …

SUPPORT COOPERATIVES TO THINK INNOVATIVELY

Mr Le Duc Thinh, director of the Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development, said that economic development to increase rural people’s income remains the core priority of the new rural programme.

“Reorganizing production, bringing farmers into cooperatives and building a team of professional and knowledgeable farmers” — this will be the “new revolution” in agricultural and rural development today, Mr Thinh stressed.

At the end of December 2022, there were about 19,500 agricultural cooperatives and 91 agricultural cooperative associations across the country. In it there were 4,028 cooperatives engaged in the production and consumption of agricultural products; 145 agricultural cooperatives are directly involved in import and export, and about 1,200 cooperatives are involved in production and own about 40% of OCOP products nationwide.

Cooperatives first attracted the attention of young people who had received professional training. Implementation of policies to support staff development for cooperatives (per Circular 340/TT-BTC) across the country has attracted more than 833 workers through college education and training to work for contracts.

However, the operational quality of the cooperative economic sector is still considered to be limited. Infrastructure, especially manufacturing and commercial infrastructure such as warehouses, factories, pre-processing, processing and canning facilities, is still patchy. In particular, the management capacity, production and operation of the cooperatives, access to capital is difficult because the collective ownership of the cooperative is low, there is no security; The control of production and business activities is not transparent.

According to Mr. Thinh, by the end of 2022, there will be 2,038 linkage chains in agriculture, forestry and fisheries production across the country, involving 1,250 agricultural cooperatives, and the forms of linkage are very diverse. The core of the production mechanism according to the value chain of agricultural products is the production management mechanism under the contract, which promotes the advantages of enterprises in solving 3 problems: market and brand; Apply new technology; business capital. Therefore, companies that buy, process, preserve and consume agricultural products are becoming leaders in the value chain from farm to fork.

Referring to the agricultural linkage chain development support program, Mr. Thinh said that provinces and cities have approved 933 projects and linkage plans to apply for support. The total budget of the approved projects is VND 1,921 billion (average VND 3.3 billion/project), of which VND 767 billion (40%) is funded from the state budget, the remaining 60% of the funds are funded from the state budget, cooperatives and people . 536 cooperatives and 213 companies took part in the approved joint projects.

The director of the Department of Economic Cooperatives and Rural Development said that support for the development of cooperatives in the agricultural sector in the coming period should strictly adhere to the nature of cooperatives as a self-sustaining, self-sustaining economic organization. Self-control, self-responsibility, focus on improving operational efficiency, not chasing achievements in terms of the number of cooperatives.

“It is important to help cooperatives to renew their production thinking, build up production and improve their self-government and managerial skills. Cooperatives must promote production according to standards and regulations, improve designs to meet the quality requirements of market and consumer products and commodities; Improving the capacity of pre-processing, processing and preservation of agricultural products and agricultural raw materials for manufacturing factories and enterprises,” emphasized Mr. Le Duc Thinh.