When a general debate at the National Assembly was aired live on May 27, nearly half the speakers chided the Government for paying insufficient attention to farmers and rural areas. 

 

Deputies from the Mekong Delta pressed the government to ensure preservation of agricultural land. Representatives from the Central Highlands proposed measures to help farmers earn more profit from industrial crops.

 

Though some deputies addressed public debt and disorder in mining industry, farmers’ hunger and poverty were by far the hottest topic.

 

Deputy Nguyen Huu Phuoc from Ben Tre in the heart of the Mekong Delta ventured that the average farmer earns just 500,000 dong (around $25) a month in cash income, just enough to scrape along, and not nearly enough to accumulate capital.

 

Phuoc said that only when farmers have more land can they escape from hunger and poverty. Up to 70 percent of the population are farmers, 60 million people, Phuoc estimated.  Collectively they farm 9.4 million hectares -- only 0.7-0.8 hectares per a family, plots so small that they aren’t suitable for mechanized agriculture.

 

Phuoc and other deputies urged the National Assembly to amend the Land Law to promote consolidation of plots to enable large-scale agriculture and to stimulate change in the structure of the farm economy within the comprehensive economic restructuring plan.

 

Some deputies remarked that while the process of consolidating plots is making little progress, urbanization, industrialization and the construction of hydropower plants have taken away large areas of agricultural land.

 

 

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development statistics show that from 2000 to 2008, the area cultivated for rice shrank by 255,300 hectares, about three percent of the total, including 205,400 hectares in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s rice basket.

 

Deputy Tran Hong Viet from the far southern province of Hau Giang worried that within a few decades, the Mekong Delta will lose its agricultural character because every province is striving to develop on the “industry, agriculture and services” model – i.e., giving emphasis to industry and services.

 

Deputy Huynh Thi Hoai Thu from Dong Thap in the upper Delta said that low incomes from agriculture discourage farmers from defending their ricefields against conversion to other uses.  She chided the Government for failure to find “good solutions to develop agriculture and rural areas.”

 

Danh Ut, an influential deputy from Kien Giang province, expressed hope that the Government will live up to its promise to develop stable outlets for agricultural products so that prices will not fall sharply when farmers have good crops.

 

Ut noted that a month ago, the government had to intervene in support of the rice market  when rice prices fell.  Coffee and salt prices have also cratered.  

 

“The idea of designing a price stabilization mechanism has been discussed positively for years, but it has not been implemented yet. The Ministry of Industry and Trade promised to issue a circular on rice exports but no one has seen it. Why, why?” Ut asked.

 

Ut observed that the value chain from farmers to rice exporters is too long. So many intermediate steps result in poverty level incomes for farmers even in good years, years when they are not much troubled by drought, storms, agricultural pests, livestock diseases, and rising prices for fertilizer, pesticides and petrol.  

 

Deputy Ha Son Nhin from Gia Lai, a central highlands province, said that the government should quickly establish a crop insurance fund.

 

Deputy Hoai Thu (Dong Thap) urged the Government to set up a fund to stabilize rice prices and re-organise rice distribution.

 

Other deputies asked the government to peg the poverty line higher and to focus its investment in needy rural areas.

 

Wrapping up the televised debate, Assembly vice chairman Nguyen Duc Kien stressed that more effective assistance to farmers and the rural areas will be emphasized in the National Assembly’s dialogue with the Government.

 

VietNamNet Bridge