Vietnam's agriculture to face integration challenges

Vietnam's agriculture with small production scale and low professionalism of farmers will, though taking new measures, experience hardship when the country joins the World Trade Organization (WTO), local newspaper Vietnam News reported Monday.

One of the biggest impediments is that Vietnam's agricultural system is currently very small, still largely based on a household system instead of a modern industrialized one.

"Our farming households cultivate a very small plot of land at the moment. Each five-member family owns only 0.8 hectares on average," said Pham Thi Tuoc, deputy director of the Planning Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Producing on such a small scale, Vietnamese farmers will be unable to supply enough commodities to meet international export demand. Thus, some agricultural production fields will have trouble surviving.

"To prepare for global economic integration, we must stop offering subsidies for farm product exporters. However, we still need to support weak industries by helping them sharpen their competitive edge through programs on hybrids and biotechnology promotion," she said.

Another integration-related difficulty is that many Vietnamese farm products have no quality standards as they are produced by different farming households. Consequently, the farmers cannot sign high-value export contracts that require a large volume of high-quality goods.

Local economic experts said the state should encourage farmers to voluntarily join hands and establish large-sized agricultural cooperatives capable of producing high-quality goods in large quantity for export, and intensify investment on scientific projects which aim to create high-quality animal and crop hybrids and varieties.

The state should also improve education and training programs for farmers, workers and managers to ensure that they are provided with the knowledge and skills suitable to globalization requirements.

Do Van Nam, general director of the state-owned Vietnam Coffee Corporation, said Vietnamese businesses involved in coffee export are facing fierce competition from their foreign rivals as the latter are abundant in capital, and have superior production technology, stronger staff with rich experience and good skills.

"The competition will be stronger when Vietnam becomes a WTO member. Upon WTO entry, foreign-invested coffee exporters' current strengths will be multiplied and weak domestic coffee enterprises without a competitive edge will go bankrupt," he said.

Source: Xinhua