Lê Quốc Doanh, Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, speaks to Vietnam News Agency on the country’s achievements using public private partnerships (PPPs) in agriculture.

Việt Nam and ASEAN have closely co-operated in agriculture. What’s Việt Nam’s role in the New Vision for Agriculture Initiative, which the country signed?

For many years, Việt Nam has been an important partner and has co-operated closely with the World Economic Forum in many different fields, particularly the New Vision for Agriculture Initiative (NVA). To implement the NVA, the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) and the ASEAN Secretariat have agreed to establish the Grow Asia Initiative.

A key objective of the NVA is to raise agriculture productivity to 20 per cent while cutting down carbon emissions by 20 per cent and the poverty rate by 20 per cent after each decade until 2050. To achieve these targets, Vietnamese Government agencies, enterprises and farmers will join efforts in various forms, particularly PPPs.

The new vision for Agriculture Initiate of the WEF has been implemented in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This initiative could be considered a global initiative. A total 21 countries have experimented the PPP model in their agriculture industries with the participation of more than 650 organisations, companies and groups.

How is the NVA initiative implemented in Việt Nam?

By now seven working groups of the PPP model have been created in various goods branches, like coffee, tea, vegetable and fruits; fisheries, pepper and food seasonings; rice and agriculture chemicals.

All these groups have worked closely in a value chain with a key objective – to improve their image and to secure their foothold in the international market.

Almost 220,000 farmers have been trained to apply advanced techniques towards the goal of sustainable agriculture practice.

All Vietnamese PPP working groups have been acknowledged by the World Economic Forum as one of the most successful models in the New Vision Initiative of the WEF in Asia.

What do you think about future co-operation between Việt Nam and the WEF?

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has implemented the proposal to restructure agriculture along the lines of increasing the value added to Vietnamese products and their sustainable development.

In our proposal we focus on the value chains of three main groups of products. First at the national level: 10 products with an objective to gain more than US$1 billion per annum. Second at the provincial level: special products from each area or region. Third, the development of products of high value and much sought after by consumers thanks to their high quality.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) expressed its desire that through the NVA, it will continue to accompany the Vietnamese agriculture industry in its endeavour to achieve all its objectives laid out in the proposal to restructure the country’s primary industry, particularly the objective to create value chains for Vietnamese agro products.

The MARD will continue to co-operate with the WEF to consolidate and to have more PPP working groups so Việt Nam will have many more diverse products. Besides, Việt Nam wants to attract many more organisations, particularly Vietnamese enterprises in the PPP working groups.

In the era of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, what will be the opportunities and challenges for ASEAN agriculture and for Việt Nam?

The 4.0 Industrial Revolution is based on outstanding achievements in the IT sector and the fast development in the sectors of biology and nano technology. Such rapid development of science and technology will impact on the socio-economic development of all nations, including Việt Nam.

Science and technology has been considered a breakthrough in helping the world’s agriculture develop sustainably and to achieve high added value. In the course of applying advanced science and technology in the agriculture sector, the revolution is a valuable opportunity for all nations to apply it in their own countries.

Việt Nam has all conditions to learn and apply advanced technology in information technology, digital technology, automation and others.

To accelerate the application of the 4.0 revolution, Việt Nam will work with other countries in the course of developing its strategy, planning and policy for the development of agriculture. — VNS