Participants in the forum 'Promoting Large-Scale Agriculture Production' held in Thái Bình Province on April 4. VNS Photo Tố Như

HÀ NỘI – Promoting a large-scale agricultural production model could chart a new course for development and help address the drawbacks of the present small-scale and dispersed production, which hinder the adoption of technology, according to Trần Xuân Định, vice president of the Việt Nam Seed Trade Association.

Speaking at the 'Promoting Large-Scale Agriculture Production' forum held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on April 4 in Thái Bình Province, Định also saw this as an opening to speed up the formation of new-type cooperatives, joining hands in the agricultural economy.

“We have been struggling with agricultural land accumulation for a long time. Therefore, developing large-scale farming will help agriculture production develop in a complete chain,” Định said.

“With the contribution of big farms and creative young farmers, agriculture will be able to turn to a new page," he told the forum.

According to a survey, about 10 per cent of households in Đông Hưng District of Thái Bình province.

To overcome the situation of abandoned fields, the district has encouraged households to exchange and accumulate land, especially abandoned areas, to bring about mechanisation and technology application to develop concentrated and large-scale commodity production to improve the production efficiency of the agricultural land.

Up to now, in the district, there have been more than 500 households accumulating rice-cultivated land with a scale of 1 hectare or more, reaching a total area of 1,200ha.

There are 67 households accumulating land from 5ha or more, one household with an area of ​​20ha, and 17 households with an area of ​​10ha or more.

Vương Đức Hằng, vice chairman of Đông Hưng People’s Committee, said: “The current production reality showed that the model of everyone and every household engaged in agricultural production is no longer consistent with the trend of socio-economic development.”

“The withdrawal of labour from agriculture and rural areas to create conditions for land accumulation for commodity agriculture is an inevitable trend,” Hằng said.

Thái Thụy District is one of two districts of Thái Bình Province approved to form an economic zone. So, the agricultural land in the zone will be affected.

Lê Nguyên Hoài, vice chairman of the district’s People’s Committee, said that in terms of land accumulation, 31 communes had implemented the large field plan with a total area of 2,121ha.

“Many households have boldly rented or borrowed fields from other households that do not use the land for agricultural production to accumulate land for large-scale production,” said Hoài.

“The large-scale production has brought about 15-20 per cent higher economic efficiency than the traditional model,” Hoài said.

“However, the restructuring of agricultural production and building models of land accumulation in the district still have shortcomings and limitations,” he said.

He recommended that ministries and related sectors review shortcomings of land management and use and issue regulations on land accumulation to create favourable conditions for commodity production as well as adjust and supplement some contents of the Law on Land encouraging agricultural land accumulation.

So far, Thái Bình Province has 1,700 households owning an agricultural land area of two or more hectares each, of which there are households with 70ha each.

In the province, an organisation called great field association attracted more than 200 members. Some members gathered their fields, setting up co-operatives.

This is an example of land accumulation, thanks to policies.

The revised Land Law introduces some new contents to promote agricultural commodity production.

Lê Thị Lệ Thu from the Legal Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that regarding the accumulation of agricultural land, the Law supplements regulations on forms of concentration and accumulation of land for agricultural production.

The State has policies to encourage funding for the work of measuring and correcting records, granting certificates of land use rights, and ownership of houses and land-attached assets to concentrate land for agricultural production.

Farmers are allowed to use rice land for other crops and use parts of the land area to build works serving agricultural production, Thu said. VNS