Export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products still has room for growth

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong shared with Vietnam News Agency a reporter about solutions to achieve this goal.

2020 is an important year, a breakthrough, to the goal of completing the 2016-2020 5-year Plan, how does the Minister think about this year?

First, it must be determined that 2020 will not be much favorable for agriculture.

It is no coincidence that the industry was summarized early, because the industry focused on directing production right from the first crop, the Spring crop of the North, coping with salinity in the Mekong Delta in the Winter-Spring crop.

Besides, the African swine cholera, although not at the bottom, is not safe. Last fall, the acacia worm first appeared in 14 provinces, this year will have to continue to respond to the possibility of this species returning. Agricultural products market continues to have fierce competition because of trade war; including agricultural products. All countries want to develop agricultural products on the spot, which puts pressure on agricultural exporting countries; including Vietnam.

So based on what points to the industry can meet the export goals of 2020?

Agriculture, forestry and fishery exports still find room ahead, although in 2020 the industry will continue to face the biggest challenge of the market. After the Government issued Resolution 01 / NQ-CP officially assigning export duties to the industry, the industry determined to discuss and assign tasks to the units to have good coordination with localities and cities. the economic part to strive to achieve export turnover of 42 billion USD or more.

This is a difficult target, especially in the global picture where there is fierce competition in the market. But with the utmost determination, the participation of the entire political system, economic sectors and people, the agricultural sector has tried its best to achieve this figure.

The National Target Program to build a new countryside has ended early, so in the coming period, how will the industry set the next goal, Minister?

The National Target Program on new rural construction has reached its destination nearly 2 years in advance and exceeded 4% but we are not subjective and optimistic with this momentum, we will soon finish the new countryside. In 2020, we build two major target groups.

For those communes which have achieved 19 criteria, there must be further consolidation; in which 2 main groups are focused on promoting agricultural production and rural economy. This is the soul of a new countryside, with a new developed economy and a prosperous life. The second is focusing more on production environment, living environment to deserve a new countryside.

For incomplete communes, the whole political system must continue to put efforts together with building infrastructure, production and environment. The rest are the hardest places and increasingly distance is impossible. Therefore, we must focus on the two basic groups above.

So, in order to realize these two major target groups, how does the Program Minister need investment?

Drawing on experiences of the past 10 years, the Ministry is gathering opinions from ministries, branches and localities … Accordingly, the Ministry will propose to the Government to concentrate the State's investment resources more than the recent period. Because, the answer has shown that the State invested 1 VND has attracted the investment of society 10 VND.

At the same time, infrastructure designs need to take more care to bring the lives of rural people at a rate comparable to that of urban areas. However, only partial resources, allocation methods, regional priorities, total mobilization … are issues that need to be better and more uniform.

With respect to animal husbandry, what is the Minister's direction to develop this sector after the impact of African swine cholera?

The industry draws a lot of lessons after the African swine fever. The first is that food security should always be considered the number one task in organizing agricultural production. Although up to now, the volume of pigs to be destroyed is 9% of the total weight of pigs of the whole country but the harm is great.

The problem is that damage falls on small producers. If a large manufacturing establishment suffers a loss, it will later be able to regain production momentum.

The next time, the ability to re-herd is positive, because after 11 months the disease has reached the bottom, reducing 97% damage. Currently, the whole country has 80% of communes, 3 provinces have 100% of communes have passed the disease for 30 days.

Since October 2019, when the epidemic has decreased, the agricultural sector has advocated focusing on re-farming. The basis for re-herd is that the industry has kept the nuclear force including 109,000 cavalry pigs and grandparents; 2.7 million sows. If this pig is not kept, it will take several years to recover.

The agriculture sector has drawn many lessons from the management agencies to people on how to raise biosafety. Breeding biosecurity thoroughly, this disease though no vaccine is still completely kept.

With the current situation of recurrence, by February – March 2020, 17 large enterprises will return to their normal state as before the epidemic, even with a higher unit structure. But the industry must thoroughly grasp biosafety.

For small producers, it is difficult to ensure the biosafety conditions as well as large facilities, the industry recommends localities to find new livelihoods for these subjects. It is possible to direct them to shift to raising cattle, poultry and other crops. This is a very difficult job, but still has to be done, not letting the situation of these small households see the price of pigs go up again to re-herd and then risk a second time.

In the long term, the industry is developing the Livestock Development Strategy to 2030; which will take into account the food group structure to suit the economy and current population structure.

Sincerely thank the Minister!

According to VietnamBiz