At the beginning of the speech, Minister Le Minh Hoan quoted President Ho Chi Minh’s message in a Letter to Vietnamese farmers on April 11, 1946: “Our farmers are rich, our country is rich. If our agriculture is prosperous, our country will be prosperous”. That teaching begins with the word “farmer”.
Consistent with this view, the Party, National Assembly and Government have led, directed and issued many resolutions and policies, affirming the role and position of farmers in the process of agricultural and agricultural development. village. Sustainability, the growth index of the agricultural sector, the appearance and positive change of the countryside, after all, all revolve around the farmer.
Why are farmers always poor?
Sharing thoughts and perspectives on tens of millions of farmers, Minister Hoan said that before the last New Year, a journalist asked him a question: “Are we farmers rich or poor? Any solution to increase income for farmers? According to him, it is not easy to give an exact answer.
Compared with 2008, agricultural labor productivity reached 55.9 million VND/person, 4 times higher. The income and living standards of rural people have improved. Some farming households become well off and wealthy thanks to the production and trading of agricultural products.
However, the average income index is difficult to fully reflect the precariousness in the livelihoods of most farmers or the income disparity between ecological regions, between rice cultivation and afforestation and cultivation and production of all kinds of crops. Other plants and animals…
An old farmer in the western part of the river once expressed: “Why are farmers working together, but farmers in other countries have a decent standard of living, while farmers in our hometown are hardworking, tolerant, and hard-working, why are they still so poor and destitute?”. This is a question that raises many problems.
Minister Le Minh Hoan said that land only promotes its value when land users are capable of maximizing the value of land. According to data from the population living standard survey in terms of average added value per hectare per year, rice farming is about 2-3 times lower than other crops and aquaculture, and all The weak point is that agricultural land will bring lower endogenous value compared to converting to other economic sectors.
In addition to the objective factor due to the comparative advantage between economic sectors, that difference also shows the limit of farmers in the ability to create surplus value from land. That is also the reason leading to very low labor productivity in the agricultural sector as we often evaluate and worry about.
That situation also makes nearly 85% of the natural land area is currently agricultural land, of which about 30% has been degraded. But even barren land is still the livelihood of tens of millions of farmers.
At present, in the implementation of restructuring the agricultural sector and building new rural areas, farmers are considered the subject and are placed in the central position. But in order to fulfill the role of subject and commensurate with the central position, necessary and urgent things to do and to do, farmers need to improve their capacity through intellectualization.
According to him, the agricultural industry in the past time has mainly supported farmers to produce the best, highest productivity, and maximum output. Production management and administration are closely concerned. The whole machine operates at full force to ensure bountiful crops, disease prevention, timely water supply and drainage…
However, the sad chorus of “good season, low price” keeps making producers anxious and worried according to each season. Agricultural products are surplus, rice is full of fields, pigs and chickens are full, ponds are full of fish and shrimp, but they cannot be brought to the market.
The story of “rescuing agricultural products” was mentioned again, along with a bitter comment about the reality of “charity agriculture” without a satisfactory answer. The situation of agricultural products stagnation at the border gates continues to cause a stir. The farmers’ income, which is already meager, is further eroded, the Minister emphasized.
Access to new technology
The head of the Agriculture sector also shared, “climate change, market fluctuations, changes in consumption trends” pose an urgent need for change, to better adapt to a world full of “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous”. The most important change needs to start from each farmer himself – the people who directly produce and trade agricultural products every day.
It is not a day or two, it is not possible that suddenly the farmer “muddy with hands and feet” suddenly “shakes off the mud and stands up bright” to immediately assume the role of the subject, the central position. To do so, farmers must have self-reliance, self-reliance, full knowledge, skills, capacities and attitudes of “owners” – mastering their own destiny, mastering the development story. rural community.
Full text of Minister Le Minh Hoan’s speech on the intellectualization of farmersWatch now
Farmers and rural people need to realize that their life is decided by themselves, must have strong will, think positively instead of self-pity, responsibility or expectation of dependence, contentment, income. I stayed in the house, the field, the garden. Along with that, farmers must be supported in accessing, training in knowledge, training in skills, updating techniques and advanced technology.
The agricultural industry is and will have to approach new thinking in the era of knowledge economy, applying achievements in the era of the fourth industrial revolution. Then, farmers – the subject of agriculture – must also have access to new thinking, new knowledge, new technology, new skills. “Farmer intellectualization” is a mandatory requirement.
Along with the experience of “watching the sky, looking at the earth, watching the clouds / watching the rain, watching the wind, watching the day, looking at the night”, today’s “old farmers” can also “look at smart devices”, thanks to the support of experts, agricultural scientists. The resonance between accumulated experience from fields and ponds with “cloud” knowledge, connecting “digital data” can help create “barefoot scientists”, creating new values.
Also according to the Minister, spreading knowledge and skills can help farmers access effective production and business methods and sustainable enrichment. That responsibility, which can even be seen as a duty, is an important responsibility, first of all belonging to the government and professional sector. It is also the social responsibility of enthusiastic scientists, experts and entrepreneurs urging each other to return to the village, to the farmer, to the field, to the pond, to listen and understand together.
Intimate encounters can impart enriching knowledge. Community activities can suggest topics to introduce market information, popular economic rules, and guide useful skills. Agricultural extension programs on the radio not only encourage farmers to produce, but also introduce farmers to ways to reduce and optimize production costs.
Thus, farming is gradually accumulated knowledge in a methodical and professional manner, so that farmers become more and more confident and proud of a profession that fully meets the requirements of the market, standards and standards. standards of production, safety.
“Intellectualizing farmers” is what developed countries have done to help farmers become entrepreneurs, scientists, equipped with market economy knowledge, and master machinery and technology. With knowledge, farmers in the process of production and business will self-detect problems, analyze and solve problems, know and consider the risks from their decisions.
With knowledge, farmers will actively adapt to change, overcome shocks caused by climate change, natural disasters, epidemics, market fluctuations and change in consumption trends. At the same time, farmers know how to optimize production processes, minimize costs, and maximize profits.
Grow rich for farmers
Sharing the desire to enrich farmers, Minister Le Minh Hoan quoted a leader: “Money in your pocket is finite money, money in your head is unlimited money.”
According to him, “enrich” for farmers is to help farmers know how to produce the products the market needs, not to produce according to their existing capabilities, with the most economical production method, so that the most reasonable price, while still quality.
“Getting rich” for farmers is to equip farmers with production skills and economic thinking. Help farmers understand the power of “buy together – sell together”of the spirit “cooperation – association”to actively participate in collective economic models and organizations, mainly cooperatives.
“Enriching” for farmers, here is helping people access and understand knowledge about preserving the environment, about protecting health, first of all for themselves, consumers, and the community. .
“Enriching” the spiritual life of farmers is to evoke in farmers a positive attitude and willingness to accept change.
“Agriculture is life. The countryside is the future”. “There are no farmers. There is no food. No future”. These are strong messages about the importance of “agriculture – farmers – rural areas” from the advanced countries with outstandingly developed industries and services.
In the title of the book “The Future After the Covid Pandemic”, there is an opinion that: “When people argue about which industries are essential and which are not essential, there is one thing that is not in dispute: Agriculture. Because, Agriculture meets the standards of an essential industry. Without food we have nothing. The shortage of food and food, especially fresh products, encourages many people to be interested in participating in agriculture and in the agricultural sector.
The Minister asked the question: So what have we prepared for the future, for the agricultural sector, for the next generation of farmers, to meet the country’s sustainable development requirements until 2030, with a vision to 2045 ?
According to him, the model of Agricultural High School in Nam Dinh – the first and only school in Vietnam that teaches students agricultural techniques along the value chain from production to processing agricultural products and food according to the Japanese model. Ban, is an interesting suggestion. At this interesting school, students can smell the soil, catch worms, make bread from rice…
Deploying this model, it is important not only to have knowledge and skills, but above all to cultivate and cultivate students’ feelings and aspirations to become professional farmers and agribusiness traders. , practicing agricultural engineers, skilled agronomists, love for the future profession, people who work in agriculture with both the spirit of culture and social responsibility as advanced countries have done decades ago .
At that time, Farming will get rid of the curse of “farming if you don’t know what to do”., is no longer “default” through the image of a brown shirt, head covered with a bandana, holding a bunch of rice. At that time, the farmer can wear the brown shirt of the soil in the morning, the blue shirt of the processing factory in the afternoon, and the white shirt of intellectuals and merchants in the evening. its ability to cope with market turbulence.
“In order to have a professional agriculture, there must be a team of professionalized farmers. In order to have a knowledge agriculture in the knowledge economy, farmers must be intellectualized,” concluded Minister Le Minh Hoan.
According to VietnamNet.vn
