On the afternoon of April 15, Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) organized a meeting to review tasks in 2020 and set out tasks in 2021.

At the conference, delegates heard the report and discussed the following contents: Economic cooperation; Project on Conservation and Development of craft villages for the period of 2021-2030; introduction of OCOP products; Training on management and operation of digital technology systems in cooperative data management.

Overview of the conference

Statistics of the report of Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development showed that the development of cooperative economy and cooperatives will continue to have positive changes in both the number of agricultural cooperatives and the quality of their activities. Despite facing many difficulties due to the epidemic, the number of cooperatives participating in the value chains reached over 4,000 cooperatives, equaling 23.5%, up 2-3 times compared to before 2016; over 1,700 agricultural cooperatives nationwide applied high-tech in production; the revenue scale of cooperatives reached VND2.44 billion per cooperative, 1.7 times higher than 2016. The rate of good cooperatives still increased nearly 70% of the total evaluated cooperatives. There are many effective models of cooperatives, many localities paid much attention and have specific policies to develop cooperatives. 57 provinces issued policies to develop linkages and value chains, of which 48 provinces issued the list of key products at the provincial level, of which nearly 2,346 key products are recognized. The whole country approved 359 association projects, increasing the number of national link chains to 1,644 chains.

An expert presents a report at the conference

The development of rural sectors was paid attention to when the Government and MARD and localities held a 2-year preliminary review of the implementation of Decree 52/2018 / ND-CP and successfully organized the 1st annual competition of national handicrafts products. The preliminary assessment has assessed the potentials, opportunities of the economic sector and even the weaknesses and challenges that even handicrafts are facing in order to have solutions to overcome. The Government agreed to allow MARD to submit Strategy for the development of rural sectors in the 2021-2030 period and Scheme for the development of rural trades and craft villages to the Government this year.

In term of the poverty reduction program, by 2020, the production development support under the poverty reduction program has basically been completed according to the plan. Total funding support is VND 9,323,250 million in 37 provinces. In which, 1,743 projects was deployed in the district 30a, supporting 240,844 people. The Program 135 funded for 2,253 projects, supporting 245,945 households. 454 projects were implemented in communes outside the regions 135 and 30a, supporting 10,826 households. Targets of agricultural mechanization increased by 2-8% compared to 2019. In some localities, especially in the Mekong Delta provinces, rice pinch radiators have been applied; spraying pesticides, sowing seeds with drones is highly effective. The level of mechanization in annual crop land preparation (rice, sugarcane, maize, vegetables) reaches about 97%; 65% sowing and planting stages; the care and spraying of plant protection products reached 82%; the rice harvest is 78% (93% in the delta provinces only); Losses in agriculture are reduced especially for rice production, currently 8-10%.

Regarding the key tasks in 2021, the Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development aims to develop the collective economy, cooperatives, and attract skilled human resources to work in cooperatives, especially to young staff ensuring to reach 1,500-2,000 people. The cooperative director training program is deployed to grant national certificates for primary occupations according to the framework and program promulgated by MARD. Models are supported and built under the Prime Minister's Decision No. 167/QD-TTg of February 3, 2021 approving the project of selecting, completing and replicating new cooperative models in localities across the country in the period of 2021 - 2025.

More than 300,000 workers will be trained in rural vocational training in order to improve the quality of human resources to meet the requirements of developing commodity agricultural production on a large scale, focusing on training for rural workers; training for employees participating in the OCOP program; Training for workers in commodity production areas. Building and replicating a number of synchronous mechanization models in agriculture, especially 06 synchronous mechanization models in the rice and coffee sectors that are being deployed in Gia Lai, Dak Lak, and Dong Thap, Kien Giang, Long An and Soc Trang provinces. The development of agricultural, forestry, fishery and salt production are supported for the poor towards commodity production in adaptation to climate change; diversifying forms of non-agricultural livelihoods, service occupations, suitable to practical conditions.