Nguyen Thi Hoa, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations’ Centre for Sustainable Rural Development, said in an interview about the position of farmers in the rice production chain, that farmers have little control over their own products.
Leading agricultural experts have said that the Vietnam Northern Food Corporation (Vinafood 1) and the Vietnam Southern Food Corporation (Vinafood 2) showed their face as profit takers who buy low-quality rice from farmers at low prices for governmental rice export contracts without paying attention to trademark. This affects farmers, as their profits continue to decrease in recent years, prompting many to leave their fields fallow. What is your take on the current situation?
I totally agree with that comment. We are trying to train farmers in five provinces to give them the skills needed to select, preserve and restore rice varieties and select those which will be successful in the weather expected as the climate changes without being dependent on suppliers.
We've learned in the course of this project that farmers in general have been gradually losing their autonomy. As a result, they cannot produce high-quality rice varieties for rice export.
Farmers being squeeze
Also, new mechanisms seem to serve middle men and processors instead of farmers in the rice production chain.
A policy that gives incentives to those who buy rice at low prices for speculation proves the lack of long-term thinking. Farmers do not have the ability to protect their products and no one protects them.
While farmers in Thailand are protected by farmers’ associations and can sign contracts with exporters directly, Vietnamese farmers don't have these advantages.
It is not only exporters that are to be blamed, but also policy makers who should reconsider and create policies that benefit farmers.
Currently, farmers are dependent at all phases in the rice production chain, ranging from materials for planting to the cultivation process, post-harvesting and product sales. This has whittled down their profits to around just VND50,000 (USD2.36) per 360 square metres per month. Do you think that farmers really benefit from the government incentive policies? What has the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development done to help farmers overcome their difficulties?
I think that our policy is coercive to farmers. Even though many policies have been worked out, their implementation is inefficient due to the lack of competent oversight tools and competent regulators. Despite their important role in society, their well being will be in danger until we get more sensible policy.
Currently we have a lot of academics and scientific institutions of agriculture. Why is it that the more they try to help farmers the poorer farmers become? What are the reasons?
This is a result of the lack of cooperation among the concerned parties. While the Vietnam Farmers’ Association's function is supposed to be protecting farmers’ rights, their operations are inefficient.
What do you think about post-harvesting technology in Vietnam? Is it true that farmers are getting poor despite producing more due to a lack of proper attention to quality? What can we learn from Thailand's and Cambodia's experiences?
I think post-harvesting technology in Vietnam is really substandard due to the lack of initiatives to improve. With a long history of agriculture, it's a good idea for Vietnam to invest more in post-harvesting technology.
We can obviously draw lessons from recent watermelon exports to China, and it ends up that farmers are often blamed. If we had standard post-harvesting technology, we could have produced several products from those fruits, such as juices and cakes, benefiting all stakeholders, including farmers.
Both Thailand and Cambodia have good policies for agricultural development. However, Vietnam should not simply copy their practices.
It is necessary for the government to reconsider the role of agriculture in the national economy so as to have better investment policies and foster the industry's development.
In your view where should farmers’ rights be put in the rice production chain?
Farmers should be put at the centre of the rice production chain. They should be provided with further training to improve their capacity in production, business and negotiation, so they can be empowered to make their own plans for their products. Any policies that fail to improve farmers’ rights would be inefficient and bad for all those involved in the long run.
Thank you very much!
