(VOVworld) – Agriculture is contributing more than 20% of Vietnam’s GDP, accounting for up to one quarter of the national exports revenue, and creating jobs for half of the workforce with 65% of them in rural areas. Over the years, agriculture has been a foundation of Vietnam’s economy.

In 2013, Vietnam’s agricultural production has faced lots of difficulties with farmers’ decreased income due to shrinking farm produce export market and the decline in export prices. These realities have required Vietnam to speed up the agriculture restructuring towards efficiency and sustainability.

Although during the last days of December 2013, the temperature in the North Vietnam is now very low, farmers in Me So and Lien Nghia communes in Hung Yen province still go to the fields very early. They are taking care of kumquat trees to be sold during the upcoming Tet holiday. Almost all people in Me So and Lien Nghia communes are involved in growing the ornamental trees which have brought them high income. Nguyen Cong Hoan, a Me So villager, says:

“In the past, we grew rice with two crops in a year and different kinds of vegetables in between but their economic efficiency was too low. Thanks to the government’s policy, we have rearranged our cultivated crops with focus on kumquat trees. This year, we have planted more than 800 kumquat trees and to date, half of these have been valued at nearly 5,700 USD.”

Changing from farming to growing flowers, bonsais, and other kinds of high-yield crops has helped a number of farmers nationwide not only increase incomes, but become well-off. However, macro-economically, Vietnam’s agriculture production has been dir4ected towards raising output instead of combining the development of agriculture and processing industry. The result has been valuable, high quality production.

In 2013, a number of Vietnamese agricultural exports have topped world markets including rice, coffee, and pepper. But prices of Vietnamese farm products remain lower than those of several neighboring countries.

Vietnam should invest more in coffee cultivation as it’s one of crops having great demands both in Vietnam and the world market. (Photo: danviet.vn)

In such circumstance, agriculture restructuring is aimed at helping Vietnamese farms grow highly valuable produce, and create national brand exports. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat says:

“It’s time for us to change into an agriculture with more investment in quality instead of only increasing output. It’s necessary to raise added value products to increase farmers’ incomes. This has been clearly mentioned in a plan to restructure the agriculture sector towards raising added values and sustainable development.”

The program aims to establish specialized cultivation areas. These would include systems of farm produce processing facilities operating as parts of goods production chains to turn out exports with high economic efficiency. Under the program, Vietnam will attach more importance to the restructuring of farming land and crops. There will be more participation by the science and technology sectors, while mechanisms and policies will also be improved. Vo Trong Binh, Deputy Director of Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, says:

“We need to specify how the restructuring should be done. To achieve this goal, each policy should clarify how the reforms should be carried out, and in which areas – machinery and equipment or institutions, or both.”

Under the restructuring program approved by the Prime Minister, the process will be continued in the direction to raise added value products and sustainable development with the sector’s GDP growth reaching up to 3% until 2015, 4% from 2016 to 2020.