Vietnam shares agricultural vision at Davos

Vietnam will pioneer the World Economic Forum (WEF) initiative “A new vision for agriculture” incorporating food security, poverty reduction, and global sustainable development.

Deputy Prime Minister-Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh made Vietnam’s commitment at a WEF session on global agricultural restructuring in Davos, Switzerland, on January 24.

He noted agriculture plays a primary role in and forms the backbone of Vietnam’s economy, even in difficult times.

He recalled the Vietnamese Prime Minister’s New Year message, saying it is time to accelerate agriculture restructuring and apply advanced technology to agricultural production to increase added value and fuel sustainable development. Farmers must be at the centre of this process.

During the past three years, Vietnam has established taskforces to realize the WEF initiative by applying good agricultural practices to a number of strategic farm products, and obtained initial results.

Minh said Vietnam wants to encourage cooperative relationships between farmers and businesses as a way of ensuring the benefits of production, processing, and consumption are distributed more equitably across chains of value.

These efforts will shift the focus of agricultural production on to competitive commodities with guaranteed consumer demand.

Vietnam will gradually link high technology, agriculture, industry, and services in a sustainable multi-functional model of agricultural production, Minh revealed.

He thanked international organisations and foreign investors for supporting Vietnam’s agricultural ambitions, and said concerned parties need to work more closer together to fully tap into their potential.

Vietnam encourages the public-private partnership (PPP) model with the participation of transnational companies in agricultural production, considering it the best way of bringing Vietnamese goods to world markets and including farmers in global chains of value, the Deputy PM stressed.

They are also essential to the economic, social, and environmental aspects of the government’s new agricultural vision, he said.