A conference on cooperatives in the agriculture sector was held onMay 20 in Hanoi to review their development and plan ways to improvetheir effectiveness.
The event was organised by theMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the VietnamCooperative Alliance (VCA) and the World Bank.
Addressing the conference, MARD Minister Cao Duc Phat said that the keysolution to develop business cooperatives in the sector is not toincrease their number, but to find ways to efficiently manage themdepending on their areas of production - for example, cultivation,breeding, aquaculture or forestry - and to provide them with necessarysupport.
Proper solutions are also needed to engagefarmers in value chain production which facilitates more competitiveagriculture, the minister added, stressing that businesses should notwork independently of thousands of farmers.
He hoped that experience from other countries would help create a better linkage between businesses and farmers.
Ethel Sennhauser, Director of Agriculture Global Practice at the WorldBank, underscored the importance of cooperative business in agriculturebelieved to help farmers access lowered priced supplies of inputmaterials, work in larger scale production and distribute farmingproducts.
During ten sessions of the conference,experts from Colombia, Indonesia and the Philippines gave presentationson the challenges they have overcome in developing their farmer groupsand cooperatives. They discussed how cooperatives get access tofinancial sources, how to operate coffee and aquaculture cooperatives,and governmental support on offer to the groups and cooperatives.
Restructuring agricultural production was determined by the PrimeMinister Nguyen Tan Dung as one of two pillars of key agriculturalreform, which focuses on enhancing the effectiveness of cooperatives andother forms of cooperative businesses.-VNA
