At the conference, officials fromministries, localities, sectors, and scientists affirmed that the modelhelps cut production costs while improving efficiency and productquality by establishing linkage among farmers and making it easier forfarmers to connect with the State, scientists and enterprises.
Deputy Head of the Steering Committee for Southwest Region NguyenQuoc Viet said the model is in line with the policy of restructuringagricultural production and building modern rural areas.
According to Viet, the combined area of large-scale fields in theMekong Delta was around 7,800 hectares in 2011 but it increased to290,000 ha in 2014.
General Secretary of theVietnam Agriculture Association said the model facilitates theapplication of science and technology in agricultural production andproduct quality control.
Meanwhile, DeputyDirector of the Department of Cultivation Pham Van Du said expanding thelarge scale farming model will contribute to realising the plan ofestablishing a 1-million-ha rice commodity production area for exportand building the region’s rice brandname.
TheMekong Delta covers a total area of about 40,000 square kilometres with apopulation of 18 million, and is the largest rice production hub ofVietnam.
It has some 2.3 million ha of land forrice cultivation with two main crops a year, producing between 12- 14million tonnes each year.
In 2014, Mekong Deltaprovinces exported 6 million tonnes of rice, raking in 2.8 billion USD.Of the amount, 80 percent was consumed in Asia and Africa, 17 percent inthe EU and North America and the remaining in the Middle East andOceania.-VNA