Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister of Agriculture andRural Development Le Quoc Doanh said agriculture is important to Vietnam’seconomy, with cultivation accounting for 75 percent of agricultural productionvalue.
Currently, there are seven home-grown produces that earnover 1 billion USD from exports each year. Four of them rake in 3 billion USD,including rice, coffee, fruit, and cashew nuts.
The cultivation sector strives to achieve an annual growthof 2-2.5 percent in production value and export turnover of 22 billion USD by2020.
However, it faces intense competition with other sectors interms of workforce and land. The farming scale remains sporadic with limitedadoption of technological advances.
In the near future, the Vietnamese Ministry of Agricultureand Rural Development and the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and FoodQuality will step up technical projects in agriculture and encourage Dutchinvestment in the field in the form of foreign direct investment andpublic-private partnerships.
Dutch Vice Minister of Agriculture, Nature, and Food QualityMarjolijn Sonnema said cultivation has a big share in the Netherlands’ farmproduce exports and the European country is ready to share its experience withVietnam in this field.
According to her, a number of joint projects have beenlaunched in Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta.
At the seminar, several Dutch firms introduced farmingtechnologies, measures to build a supply value chain, and preservation andpost-harvest technologies used in the Netherlands and other countriesworldwide.
Jean Marie Rozec, Executive Director of Rijk Zwaan Vietnam,stressed the need to form close partnerships between farmers and distributors,choose quality varieties, and adopt modern preservation technology.
The seminar was co-hosted by the Dutch Trade and EconomicMission, the Grow Asia organisation, and VNU Exhibitions Asia-Pacific. –VNA