Activating resources for collective economy and cooperatives

However, besides the advantages, there are still many bottlenecks causing difficulties in the operation of cooperatives.

To overcome the difficulties, in addition to continuing to correct and perfect policies, the human resource problem, including management capacity, is considered the key to the development of the collective economy and agricultural cooperatives.

Many cooperatives and collective economy models have received investment capital, but the management capacity is not available, and cannot build production and business plans, so it was quickly broken. But besides weak economic and cooperative models, there are still successful models.

According to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan, the capacity of cooperative management is the key issue that determines the success or failure of the cooperatives. If the cooperative management team is capable, the cooperatives will overcome difficulties. They are the ones who plan business strategies, forecast the market, know how to reduce costs, and build brands and visions for the cooperative. To remove this bottleneck, it needs the participation of the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance and related ministries and sectors.

Xuyen Viet Seafood Trading and Production Cooperative in Hai Duong Province was established in 2011. The cooperative has eight co-contributing members and owns 10 hectares of aquaculture, with the main product being tilapia. Recalling the early days of the cooperative's establishment, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Director of the cooperative Le Van Viet said, that although the production and business items were clearly defined, the cooperative always faced difficulties in terms of capital and stocking area and seed sources.

The initiative to organise a small-scale farming model with large capital was launched and quickly received the consensus of cooperative members. In just a short time of implementation, the cooperative has mastered the complete incubation process and solved the problem of seed source. Initial success has encouraged the cooperative members to continue to contribute capital.

The cooperative currently has 52 members, of which seven members have developed affiliated cooperatives and three member companies operate to serve the development of Xuyen Viet. From the initial 10 hectares of farming, Xuyen Viet now owns 152 hectares, supplying more than 70 thousand tonnes of fish per year to the market (of which 70% is tilapia, 30% is fish of all kinds). Currently, the cooperative has signed contracts to sell seed products and commercial fish with 20 supermarkets inside and outside the province and traditional markets.

The success of Xuyen Viet Cooperative is attributed to the good management capacity of its members. Not only building a business strategy, and developing a cooperative model in the direction of circular agriculture, good governance capacity also contributes to leading cooperative members, letting them know what they can gain and what their villages get when participating in the cooperative, thus increasing solidarity in production and business.

To create conditions to improve the management capacity of members in the collective economy model and cooperatives increasingly meet the requirements of operating under a new model, economic experts said that, in addition to updating information daily, e-commerce applications and digital transformation, it is necessary to have a breakthrough in human resource training mechanisms and policies.

However, this is all new knowledge for cooperative members and staff, so the training process must be associated with methodical practice. Special attention must be paid to the "hands-on" method, to meet the practical needs of the cooperatives.

Currently, to improve the governance capacity of key members in the collective economic model and cooperatives, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has advised the Government and actively coordinated to order training institutions throughout the country, bringing young intellectuals to hold important positions in cooperatives and economic models, initially contributing to the realisation of the training strategy of "Directors of agricultural cooperatives", by 2030, about 80% of cooperative directors will receive primary vocational training.

Along with the determination to innovate in training, and improve management capacity for cooperatives, the requirements for innovation in mechanisms and policies have also been set to suit the new situation. That is the source of credit and the policy of land accumulation.

From a management perspective, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Duy Dong shared that the conditions for accessing land policies, capital sources, as well as the management team of the collective economy, are currently not favourable compared to other business sectors.

The reason is that the law on cooperatives is not yet practical, slow to change in terms of incentive mechanisms and policies, which are not strong enough. In particular, the work of communications and education about cooperatives from the central to local levels is still incomplete.

So, the collective economy and cooperatives have not developed commensurate with their potential. Specifically, according to data from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, there are currently 29,000 cooperatives nationwide, registered for business activities; in which, the agricultural sector with 18,000 cooperatives (more than 70% of the total number of cooperatives in the country), which is experiencing impressive growth.

Therefore, new policies need to be updated regularly and create motivation for the development of the collective economy and cooperatives. According to Minister Le Minh Hoan, besides improving the capacity of the management team, the internal resources of the cooperative economy model are also very important.

While in need of capital and changes in policies of the State, cooperatives need to make good use of the capital of their members. To do this, it is necessary to publicise member capital and publicise assets, thereby creating trust for members, and continuing to contribute capital to cooperatives.

Intrinsic resources for the development of cooperatives are the capital contribution of the members. Capital can be land or cash to rotate production and business. Once capital has been contributed, the management team to the cooperative members voluntarily follow market regulations and perform internal audits.

Thanks to the improvement of governance and democracy, cooperatives and collective economy models will receive more investment channels and flexibility, in support of the policies of the State. The combination of many resources from mechanisms, policies and internal strength, will help the collective economy and cooperatives link together, becoming a strong cooperative alliance in the coming time.