Right in his opening speech at the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue had delivered a strong message: At the moment, agriculture restructuring is inevitable for the Mekong Delta.
"For the Mekong Delta, agricultural restructuring has become more urgent than ever before. The most important factors that we need to focus on now are the policies and their implementation. Right now, we’re not clear what kinds of policies to implement and how to do it. We can’t generalise forever", Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said.
The meeting is an important event to discuss practical solutions to agricultural restructuring in the Mekong Delta, which previously suffered a lot of damage from drought, salinisation and erosion. During the first 6 months of this year, this is the first time this region has witnessed negative growth in the agriculture sector.
"Adaptation is very important. The coastal area needs to focus more on marine and brackish water businesses. How come nobody see its potential? If we’re determined enough, I think the results will be obvious after a certain period of time. The local people will reap the benefits", Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hoang Van Thang said.
Many development initiatives to adapt to the current situation have been proposed at the meeting. One of them is the sustainable development link between the three Mekong Delta provinces of Dong Thap, Long An and Tien Giang, which promote co-operation between the provinces in building development plans, anticipating risks and reducing the damage posed by natural disasters and climate change to daily production and livelihoods.
"The cross-province link model provides us a wider geographical area, which means more diverse agricultural products and supply sources. In a case where Dong Thap doesn’t have a certain type of agricultural product at a certain time, Long An and Tien Giang might help", Le Minh Hoan - Secretary of Dong Thap Party Committee - said.
Also at the meeting, the concepts of ecological, high quality, clean and intelligent agriculture have also been mentioned several times. Every proposal collected at the meeting will be the basis for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s future plans.
