Co-operatives make agricultural breakthroughs

Co-operatives will greatly benefit both farmers and the State, creating breakthroughs in the development of Vietnam’s agriculture, said Politburo member and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Nguyen Thien Nhan on April 14.

Illustration photo. Photo: Huu Chi

At a forum in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang, Nhan said connecting farmers with businesses and co-operatives is imperative to selling their farm produce at supermarkets or shipping it abroad.

Since companies pose a higher risk of manipulation, it is better for farmers to partner with co-operatives to help them secure buyers of product quality and origin and mitigate the recurrent situation of product price plunges in instances of bumper harvests, he said.

Forum participants said co-operatives must be part of a chain including businesses. They urged concrete regulations and strict supervision over the implementation of support policies, especially those relating to credit and land use for cooperatives.

They underlined that the biggest problem facing co-operatives is ensuring the purchase of farm produce, since farmers have yet to gain much profit from selling their products.

Huynh Van Thon, Chairman of the Executive Board of the An Giang Plant Protection Joint Stock Company, said co-operatives only exist on the basis of close coordination between enterprises and co-operative members.

By the end of 2014, An Giang had two co-operative unions and 147 co-operatives with a total chartered capital of more than VND412 billion (US$19.6 million), Vice Chairman of the An Giang People’s Committee Le Van Nung reported, adding that they had 160,576 members.

About 67.4% of the co-operatives operate in the agricultural and fisheries sectors, 16.3% in credit, 12.9% in transport, and 3.4% in small-scale industries. They generated a revenue of VND837.2 billion (US$39.86 million) and a net profit of VND92.5 billion (US$4.4 million) in 2014, he added.

(Source: nhandan.org.vn)