On the morning of July 27, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan spoke to explain and clarify a number of issues raised by National Assembly deputies at the discussion session on the investment policy of the National Target Program on New Rural Construction for the period 2021 - 2025.

Minister Le Minh Hoan spoke at the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee to give opinions on the investment policy of the National Target Program on New Rural Construction for the period 2021-2025

'To make the countryside a place worth visiting and a place we return to'

Minister Le Minh Hoan shared: "With 156 opinions expressed in group discussions and 16 opinions expressed in the hall today, it puts me under great pressure when directing and coordinating a Program that covers a very large area in all 63 provinces and cities. Even the pressure on the "Commander" of the agricultural sector even greater, because the ultimate goal of the Program is to make “rural areas a place worth living, a place worth visiting and a place we return to”.

Minister Le Minh Hoan shared emotional images during the recent days of the Covid-19 pandemic - hundreds, even millions of people from urban areas returned to the countryside to avoid the epidemic, which is the emotion and motivation for us to strive to achieve rural development goals in the coming period.

"In addition to the pressure, we also have great motivation, which is 63 delegations of National Assembly deputies, 499 National Assembly deputies will certainly accompany us in the next 5 years. The innovations, discoveries, and information in each locality will help us have a more comprehensive view," the Minister expressed.

According to Minister Le Minh Hoan, the results of the National Target Program on New Rural Development for the 2016 - 2020 period have been summarized in three words: "Enormous, comprehensive and historic" and there is no need to repeat it, but the shortcomings need to be discussed.

That is the overlap of the 3 National Target Programs that National Assembly deputies are very interested in. Minister Le Minh Hoan said that he had a working session with the Ministers in charge of the two remaining Programs (including the Sustainable Poverty Reduction Program and the Socio-Economic Development Program for Ethnic Minority Areas) and reported to the National Assembly. association.

Specifically, the scope of the Program implementation will not leave any communes empty to build new rural areas. “The new rural area program must cover all 63 provinces and cities and not leave any locality empty. If there is overlap, it is the integration of values to create large resources for socio-economic development in difficult areas,” the Minister emphasized.

Regarding the structure of capital sources to support the New Rural Area Program, the majority of National Assembly deputies want the central structure to be larger, while the local structure is reduced, especially in the context of localities having to focus resources to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, which is very difficult.

The Minister shared the concerns of the National Assembly deputies and said: “The Government has considered and reported to the National Assembly Standing Committee, in the context of the central budget being difficult, so we temporarily accept that capital allocation structure. And if there is a better budget revenue in the future, the Government will submit it to the National Assembly Standing Committee to increase resources. We have also proposed scenarios to implement this issue in the future if conditions permit”.

We have not paid attention to developing “software”

Regarding the opinions of delegates on the need to build new rural areas sustainably, Minister Le Minh Hoan affirmed: “The story of sustainable development is related to people’s income and livelihoods”.

He realized that the name of the Program, “building new rural areas”, makes local authorities and grassroots levels tend to invest in infrastructure construction (bridges, roads, headquarters, stations, schools, etc.) because “construction” is related to works.

“What we lack attention to is how to create conditions to improve people’s income and lives through that livelihood”, Minister Le Minh Hoan said and gave an example. 5 years ago, a farmer planted 1 hectare of rice, 5 years later the same farmer also planted 1 hectare of rice using traditional methods, so it is impossible for us to increase income by 1.5 times. Or, if we support people with money to reduce poverty, to increase income by 1.5 times, it is also not sustainable.

Therefore, the Government has identified new values for the New Rural Development Program in the coming period, that is, in addition to continuing to develop infrastructure so that rural people have access to urban amenities, we also focus on developing "software".

Recently, the Chairman of the National Assembly concluded that it is necessary to link the restructuring of the agricultural sector with the construction of new rural areas. Because "building new rural areas is fundamental, restructuring agriculture is the foundation, farmers are the subject". Those three pillars cannot be separated.

According to Minister Le Minh Hoan, the Prime Minister has just directed the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to develop a Strategy for Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development, in which we shift from agricultural production thinking to agricultural economic thinking, taking rural economy as the foundation to create momentum for rural development.

“I think that sustainable development thinking is about improving the quality of life and income for rural people by restructuring the agricultural sector in association with new agricultural models, circular agriculture, smart agriculture; associated with the value chain of products, post-harvest technology, preservation, processing and market development. That is what is sustainable,” he said.

It is necessary to create conditions for people to access the light of knowledge

Minister Le Minh Hoan also said that, in addition to “creating the core” (investing in building infrastructure) for rural people to access urban amenities, it is necessary to preserve and promote the “soul” to form living space, production space for thousands of years. It must be considered a resource, a source of power for rural development.

Along with that, it is necessary to improve community capacity to make farmers the main subject in rural socio-economic development. To have capacity, they must access the light of knowledge, access new things, know how to cooperate with each other, and know how to control their own destiny.

For example, in the context of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, many farmers proactively went online to sell agricultural products when the government applied social distancing orders. That is a change.

"We will attach importance to the issue of educating farmers in the upcoming implementation of the Program. Along with that, the issue of protecting the rural environment, rural culture, gender equality, and nutrition for rural people will also be considered important to have a sustainable new countryside, increasing the quality of life and income of rural people," Minister Le Minh Hoan shared.

He also noted that, drawing on the experience of previous years, we need to affirm that the leadership team of communes and grassroots authorities are the decisive force for the success of the New Rural Development Program. Because central officials, provincial officials, and district officials only come to visit, inspect, and then return.

As for commune officials and grassroots officials, they are close to and often go to the fields, talk with the people to sympathize and understand them, find bottlenecks and difficulties in production and business to change their habits.

"I think that in the coming time, we will have a separate training program for commune leadership team to approach new values of new rural construction,” said Minister Le Minh Hoan./.