In 2023, despite facing many difficulties and challenges, Vietnam’s agriculture still achieved remarkable achievements: the highest GDP growth rate in many years, reaching 3.83%, contributing significantly to the 5.05% economic growth. The export value reached over 53 billion USD, ensuring food security and continuing to affirm its position as the “backbone of the economy”.
In 2024, the agricultural sector aims to achieve an export value of over 55 billion USD. What will Vietnam do to achieve this goal? At the beginning of the new year, we had a conversation with some experts and entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector on this topic.
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Prof. Dang Kim Son
2023 was a year of remarkable growth for the agricultural sector, overcoming many difficulties. Throughout the past 40 years, since the period of renewal, agriculture has remained a bright spot both socially and economically. The past year can be considered as a year of outstanding growth, with a GDP growth rate of 3.8%.
In general, agriculture has grown relatively evenly, with cultivation being the most prominent, followed by aquaculture, livestock, and forestry, all maintaining a fairly high level.
The most outstanding point can be said to be exports. In a situation where the supply chain is still facing many obstacles and the market and purchasing power in the world are declining, Vietnam’s exports still achieved good results, a record of 53 billion USD. The special thing is the relatively high export surplus ratio, more than 12 billion. This is an impressive export surplus, especially in the context of increasing input materials, equipment, and logistic service prices. I think this is a very admirable success.
Among the entire picture, the most shining point is rice. The price of Vietnamese rice has exceeded 400 USD/ton, reaching 600 USD/ton, mainly due to its quality. This is something to be very proud of. While the whole world is worrying about food security, Vietnam’s agriculture has maintained stable prices domestically and consolidated the trade balance, providing good support for foreign trade and the overall economy.
Our rice production has made a strong imprint on ensuring global food security. The image and soft power of Vietnam have been firmly consolidated.
In conditions where we have to reduce input materials, the prices of materials have increased, services are facing difficulties, and resources are limited, climate change has an impact. It is clear that relying on technology and management improvement is a mandatory trend, even the only way we have to go.
Recently, we have made many efforts, and our science and technology have made progress in automation, mechanization, and improving both production and processing systems, resulting in significant improvements in quality. Another prominent aspect is that we are moving towards green growth, developing eco-agriculture. Reducing carbon emissions is not just a slogan but has become a target, a standard, incorporated into development plans. It can be said that the change in mindset towards green growth has begun to be synchronized from producers, businesses, and processors to consumers. This is a very positive new trend.
However, to truly turn a mindset into strength, there need to be further steps that involve not only farmers but the whole society, especially sectors such as environmental resources, science and technology, and finance to help the agriculture sector.
Entrepreneur Phan Minh Thong
2023 was a tough year for Vietnamese coffee. For the first time in more than 20 years in the industry, we saw exhausted coffee buyers, traders, and brokers. They struggled with pressure from their bosses and buyers they had signed contracts with. Exporters also struggled because they had no coffee to buy, meaning no goods to deliver. Buying companies started demanding compensation from exporters, then continued to pressure because their purchase contracts had also been sold to roasting and grinding companies. Meanwhile, almost all coffee warehouses were empty.
People used to think Vietnamese coffee was endless. But the reality is not like that. In the past 10 years, due to the hot real estate market, farmers have sold their land, resulting in a significant reduction in coffee cultivation areas. Secondly, after the Covid-19 pandemic, few people worked in agriculture, and labor costs increased. And finally, weather changes have led to significant fluctuations in harvest seasons. These three factors have significantly reduced coffee production.
The continuous increase in coffee prices has made farmers unwilling to sell to traders, who falsely claim to have no goods to continue pushing prices up. Many people say farmers are greedy, as the coffee price has reached 78,000 VND/kg but they still hold onto it and don’t sell. But it must be said that everyone is greedy, not just farmers. Over the past 20 years, the large coffee roasting and distribution companies in the world have made huge profits from cheap Vietnamese coffee. And after profiting from it for decades, they still pressure exporters and traders to pay them late from 150 to 360 days. In terms of delivery, it is the same. When there is a bumper harvest and low consumption demand, they force exporters to deliver late even though the exporters have fully stocked. But if they need goods, they push us terribly.
However, after 2023, buyers have realized that Vietnamese Robusta is not endless, and they must truly care about Vietnam – the coffee producer. The answer to long-lasting and sustainable development of the coffee industry is that both buyers and sellers must genuinely care about coffee, coffee growers, and cultivation areas. Sustainable development here means the comprehensive development of the cultivation regions, land, production, environment, and people, from farmers and workers to office workers. Moreover, the process also includes all the stakeholders involved in the buying, selling, and exchange processes. It is a matter of survival to ensure the existence and development of the industry as well as businesses.
Prof. Vo Tong Xuan
For the agriculture sector in general and Vietnamese rice in particular, 2023 was the peak year of development ever. The number one advantage of Vietnamese rice is that our hybrid breeders have successfully combined fragrant genes with short-day and high-yield genes.
The timely and appropriate policies of the government will help limit the impact of climate change on the Mekong Delta. On the business side, there must be a business-oriented mindset, proactively going to other countries to find customers, taking advantage of Vietnam’s competitive advantage of rice that can “coexist with climate change” and meet the high requirements of the market. Exporters of rice need to watch the market situation to adjust their production plans in a timely manner. This is not something farmers need to worry about because it is the job of managers and businesses. In the past, our ancestors used to say “a failed nation blames its farmers,” but now, I think “agriculture’s success relies on the responsibility of businesses.”
In 2024, I have three big expectations. First, for breeders, I hope they can breed more new rice varieties while maintaining the existing ones. Second, businesses need to maintain market stability to create sustainable outlets for farmers. Depending on the demand for rice types and rice production of each group of consumers, businesses need to come up with reasonable production plans. Rice production is not just about producing one variety, but we need to produce many varieties to serve the needs of many markets in countries around the world. Third, for farmers, they need to innovate if they don’t want to remain impoverished. Proactive innovation will give farmers the opportunity to get rich on their homeland’s land and contribute to the development of the country’s agriculture.
