Finding a Farm Director is Harder Than Finding a Bank Director
At the 2025 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on the morning of June 6, Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL) proposed to shareholders the cancellation of the 2023 ESOP issuance plan, replacing it with a proposal to issue 12 million bonus shares to employees.
“For those who have followed HAGL’s journey, you know how the company started, the challenges it faced, and its recovery to this point. So, why are we requesting 12 million shares for employees? Personally, I believe that since 2016, when HAGL faced liquidity issues and fought to survive until today, this has been a collective and intense effort, not the work of any single individual,” shared Mr. Duc.
HAGL’s leadership emphasized the role of farm managers and workers, whom they consider “even harder to find than bank directors.”
Mr. Duc explained, “Finding a director for a bank or securities company in Ho Chi Minh City is not difficult. However, finding a farm director is extremely challenging. They must be highly skilled and willing to make sacrifices—living in remote areas, often without transportation, far from family, and only returning home once a year.”
The HAGL Chairman also recalled the difficult period of 2016–2017 when the company owed employees up to five months of wages, yet the core team remained loyal. “If shareholders do not approve this proposal, I will personally fund the shares for the employees. Without these dedicated individuals over the past decade, HAGL would not exist today,” he stated.
Beyond gratitude, the bonus share issuance aims to retain talent in an increasingly competitive agricultural labor market. “Over the next five years, HAGL will heavily rely on these individuals. The agricultural sector is attracting significant investment, and there is fierce competition among companies to attract skilled workers,” Mr. Duc added.
The Struggle to Find Top Talent
Mr. Duc’s remark that “finding a farm director is harder than finding a bank director” highlights the shortage of high-quality labor in the agricultural sector.
At the 2025 Annual Conference of the Asian Farmers’ Group for Cooperation (AFGC) in Vietnam, a representative from the Department of Cooperative Economy and Rural Development (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment) noted, “While agricultural labor is not in short supply, high-quality labor is extremely scarce.”
This issue is not unique to Vietnam. In Japan, labor shortages have forced many agricultural processing plants to operate at reduced capacity or shut down entirely, exacerbated by an aging population.
Mr. Norikazu Toma, Executive Director of JA Zenchu Japan, reported that over the past 20 years, the number of farmers in Japan has halved to approximately 1.1 million, representing less than 1% of the population. Notably, farmers over 65 years old account for 71.7% of the agricultural workforce, a 17.8% increase from two decades ago.
In the Philippines, according to Mr. Raul Q. Montemayor, National Director of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) and the Federation of Free Farmers’ Cooperatives (FFFC), the agricultural and fisheries workforce decreased to 10.7 million by the end of 2024, comprising only 21.3% of the total labor force.
These statistics paint a global picture of declining agricultural labor and the challenges in developing a high-quality workforce, issues that extend far beyond Vietnam’s borders.
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