Developing High-quality Agricultural Products

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Soc Trang province, 2012 is the second year the province implements the Resolution of the 12^th Soc Trang Provincial Party Congress and the five-year socioeconomic development plan from 2011 to 2015 adopted by the Provincial People’s Committee. On the basis of good achievements in 2011, the agricultural sector has worked out plans for 2012. In the first six months of 2012, the sector planted 365,000 ha of rice for the summer-autumn crop, equal to 106 percent of the initial plan, of which 57,000 ha were specialty rice. Rice output is estimated at 2.1 million tonnes in 2012, slightly higher than initial plan at 2 million tonnes. The province has more than 27,000 ha of fruit trees. Highly valued fruit trees are prioritised, including mangosteen, durian, mango, grapefruit, orange, tangerine, star apple, Hoa Loc sweet mango, Chu Cat sweet mango, green-skinned pomelo, Nam Roi pomelo, sweet orange, sugary tangerine, and Lo Ren star apple.

 

Livestock husbandry development is based on farms. Fish-farming area reached 43,500 ha in the first six months, or 60 percent of the plan, including 30,850 ha for shrimp rearing. The province is estimated to catch 24,000 tonnes, an increase of 4,300 tonnes from the same period last year. Most comes from offshore fishing.

Mr Quach Van Nam, Director of the Soc Trang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: The sector will continue introducing high-quality and high-yield crop varieties and animal breeds, stepping up scientific and technological transfer and application, and carrying out national target programmes like the new countryside construction programme, and clean water and sanitation programme for the countryside. It will complete the coastal protective forest handover programme, specialty rice production development project through 2015, and supplement the brackish water white-leg shrimp development plan through 2020.

He said, together with the entire country, Soc Trang has worked out orientations for high-quality agricultural product development in an attempt to enhance competitiveness and to penetrate high-end markets.

 

The sector’s development orientations are: Focusing investments on production of highly valued plant varieties and livestock species, building high-tech applied agricultural zones, researching reproduction, scientific and technological transfers, building large sample fields, promoting mechanisation and the application of VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards, and associating production with consumption and processing; developing fish-farming areas in all three eco-regions: saltwater, brackish water and freshwater.

 

One important objective stated in the Soc Trang socioeconomic development master plan until 2020 is that Soc Trang province will be built into a province with advanced and sustained agriculture, plus industry and services. To achieve this goal, Nam said, the province needs to have solutions like administrative reform and justice reform to make the environment more friendly, open and transparent for investments to develop, mobilise domestic and foreign investment capital for development; train and develop human resources; introduce new advanced technologies, innovations and technical improvements to production, business and life; encourage businesses to invest in technological innovations and designs to increase competitiveness in the time of global integration; build and develop brand names in combination with trade promotion and market expansion.