Nghị quyết 63/NQ-CP

RESOLUTION

ON NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY

THE GOVERNMENT

Food (including food and foodstuffs) security, which has always received a special concern and direction of the Party and State so as to ensure national food security in the immediate- and long-term future, is crowned with important achievements, prominently:
The grain food output averagely increased 3.7%/year in the 2001-2008 period, about three times higher than the population growth rate in the same period. Rice production met the domestic and export demands, averagely with some 4-5 million tons of rice exported annually. The output of foodstuffs from vegetables, fruits, husbandry and fishery products rose considerably.
The food circulation system was renovated, creating favorable conditions for people to access food. The domestic market has gradually shifted to the market mechanism under the State's management. The malnutrition rate among people dropped markedly; particularly that among under-five children fell from 25% in 2005 to 20% in 2008, achieving the plan target set for 2010.
Despite the above-mentioned achievements, our country's food security still sees such limitations and shortcomings as food and foodstuff production is not really sustainable; agricultural production organization is slow to be renovated; production infrastructure and services remain insufficient; production, business, export and import management still sees constraints; and producers' incomes remain low.
Food security constitutes an important issue of the country in the immediate- as well as long-term future. In order to redress the above-said shortcomings, the Government promulgates the Resolution on national food security with the following contents:

I. VIEWPOINTS

1. Food security must be part of the socio­economic development general strategy, associated with the objectives of national industrialization and modernization and the addressing of the questions of agriculture, peasantry and rural areas, of which hunger elimination, poverty reduction, job creation and higher incomes for people are important, contributing to ensuring steady national food security.

2. Comprehensive and efficient agricultural production development served as a basis to ensure national food security; production shall be linked with appropriate organizational forms to fully and promptly meet food and foodstuff demands in all circumstances; to raise nutrition and improve the quality of people's meals.

3. To bring into play the advantage of rice as the principal task and to develop food and foodstuffs into commodity production zones with high efficiency and competitiveness; to step up mechanization, processing and preservation towards industrialization, modernization and sustainable environmental protection.

4. To well organize the trading and reserve systems in various regions and areas, creating favorable conditions for people to easily access food and foodstuffs with higher and higher quality and efficiency. To harmonize domestic consumption and export of food and foodstuffs.

5. To bring into full play resources of people and all economic sectors; the State shall only provide active support in ensuring national food security; ensure incomes for food producers and create conditions for the development of purely agricultural localities.

II. OBJECTIVES

1. General objectives

By 2020 with a vision towards 2030, to ensure adequate food supply sources with an output higher than the population growth rate; to put an end to food shortage and hunger and raise meal quality; to ensure that rice producers earn profits averagely more than 30% over production costs.

2. Specific objectives

a/ To ensure food supply sources

To further step up intensive rice farming, particularly in the Mekong river and Red river deltas, creating stable supply sources for immediate- and long-term national food security.

By 2020. to protect the rice land fund of 3.8 million ha for an output of 41-43 million tons of paddy to meet the total domestic consumption and export demand of around 4 million tons of rice/year; to increase the maize acreage to 1.3 million ha for an output of 7.5 million tons, the fruit tree acreage to 1.2 ha for an output of 12 million tons, the vegetables acreage to 1.2 million ha for an output of 20 million tons; to increase the subsidiary food crop output over 30%, the outputs of domestic animals in live weight to 8 million tons, fresh milk to 1 million tons, poultry eggs to 14 billion, fishing output to 2.4 million tons and aquaculture output to 4 million tons.

b/ To meet nutrition needs

By 2020. to improve the nutrition conditions towards nutrition balance, raising the average daily calorie consumption to 2.600-2.700 kilocalorie/person and reducing the malnutrition rate among under-five children to below 5%.

To improve the food consumption structure and quality, achieving by 2020 the average per-head consumption of only 100 kg of rice, 45 kg of meat, 30 kg of fish, 50 kg of fruits and 120 kg of vegetables, and the egg and milk consumption doubling the current levels. All agricultural products and food sold on the market must meet food hygiene and safety standards.

c/ To ensure people's accessibility to food

To put an end to food shortage and hunger by 2012. ensuring that 100% of the population any where and any time will be supplied with adequate food after 2012.

To ensure that by 2020. the food producers' income will be 2.5 times higher than the current level.

III. MAJOR TASKS AND SOLUTIONS

1. Planning

a/ General planning

The national food production is planned on the basis of bringing into play the advantages of each region and efficiently using land and water resources; to attach importance to planning zones of food production with great outputs of rice, maize, vegetables, fruits, aquatic products and husbandry in order to achieve the national food security targets.

The food production planning must ensure the balance of various domains to ensure the sustainable development with high economic efficiency; not causing contradiction between the bio-fuel production planning and the food production planning.

b/ Rice land planning

Rice land planning must ensure uniformity and conformity in size and rice land location with the national land use planning.

In order to ensure national food security, by 2020 and a vision towards 2030, the rice land acreage shall be kept at 3.8 million ha, including 3.2 million ha of land under two or more rice crops a year with complete irrigation networks.

The rice areas to be kept and strictly protected will be specified for each locality (province, district and commune), and maps on current rice land use by households will be drawn.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall coordinate with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and provincial-level People's Committees in directing the formulation of detailed planning on rice land fund under the above-said orientation, and submit it to the Prime Minister for approval in the second quarter of 2010.

The Ministry of National Resources and Environment shall assume the prime respon­sibility for, and coordinate with the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development; Trade and Industry; Construction; and Transport, as well as concerned ministries and branches in, pinpointing the land use demands of various branches, including the demands for land converted from rice land, on the principle of thrifty use of rice land.

Provincial-level People's Committees shall base themselves on the approved national rice land planning to determine the rice land acreages to be kept in their respective localities, particularly areas under two rice crops, which need to be strictly protected, and draw maps on rice land use by communes and households. This shall be completed in the fourth quarter of 2011.

2. Infrastructure, scientific and technological development

a/ Infrastructure development

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and provincial-level People's Committees shall coordinate with concerned ministries and branches in directing and implementing the following tasks:

- To further invest in. build and consolidate irrigation works, ensuring active irrigation and drainage for 100% of areas under two rice crops and increase the irrigated areas of vegetables, subsidiary food crops or fruit trees. To prioritize investment in the construction of irrigation works in service of aquaculture; and small irrigation works in mountainous regions.

- To further invest in building new dike systems and upgrading the existing ones; to soon materialize investment projects on sea dike systems, protecting production and assets of the State and people; to prepare for coping with sea level rise.

- For concentrated food production regions, to complete the irrigation systems in association with rebuilding the fields and developing intra-field communications, creating favorable conditions for scientific and technical application to mechanization of commodity production with higher efficiency.

- To expeditiously complete the construction of systems of warehouses for food reserve and preservation in rice production regions, ensuring a rice and paddy reserve of 4 million tons; to develop food processing establishments with modern technologies in order to raise the quality of agricultural products.

b/ Scientific and technological development and application

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Science and Technology shall coordinate with provincial-level People's Committees in:

- Increasing resources for scientific research, agricultural promotion, information and international cooperation on food security; the annual state budget investment in this domain will increase 10-15%.

- Selecting, creating and producing adequate plant varieties and animal breeds, aquatic strains of high yield and high quality, especially plant varieties resistant to such unfavorable conditions as salizization, drought, water logging, and genetically modified varieties in service of production.

- Stepping up the research into, and application of, coordinated mechanization of production, harvesting, preservation and processing. For rice, to boost the mechanization of harvesting in order to reduce loss; by 2020. the harvesting mechanization will achieve 50%, of which 80% for the Mekong river delta, mainly with the use of combined harvester-threshers of hi-tech properties.

- Building epidemics-free production zones, hi-tech production zones and concentrated production zones with the application of the good agricultural practices (GAP); developing garden economy.

- Applying advanced quality control systems to preservation and processing establishments.

- Increasing investment in modern equipment and technologies, in the development of synchronous infrastructure and fishery logistics services for efficient fishing; planning and building synchronous infrastructure for aquaculture areas, first of all irrigation in service of aquaculture; widely applying man-made breeding technologies; building fishery veterinary systems; strictly controlling the quality of breeds, feeds and rearing environment; modernizing the processing establishments, ensuring food hygiene and safety norms.

- Expeditiously applying measures for adaptability to climate change and sea level rise which affect national food security.

3. Human resource training

The Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development; Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs; and Education and Training shall coordinate with provincial-level People's Committees in efficiently implementing the programs on vocational training for agricultural and rural laborers, focusing on:

- Training and raising the capability of the contingent of scientific and technical workers, agricultural extension officers and food production and trading managers at different levels; introducing national food security contents into schools.

- Intensifying the training of peasants in science and techniques as well as managerial knowledge by appropriate methods in order to raise food production efficiency and raise food producers' incomes so that by 2020, 50% of the food producers will be trained.

4. Policies towards peasants, localities and enterprises producing and trading in rice

a/ Encouraging peasants to keep rice land

To apply synchronous solutions to cutting production costs and raising incomes for rice producers, ensuring that rice producers will earn a profit of more than 30% over production costs.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall assume the prime responsibility for drafting a decree on rice land management and submitting it to the Government in the second quarter of 2010.

- To continue with policies of supporting peasants in building terrace fields in mountainous regions.

b/ Encouraging localities to keep rice land

The Ministry of Finance shall assume the prime responsibility for. and coordinate with concerned ministries and branches and provincial-level People's Committees in. studying the revision of the State Budget Law towards increasing the development investment in agriculture and rural areas; regulating state budget allocations to ensure the interests between localities with industrial development conditions and purely agricultural localities, particularly those specialized in rice farming.

c/ Encouraging enterprises to sell rice

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with concerned ministries and branches and provincial-level People's Committees in. directing investors to expeditiously implement investment projects to construct rice storehouses so that by 2012 the investment construction of warehouses for storage of 4 million tons of rice must be completed under planning. The mechanisms and policies to support the construction of warehouses comply with the Government's Resolution No. 48/NQ-CP of September 23. 2009. on mechanisms and policies to reduce post-harvest losses of agricultural and aquatic products.

The Ministry of Finance shall study and formulate mechanisms and policies to support enterprises in performing the rice sale tasks assigned by the State in case the rice prices drop to below production costs and submit them to the Prime Minister in the first quarter of 2010.

d/ Social policies on food security

The Ministry of Health and provincial-level People's Committees shall apply effective measures to control population growth under Vietnam's Population Strategy.

To continue with policies of providing rice support for people in regions struck by food shortage and hunger due to natural disasters and epidemics.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall assume the prime responsibility for. and coordinate with concerned ministries and branches in, inspecting and assessing implementation results and proposing amendments and supplements to rice support policies applicable to ethnic minority people in mountainous regions where forests are planted in replacement of terrace rice fields and submit them to the Prime Minister for approval in the second quarter of 2010.

5. To consolidate the food circulation and export systems

To develop food circulation systems, creating conditions for every consumer to have convenient access to food in all circumstances.

The Ministry of Finance shall study and propose reasonable rice volumes for national reserve and for circulation reserve in case of natural disasters and for market stabilization, early finalize a scheme on agricultural insurance, immediately rice production insurance, and submit it to the Prime Minister for approval in the first quarter of 2010.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade shall assume the prime responsibility for formulating mechanisms to flexibly administer food and foodstuff export, aiming to raise the export competitiveness and efficiency and sell all agricultural products being food and foodstuffs; to well combine the circulation reserve and state reserve in order to meet the requirements of food and foodstuff relief in case of emergency.

State corporations shall play the leading role in consuming products for peasants, regulating and stabilizing the market and supplying essential goods to people in case of natural disasters.

6. To renovate production organization

To further consolidate organizational forms of food production towards alignment of peasant households to form cooperation organizations or cooperatives based on geographical areas or products; to facilitate the association of production with sale enterprises; to develop farm economy and food enterprises with peasants contributing their land use rights as shares for membership; to develop agricultural service-providing networks.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall soon finalize and submit to the Prime Minister a scheme on development of model of production alignment between peasant households and various economic sectors in rural areas (farms, cooperatives, enterprises, scientific institutions, traders and commodity-based associations), immediately to be implemented on a pilot basis in rice production.

7. To develop food security information systems

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall coordinate with provincial-level People's Committees in:

- Consolidating and enhancing the systems of supervising and monitoring production development, forecasting food output of the whole country and each locality down to district level, and warning of adverse weather conditions affecting food security for taking effective response measures;

- Completing the domestic and international food market information and forecast systems.

- Building databases on national food security.

8. International cooperation

- To intensify international cooperation, especially in regional and global domains affecting national food security such as use of water sources, climate change, animal quarantine and hygiene; cooperation on human resource training and scientific as well as technological development and trade promotion.

- Vietnam commits to making actively contributions to the target of ensuring world food security.

IV. ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION

1. The Ministry of Home Affairs shall study and propose to the Government the establishment of the National Food Security Committee.

2. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall coordinate with other ministries, branches and provincial-level People's Committees in organizing specific activities, guiding implementation plans, guiding the inspection and supervision of implemen­tation, and periodically sending sum-up reports to the Prime Minister on national food security situation.

3. Ministries and branches shall, according to their functions and tasks, implement tasks in their respective domains which are related to food security under this Resolution.

4. Provincial-level People's Committees shall formulate and approve food production plans according to local branches; strictly manage the fund of agricultural production land, especially planned rice land; to well implement state policies and sale on food production and sale, supplement local policies and mechanisms to suit the practical conditions; and encourage production development to contribute to ensuring food security throughout the country in all circumstances.-