The Vietnamese Farmers’ Association (VFA) should intensify its activities at a grassroots level so as to reap more practical benefits for farmers, especially farmers in remote and rural and ethnic minorities-inhabited areas and, according to Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh.

Addressing the opening session of the VFA’s fifth congress in Hanoi on December 22, the Party leader also stressed that the VFA should integrate farmers’ movements with national programmes and national goals for maximum effect.

“The VFA should promote its key role in assisting the rural community by arming them with political strength and eagerness to farm out scientific and technological advances in order to quickly adapt to socialist-oriented market mechanisms and integrate into the global economy,” the party chief said.

He informed the participants that the Party and the State had always carried out their responsibilities in leadership and had organised activities to give guidance to those in rural areas.

He added that they had successfully overseen policies and tasks relating to agriculture, farmers and rural areas, and adopted mechanisms and created conditions favourable to the association’s operations.

VFA’s President Nguyen Quoc Cuong said farmers had welcomed the information, guidance and policies governing farmers and rural areas that had been issued by the Party and the State in recent years.

Thanks to those policies, a number of rural areas have received facelifts, while the majority of farmers have enjoyed an improvement in their living conditions, Cuong said.

The VFA President, however, raised the fact that farming communities remain scattered and production levels and the sector’s competitiveness both remain low.

Food safety and hygiene standards have not been strictly observed in several kinds of farm products, and have failed to meet the consumers’ demands for higher quality, Cuong said.

He pointed to the fact that the agriculture sector’s infrastructure remains poor and the poverty rate remains high in rural areas and stressed the urgent need to address the high rates of unemployment in the farming community, the low incomes of farmers’ and the high levels of environmental pollution in rural areas.

Themed “Solidarity, renewal, integration and development”, the three-day congress will establish the goals and operation orientations for the association’s 2008-2013 term.

The VFA aims to maximise the effectiveness of campaigns aiming to stimulate farmers’ production levels to reduce poverty and modernise rural areas, and to ensure defence and security in their communities.

The VFA will strive to expand its range of services, vocational training, consultancy and aid to help farmers to improve their living conditions and to take part in strengthening the Party and contributing to the local administration and national unity.

Among the goals the VFA has outlined for its future term are the reduction in the rate of poverty in faming households by 3% annually and the oganisation of short-term vocational training courses for around 20,000 farmers a year.

Almost 1,200 farmers, representing 10 million farmers nationwide, are to discuss the revisions and supplements to the VFA’s charter to meet the ever-evolving requirements of development.

They are expected to elect a new executive board of 127 members, four members more than the fourth in addition to a 21-member standing board, as well as a president and five vice presidents.

(VNA)

Last updated: 8:44 - December 24, 2008

Source: www.nhandan.com.vn