Following the series "More knowledge for farmers" attentively, Dr. Nguyen Thi Lan, Director of the Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA) shared some of her thoughts with Vietnam Agriculture News regarding this issue.

Clear standards and measurements in farmer training are required

After traveling to many regions, I realize that most farmers are mainly on their own when it comes to improving technical and market knowledge. There are successes, but failures are also plenty. So in your opinion, what is the role of the state in resolving that issue?

Due to the characteristics of history, the majority of farming households in Vietnam today are producing crops on a small scale and fragmented land, and especially they have limited knowledge and information about the market. When participating in commodity value chains, they are very vulnerable.

Farmers are struggling in terms of accessing capital, science and technology, and improving market capability because enterprises find it difficult to create an effective production link with too many farming households of different levels and “attitudes”. Even if there is a support policy, the implementation will still lack efficiency since the state would have to provide direct support to more than 10 million households.

So in my opinion, the state needs to support farmers in improving their technical and market knowledge through the cooperative model, because only cooperatives can stick with farmers for a long time because it has communal and local characteristics.

Apart from formal and non-formal training for students at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture, are there any forms of training available for normal farmers?

The Vietnam National University of Agriculture has the function and task of training human resources for the country's agricultural sector. Apart from the formal training system, we also have short-term training and vocational training. We attach great importance to farmers' knowledge. Our focus lies in how to train them to become civilized and modern farmers who have real knowledge to increase the value of agriculture.

Right from the start of the university, we have trained farmers in one way or another. It can be through making models, holding "hands-on" seminars, bringing students to research, or inviting international experts and experts from VNUA to build training courses for Northern mountainous ethnic minorities and devise programs in the Central Highlands.

We transfer knowledge to farmers and agricultural cooperatives through domestic and foreign projects ordered by localities, or through target programs of ministries, departments and sectors. We have recently had some training courses for cooperative directors on market knowledge, management, supply-demand connection and foundation in agricultural start-ups.

The production of farmers is still mostly small and fragmented. So in your opinion, how should they link together to organize sustainable production in accordance with market requirements? Collecting market knowledge and organizing production according to the market are farmers’ weakest stages. How does VNUA see this matter and how will the university organize to help them overcome that weakness?

As I said earlier, only cooperatives can stay with farmers for a long time. It plays the role of gathering farmers to become business partners. When farmers join the cooperative, they must commit to carrying out production according to the procedure and quality standards to create quality and uniform products. The cooperative will be responsible for researching market demands and organizing production to meet those demands.

As a training and scientific research institution in the field of agriculture, we are aiming to provide support to farmer linkage models both in production and in the market.

Regarding production, the university focuses on supporting farmers in applying technology (seedling, tending, harvesting, preserving and processing) through farmers-business linking models, including the role as a focal point of the cooperative.

Regarding the market, we focus on researching and forecasting the agro-products market, creating linkage with enterprises in technology transfer, forming a concentrated production area of raw materials, in which farmers are the ones who directly produce, and enterprises will be the ones to purchase the products.

Elite training and agrotourism

Mass knowledge shows that there must be elites and industry leaders keeping pace with the international market. Previously, VNUA with the faculties of Crop Production, Livestock - Animal Health, Plant Protection, and Soil Science was famous as a place to train scientific and managerial staff for the agricultural industry. Many people have grown up to be leaders of provinces and cities. How is the situation now? Having better infrastructure and more quality enrollment, has the university met the requirements of life?

We are always bearing in mind the mission “VNUA is a center for training high quality human resources in the field of agriculture and rural development; contribute to the development of agriculture and Vietnam’s international integration”. Therefore, apart from developing new majors that are highly demanded by society, we always focus our highest resources on traditional industries such as Crop Production, Livestock - Animal Health, and Plant Protection.

Orientation to develop a multidisciplinary university is the story of the times, not only in Vietnam but also in the world. The demand for jobs requires new professions. Staying conservative in the traditional industries, and one day training institutions will make it difficult for themselves. VNUA thus has 47 training disciplines at present besides the traditional ones. There are also majors that have high demand in the market such as food technology, information technology, and English language.

Especially from this 67th course of the 2022 enrollment, VNUA will organize training classes for "elites" to meet the current needs for high-quality human resources for agricultural development and new rural construction.

When talking about agriculture in the past, the story was only about production without added values such as tourism. It is known in recent times that VNUA has opened the Department of Tourism Development and Management. Can you give a deeper analysis of multi-valued agriculture through the university’s new professions?

Vietnam National University of Agriculture is a public, autonomous, multidisciplinary university. We are orienting to develop the university into an innovation hub of the country and the region in the fields of agriculture - rural development and science - technology.

Since 2019 VNUA has benefited from the project "Strengthening scientific and technological capacity and training human resources for agricultural restructuring and new rural construction". The project's products are gradually showing their effects and making positive impacts to VNUA's scientific research and training. Under the continued support of the World Bank in the coming time VNUA will develop and implement projects on supporting startups, innovation, and building smart universities.

Multi-value agriculture is a new and very important direction. For VNUA, we are aware that multi-valued agriculture is important, so in 2019 we opened and recruited students to train in Tourism Development and Management with an annual enrollment of 70 students. In 2022, we established the Faculty of Tourism and Foreign Languages. And if you ask why combine travel and foreign languages, it’s because we aim for agrotourism that does not only serve domestic customers but also welcome international guests.

The reality of tourism is that there are many schools that offer training in this field but are not specialized in agrotourism, while VNUA focuses on tourism associated with agriculture, and agriculture creating products that are oriented towards tourism, creating service value for tourists. Common production simply brings out the product’s pure value, but if it can be combined with tourism, its value can be many times higher.

Thank you, ma’am!

Translated by Samuel Pham