Land use regulations need changing for large-scale agriculture production

HÀ NỘI ­— Việt Nam needs to upgrade its agricultural production scale to deeply integrate into global agricultural production, said Hoàng Vũ Quang, vice director of the Agriculture and Rural Development Policy and Strategy Institute.

Large areas of cultivated land help upgrade production scale. — VNA/VNS Photo Duy Khương

“At present, Việt Nam’s agricultural production faces many difficulties in the period of global integration due to small-scale production,” Quang said in a meeting on reviewing decrees on land held on Wednesday in Hà Nội.

“The agricultural products have to cope with non-tariff barriers such as safe and hygienic standards and food origin traceability. So, it requires the country to change to larger production scale,” he said.

The government had encouraged farmers to shift cultivated land, but the process was still slow, according to the vice director.

“The demand for agricultural production land is very high but the current legal framework is still insufficient,” he said.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has been reviewing the current decrees on land use to make adjustments.

Trần Thị Thanh Nhàn, an expert from the institute, said that currently capital contribution by transferring land use rights was not popular.

For the land lease market, in particular, it is difficult for businesses to lease land to reach consensus because even when the majority of households involved in the negotiations agree, businesses’ projects cannot proceed if a few disagree, said Nhàn.

The Government should set a regulation that businesses could carry out their projects if they gain consensus of 80 per cent of households and are approved by the provincial People’s Committee. The businesses have to create jobs for local people who leased their land.

It is necessary to have policies for rented land of 5-10 years, which can be mortgaged to get bank loans, Nhàn added.