22 million farmers to get free skills training

HA NOI — More than 22 million farmers across the country will be offered the opportunity to attend free training courses to improve their farming skills from the beginning of March, according to a recent decree approved by the Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Farmers will be provided with training materials, travel, food and acommodation costs and a training fee when taking part in short-term courses.

All the activities are intended to encourage agricultural developments such as holding agricultural production skill contests, agricultural product exhibitions and fairs, and policies related to agriculture.

Transfering technology and science related to improved agricultural productivity or implementing pilot projects with new seeds and breeds will also receive financial support for between 30 to 100 per cent of the total costs.

Phung Quoc Quang, deputy director of the National Agriculture Promotion Centre, said that the decree was vital in improving Vietnamese farming skills because most farmers just followed traditional practices, leading to low productivity and wasted time.

Do Thuc, deputy general director of the General Statistics Office, said that up to 86.6 per cent of people aged over 15 had not yet been provided with vocational and technical training. Most of them work in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors.

Le Van Cuong, deputy chairman of Nam Dinh Province’s My Thuan Commune People’s Commitee, said that attending training courses on farming and breeding skills was unfamiliar to many farmers because previous education attempts had been only focused on training agricultural officers. Lack of funding was to blame, he said.

Cuong said that although farmers had introduced new seeds and livestock breeds, they were still using basic tecnology and traditional skills.

Cuong said that when the decree was implemented, farmers would have the opportunity to receive guidance about new skills intended to raise their agricultural productivity.

Nguyen Van Noi, a farmer in Nam Dinh Province, said: "Some farmers and I tried to grow kohlrabi vegetables. However, we failed because they needed some other new techniques which we did not know."

Quang said that based on the decree, not only the training courses for farmers but also a programme funded with VND196 billion (US$10.3 million) from the State budget to directly improve agricultural productivity for farmers via high-productivity seeds and breeds or modern machine and technology would be implemented this year.

Specifically, nearly VND45 billion ($2.3 million) would be invested in cross-bred rice, organic vegetables, fruits and industrial plants with high-productivity, said Quang.

More agricultural officers are also entrusted to the localities to give more consultancy and services for applying advanced technology in agriculture.

To ensure the quality and competence of agricultural products, the skills of inspectors would also need to be raised, he added. — VNS