Agriculture models in Vietnam are good to replicate in Nepal

(VBSP News) That was the assertion of the delegation from Sana Kisan Bikas Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Ltd. (SKBBL) - Nepal after the exposure visit to Vietnam.

 General Director Duong Quyet Thang met Mr. ARJUN PRASAD POKHAREL - Secretary of Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies

As members of the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA), from 23^rd to 27^th June, the delegation from SKBBL led by Mr. ARJUN PRASAD POKHAREL - Secretary of Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies and Mr. NAV RAJ SIMKHADA - Deputy CEO of SKBBL came to Vietnam in the exposure visit on agriculture, cooperatives and microfinance hosted by Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP).

The delegation had a brief working session with VBSP’s General Director Duong Quyet Thang to have a broad view of VBSP role in poverty reduction in Vietnam. As a Government credit institution, operating for non-profit, VBSP is the largest unit providing comprehensive finance for poor households and policy beneficiaries in Vietnam.

 The SKBBL delegation worked in VBSP’s head office

The delegation then listened to experiences sharing on financial education and digital financial services (SMS notification service, financial education application, policy credit management application, Mobile Banking digital banking application, etc.) for the poor and other disadvantaged groups shared by Mr. Phan Cu Nhan, VBSP’s Director of International Cooperation and Communication cum Vice Manager of mobile banking project.

In the program, the delegation visited the transaction office of VBSP in Ha Dong district and Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tuan’s household in Group 6, Dong Mai, Ha Dong district, Hanoi, who was a borrower from VBSP. Tuan was a member of Savings and Credit Groups under the Women's Union of Dong Mai ward. His household is a successful borrowing model of VBSP. He got a loan of VND 100 million from VBSP’s job creation lending program to invest in gardening and planting fruit trees on 16,000 m2 of the leased garden land area (rent from state auction).  Up to now, he has produced effectively and created jobs for 4 workers in the household. In the harvest or fertilizing season, he hired from 1 to 2 seasonal workers. The average annual revenue of the household is VND 400-500 million. The delegation also visited his garden and enjoyed many types of fruit from his garden.

Mr. POKHAREL and a customer of VBSP in Ha Dong district, Hanoi

To have a closer look at local agriculture and cooperatives, on 24^th June, the delegation visited Bac Giang province - a mountainous province in the northeastern region of Vietnam, with a natural area of 3,826 km2, a population of over 1.8 million people, with 10 district-level administrative units including 9 districts and 1 city. The province has 209 communes, wards and towns, of which there are 36 disadvantaged communes and 244 extremely disadvantaged villages.

 The delegation worked with representatives of VBSP Bac Giang province, the Farmers' Association and the Cooperatives Association

Bac Giang has well brought into play the specific advantages of the topographical conditions of the midland and mountainous region, focusing on promoting the restructuring of the agricultural sector, promulgating many mechanisms and policies to promote diversified and comprehensive agricultural development, improve quality and efficiency, and form high-quality, concentrated, large-scale commodity production areas, link and cooperate in chains. The average production value per 1 hectare of agricultural production land reaches VND 125 million. It has a large fruit tree specialized production area with an area of over 51,162 ha, ranking fourth in the country.

Such achievements resulting from various mechanisms and policies for the development of agriculture, farmers and rural areas including support and encourage plantation, change of plots, and construction of sample fields; support high-tech agricultural production; harden village roads and construct new rural areas; support collective economic development, product consumption linkage and credit policy for agricultural and rural development.

A fruitful lychee and pomelo garden in Bac Giang

Bac Giang has a developed network of cooperatives. The activities of agricultural cooperatives have been shifting towards diversifying industries, services, and production towards clean products, in chains and linking with businesses consuming products. Their main activities are production of safe vegetables, clean meat, medicinal products, honey, hill chicken, soy sauce, litchi, pineapple, red dragon fruit, baby cucumber, cucumber, celery... in accordance with domestic and international safety standards.

The delegation visited a high-tech agriculture cooperative

In addition to traditional services, many cooperatives have actively expanded into other service industries in the non-agricultural sector (environmental sanitation; internal credit; animal feed production, medicinal herbs, essential oil production, herbal powder production, processing meat products such as sausages,...). More cooperatives tend to link with businesses that produce high quality agricultural products and have sustainable consumption markets. Livestock and aquaculture cooperatives continue to develop in the direction of improving quality, packaging design, breeding plants and animals with high economic value to meet market needs such as: Cordyceps, ginseng, rabbit, wild duck, wild boar, goat, cow, white horse ... The agricultural cooperatives have actively contributed to the commodity agricultural production, the restructuring of the agricultural and rural economy of the province.

As accomplished the program, Mr. ARJUN PRASAD POKHAREL - Secretary of Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies of Nepal thanked VBSP for the fruitful program and congratulated VBSP on its achievements over the past time. The exposure visit to Vietnam was a useful basis to help SKBBL staff perform better in their work and he expected VBSP and SKBBL would continue to have a stronger relationship in the coming time.

VBSP