Crop Diversification in the Asia-Pacific region - United Nations in ...

• The State promulgated the Law on agricultural tax with collection level ceiling at 7percent of the output as against the previously levied 10 percent. Such tax benefits haveencouraged agricultural land use efficiency and ensured equity between organizations,individuals and family householders who are offered land use rights when paying taxesto the government.• Apart from the agricultural banking system, there are credit cooperatives and a creditfund for farmers. These institutions are promoting direct investment for variousagricultural development enterprises. The State has formulated many programmes forfinancial support to the people in rural areas; special priorities were given to poorfarmers and upland inhabitants at low interest. This policy has strongly promoted thedevelopment of the perennial industrial crop area and fruit tree culture, especiallygreening the barren land upstream of the Red River Basin and others.7. CONCLUSIONS• Crop diversification has been practiced in the country since 1989, when Viet Nambecame a rice exporter. From 1990 to 1998, the growing area under rice increased by20 percent; whereas the area under industrial crops increased by 83.4 percent; andannual industrial crops, fruit crops, vegetables and legumes recorded an increase of 50percent.• There have been a lot of State interventions and policies which support cropdiversification and agricultural development in general, such as policy on marketing, onagricultural tax and credit; as well as programmes on poverty alleviation, creating jobopportunities, greening the barren land, establishing facilities for transportation ofinputs, irrigation and other infrastructure. The State also helped to re-organize andincrease investment for agricultural research institutes as well as improving systems ofagricultural extension organizations.• There have been a number of technologies transferred to farmers in order to increaseboth quantity and quality of crops and improve cropping patterns in the delta regions orin the highlands. The results of production strategies show that almost all crops haveyielded better, especially rice. Crop commodities exported from Viet Nam included notonly rice, but also other crops. For instance, Viet Nam has become a cashew nutexporter and is ranked third in world commerce; it has also been ranked fifth in worldcoffee exports, and gained recognition for the export of many other commodities suchas tea, rubber, peanut, black pepper, fruits and vegetables.• The biggest constraints limiting crop diversification in the country are high cost of inputsand low quality of produce because of the use of archaic technologies, often resulting inlow benefits. It is necessary to invest in research for developing not only improvedvarieties, but also better agro-techniques that can enhance the potential of varieties.Much attention should be paid on techniques that do not require inputs of expensivechemicals. Farmers should be encouraged to adopt measures to reduce crop duration,such as growing very short duration rice varieties (80-90 days), and application of theseedling broadcasting method in the Delta regions which can reduce crop duration inrice fields by about 20-25 days.154