Kien Giang to spend over 3.4 billion USD on safe agricultural development

The Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang will spend about 80.3 trillion VND (3.45 billion USD) on promoting safe, sustainable and effective agricultural production in the 2021-2025 period, according to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Of the total, 37 trillion VND will be used to develop cultivation and breeding,43 trillion VND invested in fisheries, and the rest for forestry expansion.

A representative from the Kien Giang People’s Committee said that the locality will maintain growth and enhance the competitiveness through the improvement of productivity, efficiency and added value, thus meeting the demand of consumers.

Alongside, the province aims to increase the income for farmers as well as the living conditions of rural residents, reducing the rate of poor households.

In the 2021-2025 period, the added value of the agricultural sector is expected to grow 5-5.5 percent annually. In 2025, the production of food will reach 4-4.2 million tonnes, including 4 million tonnes of rice, and 800,000 tonnes of fisheries products.

Meanwhile, the production value of the agricultural sector is hoped to reach 130-170 million VND per hectare. The province will also focus on concentrated production, enhancing the connectivity and selling of products in value chain, while building trademarks for major farm produce.

Vice Director of the department Do Minh Nhut said that Kien Giang will continue effectively implementing the project to restructure the agricultural sector in the areas of cultivation, breeding, fisheries and forestry. At the same time, the development plan for the production region of major agricultural products of the province will be reviewed and adjusted.

The province will gradually transform inefficient rice fields to the model of rice-shrimp or rice-other food crop production, while cultivating vegetable, industrial plants and fruit trees in suitable regions, and applying the GAP standards on the production process in association with the storage, processing and selling of the products in value chains of each product.

The province has about 62,500ha of shrimp – rice farming area, the largest in the delta. Under the model, farmers grow rice in the rainy season and breed shrimp in the dry season on the same rice fields.

The shrimp – rice farming model has been used for more than 20 years as it is environmentally friendly and more effective than rice monoculture.

At the same time, the province will also review the planning of breeding, encouraging large-scale production, while continuing to expanding fisheries production.

The province will optimise its potential in sea surface area for fisheries farming, while strengthening off-shore farming using high technology. Kien Giang will create optimal conditions for major firms such as

Minh Phu Group to implement its project to build a complex of high technology application on developing effective and sustainable shrimp chain in Kien Giang.

For forestry development, the province will continue to take care of the existing areas and plant new preventive forests in coastal areas, striving to maintain 11 percent in forestry coverage.

Kien Giang, the country’s largest rice producer, targets producing 4.3 million tonnes of paddy this year, as well as catching and breeding a total of 755,000 tonnes of aquatic products, including 85,000 tonnes of shrimp.

Last year, the province harvested more than 4.2 million tonnes of paddy and high quality rice farming area accounted for 72 percent of the province’s total rice farming area.

The province also had 56 large - scale rice fields with a combined area of more than 33,000ha in many districts like Hon Dat, Go Quao, Tan Hiep and Chau Thanh.

It caught and bred a total of 845,430 tonnes of aquatic products last year. Of the figure, the sale of shrimp cultivation was more than 82,000 tonnes, up 11 percent against 2018./.

Source: VNA