In recent times, agricultural extension activities have achieved many outstanding results, contributing significantly to the development of agriculture and rural areas in an ecological, modern and sustainable direction.
Implementing the direction on the arrangement, consolidation, and promulgation of legal documents according to its authority regulating the functions, tasks, and powers of local agricultural extension organizations in the new context, no longer at the district level, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has urgently developed and issued Circular 60/2025/TT-BNNMT on October 14, 2025, effective from October 15, 2025.
At the Circular implementation conference, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Tran Thanh Nam affirmed that the Circular was developed in a short time, but has fully inherited the functions and tasks of the previous agricultural extension system, and is consistent with the new model. This is a tool and legal basis for operating agricultural extension work in the coming time.
According to Circular 60, the agricultural extension system is organized into two levels. Specifically, the provincial Agricultural Extension Center is a public service unit under the Department of Agriculture and Environment, with the function of organizing agricultural expansion activities in the area, and at the same time guiding, coordinating, inspecting and supporting the commune level.
Meanwhile, the Commune-level Agricultural Extension Force is responsible for directly supporting farmers in developing production, building new rural areas, developing OCOP products and rural tourism, organizing activities of collaborators and community agricultural expansion teams, bringing technical advances, market information and practical production models to the grassroots.
The completion of public service units performing agricultural promotion tasks in localities when operating the two-level local government model has created a new vitality for the entire Vietnam agricultural promotion system. This is the core issue of agricultural promotion, with the goal of being close to the on-site agricultural promotion force, promoting grassroots agriculture, to carry out direct tasks in agricultural production, associated with the grassroots government, close to the people, serving the people.
According to Deputy Minister Tran Thanh Nam, currently, in economic departments, many places prioritize land and environmental cadres, while there is a shortage of agricultural cadres. Therefore, the Deputy Minister emphasized that localities need to arrange the right expertise to promote local advantages. In livestock farming areas, there must be veterinary engineers and livestock engineers, in crop areas, there needs to be specialized officers in the agricultural sector to implement agricultural work in the right direction.
" Agro-economic promotion must be associated with the grassroots, with the fields, with farmers. The agricultural promotion staff is the "extended arm" to grasp the situation of epidemics, crops, livestock and natural disasters in the area" - the Deputy Minister emphasized.
