Green agriculture under pressure from climate change
In a presentation sent to the Workshop "Improving the efficiency of green credit capital flows, a driving force for economic growth" organized by Lao Dong Newspaper in coordination with the State Bank of Vietnam and the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment on June 23, Mr. Bui Khanh Dung - Director of Musa Pacta Co., Ltd. said that the world is entering a pivotal stage when it must simultaneously solve two core problems: energy and food.
According to Mr. Dung, the increasingly extreme developments of climate change are posing an unprecedented challenge to human development. The number of major storms is increasing, global temperatures are continuously rising, ice is melting rapidly in the Arctic, and the decline in biodiversity is showing the limitations of the current development model.
Humans are standing at the threshold of survival if they do not change their behavior and return to nature their inherent balance. Green production in general and green agriculture in particular are the inevitable path of development," Mr. Dung emphasized.
From production practice, he believes that Vietnamese farmers belong to the group with the world's leading production capacity. After nearly four decades of renovation, Vietnam has risen to become an agricultural power with many items in the global leading group such as rice, coffee, cashew nuts, pepper, seafood and many types of tropical fruits.
However, behind those impressive export achievements, agriculture is still the most vulnerable sector to natural disasters, epidemics and market fluctuations. This is also the most risky sector in the transition to a green and sustainable development model.
Farmers still lack a "shield" for green transformation
According to Mr. Bui Khanh Dung, one of the biggest bottlenecks today is the lack of tools to help producers minimize risks.
He believes that farmers will find it difficult to boldly invest, innovate technology or apply green production models if they always face the risk of losing everything when natural disasters, epidemics or unusual market fluctuations occur.
While most assets and economic activities in society can be insured, agricultural insurance has not yet truly promoted its role in supporting producers. This makes most farmers, cooperatives and agricultural enterprises have to bear risks themselves in the production and business process.
In addition, the green transition process is also facing many difficulties due to the lack of a system of criteria that is sufficiently specific and easy to apply.
According to Mr. Dung, if there is a clear, transparent and easy-to-understand set of green criteria, businesses, cooperatives and production households will easily determine the transition roadmap. At the same time, it is necessary to form a network of independent consulting and evaluation organizations to accompany businesses throughout the process of implementing green standards.
He believes that "green" should not be seen as a fixed title but must be a continuous improvement process, evaluated and updated regularly to accurately reflect the actual operation of the business.
Need a "green channel" for agricultural businesses
Another issue that Mr. Dung especially emphasized is the incentive mechanism for pioneering units in green transformation.
According to him, responsibilities and obligations must go hand in hand with specific rights. Therefore, it is necessary to build a "green channel" mechanism in accessing credit for businesses, cooperatives and production households that meet green criteria.
This mechanism can be expressed through incentives on credit limits, unsecured ratios, mortgage conditions, loan interest rates, loan terms and capital access procedures. When the benefits of green transformation are quantified by specific policies, businesses will have more motivation to invest in sustainable production.
According to Mr. Dung, green transformation will hardly become a reality if only viewed from the perspective of policy or macroeconomic goals. More importantly, solutions must go into the very specific needs of producers such as risk insurance, assessment standards, access to capital and investment support mechanisms.
In the context of Vietnam aiming for green growth and sustainable development, the success of the transition process will not only be measured by the number of green projects or the scale of green credit disbursed. More importantly, farmers, cooperatives and agricultural enterprises have enough conditions to participate, adapt and benefit from this transition process.
When the "bottlenecks" from practice are removed, green capital can truly flow to the fields, becoming a driving force for sustainable growth of the agricultural sector and the entire economy.
