Vietnam becomes a transparent and sustainable food supplier for the world

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh spoke at the dialogue on June 15, 2021.

Speaking at the first National Dialogue on Food System with the theme: “Vietnam Food System: Transparency, Responsibility, Sustainability” held on June 15, 2021, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said that Vietnamese agriculture plays a significant role in ensuring food security, social stability and livelihoods for more than 60% of the rural population and contribute 14.85% of the country's GDP.

Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and natural disasters, agriculture still maintained positive growth at 2.68% in 2020.

Besides ensuring food security for almost 100 million people, the export turnover of agricultural products reached US$41.53 billion last year, up 3.3% compared to 2019. Particularly in the first five months of 2021, the export of agricultural products reached US$22.83 billion, up 30% over the same period last year.

The Vietnamese government is making the best efforts to actualize the "dual goal", both preventing the Covid-19 pandemic, while recovering and developing socio-economically. The role of the agricultural sector becomes more important in the context of the "new normal" in terms of economy, society, and environment.

According to the leaders of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Food System Framework provides multi-level, multi-sectoral cooperation approaches and is consistent with Vietnam's current policies such as the Agriculture Restructure Plan for 2021-2025, the National Target Programme on Sustainable Poverty Reduction and Social Security for the 2021 – 2025 period.

Vietnam will more effectively implement action plans of each sector and field in poverty eradication, food security, and nutrition in rural areas, where ethnic minority groups and vulnerable people live, especially women and children.

“In addition, the initiative to jointly support promoting a smart food system to adapt to climate change and sustainable development to ensure food security and nutrition not only for the Vietnamese people but also become a transparent, responsible and sustainable food supplier for the world," Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh said.

Ms. Rana Flowers, Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Chief Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Vietnam said that the food system is related to all aspects of human life. The health of the food system affects each person's health, as well as environmental health, economy and culture.

A well-functioning food system has the potential to bring countries closer together. If the system is unstable, the resulting disturbances will threaten all achievements in education, health and economy, as well as human rights, peace and security.

“Stakeholders discussed plans to restructure and operate the national food system, options to solve emerging problems; opening further dialogues at the national and local levels, thereby determining the appropriate path to national and local realities to transform Vietnam's food system towards a comprehensive, more sustainable and resilient system,” Ms. Rana Flowers said.

The United Nations Food System Summit will take place in September 2021. Responding to the conference, member countries including Vietnam will hold national and regional dialogues to orient actions and develop a roadmap to sustainably develop food systems in the context of the “new normal”.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on behalf of the Government will organize two national and three regional dialogues from June 15, 2021 to July 15, 2021. The theme throughout the dialogue series is towards building a "transparent - responsible - sustainable" food system in Vietnam.