Recently, during a meeting with leaders of Lao Cai Province on the implementation of the Strategy for Sustainable Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas for the 2021 – 2030 period, with a vision to 2050, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan recommended that, in the coming time, Lao Cai should focus on promoting rural economic development and forming a rural economic ecosystem with a focus on cooperatives, small and medium enterprises, and even micro enterprises.
In fact, the formation of a rural economic ecosystem plays an important role not only for Lao Cai but also for all other localities and agricultural regions.
Rural economic ecosystem can be understood as a collection of actors participating in the agricultural product market, which include suppliers, primary and processing establishments, distributors, and customers. This will be foundation for large enterprises to invest in rural areas, thus creating linkages in production, preservation and preliminary processing of agricultural products.
Currently, there are large enterprises investing in agriculture, which are playing a leading role in the value chain, but the number of such enterprises will not be able to cover all production activities in rural areas with tens of millions of farming households.
Therefore, the rural economic ecosystem with farmers, who are both agricultural producers and participants in collective economic forms such as cooperatives and cooperative groups, will be the focal point to connect with large enterprises.
And the rural economic ecosystem is not only formed within a locality, but can be inter-provincial and inter-regional.
As previously, MEVI Support Impactful Business Initiatives Joint Stock Company (MEVI) has chosen to focus on promoting safe agriculture associated with processing on the basis of building three ecosystems.
Firstly, the MEVI Farm ecosystem, with the goal of supporting farmers and farms to build organic farming models.
Secondly, the MEVI Factory ecosystem, which gathers small businesses with agricultural processing workshops to purchase agricultural products from MEVI Farms.
Third, the MEVI Shop ecosystem with agents and distributors to build a nationwide retail system.
The effect of the model is the creation of a value chain of agricultural products. At which point, farmers will not only enjoy production results but also participate in service activities and enjoy added values.
This plays an important role in realising the goal of changing the mindset from agricultural production to an agricultural economy, towards completing one of the major goals in the Strategy for Sustainable Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas for the 2021 – 2030 period, with a vision to 2050, which aims to promote cooperation, association, value chain development, and advanced agricultural models.
