MEASUREMENT FROM THE PEOPLE'S HEARTS - Part 1: The first steps

Like other provinces in the Mekong Delta, when implementing the National Target Program on New Rural Development, Tien Giang also started from a relatively low starting point. However, with many efforts, effective solutions, and the consensus of the people, Tien Giang has achieved the set goals.

UNIQUE FEATURES

As a province located in the Mekong Delta, Tien Giang has many similarities with many provinces in the region. However, Tien Giang also has its own unique characteristics, which are important premises for building a new rural area in a systematic way and bringing positive results.

The rural appearance of Tien Giang has changed significantly. Photo: TRUNG HAU

As a land stretching along the Tien River, Tien Giang is blessed with natural ecological conditions that are very favorable for comprehensive agricultural development, with a rich and diverse crop and livestock structure; at the same time, it is located in the largest food production area in the country.

With these advantages, in recent years, thanks to the appropriate and correct policies of the Party and the State, together with the determination of farmers to strive together, the Tien Giang agricultural sector has achieved remarkable results, especially the initial results of agricultural tourism models.

At the same time, Tien Giang has a very diverse agricultural ecosystem, with a rice growing area of 136 thousand hectares, a fruit growing area of more than 88 thousand hectares, a vegetable growing area of more than 54 thousand hectares; a 32 km long coastline with thousands of hectares of coastal alluvial land, suitable for aquaculture and diverse development of the marine economy, along with infrastructure serving agriculture that has been invested in such as: My Tho fishing port, Vam Lang fishing port, Hoa Khanh fruit market, Vinh Kim fruit market, rice milling area in Cai Be...

With the advantage of abundant raw materials, Tien Giang ensures large-scale industrial production. In addition, Tien Giang still has room to develop industrial parks and clusters; agricultural production areas, especially land funds managed by the State such as the land fund of Tan Lap Farm to develop industrial parks in Tan Phuoc district; industrial parks and clusters in Go Cong area; concentrated livestock areas in Tan Phuoc district; high-tech aquaculture areas in Tan Phu Dong district. Along with that, Tien Giang's marine economic space still has a lot of potential (such as the sea areas of Go Cong, Con Ngang) but has not been exploited...

From another perspective, compared to other provinces in the Mekong Delta, Tien Giang rural areas have many similarities in terms of agricultural production characteristics and cultural life closely associated with rivers.

However, Tien Giang stands out with its gateway advantage near Ho Chi Minh City, its strength in specialty fruit trees, its modern salinity control irrigation system, and its faster rate of rural urbanization. While many localities in the region still focus mainly on rice or aquaculture production, Tien Giang has diversified its agricultural products and promoted the construction of new rural areas in a civilized and modern direction.

FOUNDATION FOR BUILDING NTM

With its existing characteristics and advantages, Tien Giang also has many foundations to start the process of building a new rural area. However, a fair assessment also shows that, according to the assessment of the Office of the National Target Program Coordination on New Rural Area Construction in Tien Giang province, in 2010, when starting the policy of building a new rural area, Tien Giang had a low starting point, the socio-economic infrastructure was still weak and did not meet the requirements of socio-economic development, and the people's lives and incomes still faced many difficulties.

During this period, the results of the review of the level of achievement in terms of quantity and rate of achievement of criteria in localities in the province were all low (the average number of achieved criteria was less than 5 criteria/commune, the commune with the highest number of achieved criteria was 11 criteria, the unachieved criteria were all low compared to regulations and required very large investment resources from the budget, the average income per capita reached 18.7 million VND/person/year, the poverty rate was 10.96%) but the investment resources for the program from the Central Government allocated to the province were low, while the province's resources were still limited. From there, the organization of the implementation of the NTM criteria, especially the criteria on infrastructure, was already difficult and became even more difficult.

Looking from the reality, we can see that the National Target Program on New Rural Development is a large, focused program that the Central Government is interested in directing its implementation. When starting to implement this program, besides some advantages, Tien Giang also encountered many difficulties.

According to the Coordination Office of the National Target Program on New Rural Development in Tien Giang province, in the early stages of building the new rural areas, the awareness and thinking of a number of farmers were limited, slow to adapt to the new mechanism; confused, passive and exposed to many risks due to the negative impacts of the market mechanism and climate change.

Not to mention, the mindset of the people still depends on the investment of the State, including some local officials who have not proactively accelerated production development, improving the material and spiritual life of the people. Besides, the infrastructure such as: Traffic, irrigation, electricity, domestic water in communes in the province is still not synchronized, causing difficulties for the organization of production and people's lives.

At the same time, besides the low starting point, the level of achievement of criteria and indicators in communes that have been recognized as meeting NTM standards is mostly at the level of approaching achievement (minimum level), but some localities after being recognized have lacked attention to directing, leading and implementing the maintenance and continued improvement of criteria to a higher level.

Not to mention, the leadership, direction, inspection and supervision work in some localities has not been regular, not thorough and not very effective. Some Party committees and authorities at the grassroots level have not really focused on leadership, direction and mobilizing the entire political system and society to implement.

In addition, during this period, the economic structure and rural labor structure have shifted slowly, the agricultural growth rate has not been stable, unsustainable, and the depth is unclear, mainly developing in breadth, and the scale is still small; production linkages, post-harvest preservation, and processing are still limited; the quality, competitiveness, and added value of many products are still low; food safety is a concern of domestic consumers, especially the increasingly strict requirements of importing countries.

Not to mention, mechanisms and policies are not enough to encourage and create motivation to attract businesses to invest in agriculture and rural areas; although infrastructure investment resources increase every year, they do not meet the requirements of local socio-economic development...

Although the initial steps of building a new rural area are still low, with the determination of all levels, sectors and localities, Tien Giang has reached an important destination. Of course, in this journey, Tien Giang also has to go through many stages, focus a lot of resources and the solidarity and unanimity of the people.

THE ANH

(to be continued)

Source: https://baoapbac.vn/kinh-te/202506/thuoc-do-tu-long-dan-bai-1-nhung-buoc-khoi-dau-1044469/