LookAtVietnam – The Government is to consider a plan to raise the compensation of arable land to twice that of residential land to protect cooking supplies.

Farmers tend crops in Yen Hung district of the northern province of Quang Ninh. Land compensation rates for arable land would be double those of residential land to protect food supplies, under a draft regulation.

It is designed to discourage investors from acquiring land that has been used to grow rice in a bid to boost food production.

Nguyen Tri Ngoc, head of the Department of Crop Production under MARD, said landowners would also have to be compensated for any infrastructure on their property.

“Viet Nam has more than 9 million hectares of agricultural land, of which more than 4 million hectares is for rice cultivation,” he said.

However, the amount of land used to grow rice had decreased at an alarming rate, Ngoc said, adding that annually about 74,000ha of agricultural land was used to build houses, new urban areas and industrial zones.

According to the department, Viet Nam will not produce enough rice to export by 2020 if agricultural land continues to be lost at its current rate.

Phan Huy Thong, deputy head of the department, said that local authorities earned more in taxes when land was developed and that the Government should find a way of boosting provincial budgets in areas where rice was grown.

He also said that farmers should be compensated by the State for lost productivity, estimated at 50 per cent, due to natural disasters and epidemics.

He said they should also be given interest-free loans to invest in machinery.

The Government sets the minimum sale price for rice each season, which guarantees farmers at least a 40 per cent profit.

When the market price falls below the Government’s price, preferential credit rates are given to buyers.

Thong added that “farmers were free to sell their rice if the market price was higher than the floor price.”

Mixed reactions

According to Decision 62-2008/QD-UBND of the municipal People’s Committee on regulating the price of land in Ha Noi this year and Decision 18-2008/QD-UBND on regulating resettlement compensation in Ha Noi, the land for rice cultivation in Tien Xuan commune was valued at VND105,000 (US$6) per square metre while the price of land for housing was VND1.5 million ($90) in the area.

If the draft law is passed, developers in Ha Noi would have to pay $180 per square metre of rice paddy.

However, the draft law has received mixed reactions.

Chu Thi Nga, a farmer in Ngai Cau village in Ha Noi’s Hoai Duc district, said she would be happy to sell her 1,080sq.m of agricultural land if she was suitably compensated.

However, Vu Huy Khoi, a farmer in village in Ha Nam province’s Duy Tien district, said he had had his land appropriated by the local authority for an industrial zone.

Khoi said he received VND42 million (US$2,400) in compensation but feared for his livelihood.

Ngoc said that sanctions might also be imposed on firms that developed former paddy field for housing or business premises.

According to MARD, food production in Viet Nam has increased over the last few years.

In 2000, total food production was 38.1 million tonnes. In 2008, 52.4 million tonnes was produced.

Tran Xuan Dinh, deputy director of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department in Thai Binh province, said that the province had lost 4,000 to 5,000ha of paddy fields to industrial zones.

He said farmers could not make much money from just two rice crops a year, and they stood to earn more from working in factories.

However, he said that once lost, agricultural land was irrecoverable.

“It takes millions of years to form alluvial soil for rice cultivation. It is easy to shift agricultural land to land for industrial production. However, it is impossible to reverse the process.”

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News