Industrial boom hurts farmers, threatens food supply: seminar

These apartments in Hanoi are meant for residents displaced due to projects to construct industrial parks and urban areas. Displaced farmers, food security and the loss of an average of 74,000 hectares of farmland yearly to urban and industrial zones were a few issues heard at a seminar in Hanoi Friday.

The Land Science Association held the event to discuss regulations on land relating to agriculture, farmers and rural areas. Experts blamed industrial parks for devastating surrounding farmland with pollution, while people in rural areas have lost jobs from the farmland shrinkage. Around 500,000 hectares of farmland have been taken for other purposes between 2000 and 2007, said Ton Gia Huyen from the association. This area is equal to 5 percent of the country’s farmland, he added. Many serious problems have cropped up from the revocation of farmland for non-agricultural purposes, he said. A survey at 16 cities and provinces found 89 percent of land being revoked to build residences, industrial parks and infrastructure were farmland, mostly rich rice paddies. “Many industrial parks in several localities have been constructed on farmland although they could have zoned them on mountainous areas or those with poorer soil, because of their advantageous infrastructure,” said Hoang Thi Van Anh from the Land Bureau under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. She named several such industrial parks, including Ba Thien, Quang Minh II and Binh Xuyen in Vinh Phuc Province; VSIP, Que Vo and Nam Son – Hap Linh in Bac Ninh Province; Long Giang in Tien Giang Province and Van Trung in Bac Giang Province. Of these provinces, Vinh Phuc set up three industrial parks in 2007 which cover a total of 865 hectares of good farmland, while three industrial parks at Bac Ninh eliminated 1,940 hectares of farmland in 2007 and 2008. Vu Thi Binh from the Hanoi Agricultural University said Hai Duong Province, which saw its paddy fields decrease 4.8 percent in 2008 from 2005, has suffered a fall of 3.3 percent in its rice output. If land for paddy cultivation continues to plummet, Hai Duong could have a rice shortage, she said. Tran Ngoc Hung, chairman of Vietnam General Construction Association warned the shrinkage of farmland could threaten food security. “Vietnam is one of the countries worst affected from the sea level rising,” he said, adding that the salty water is threatening to spill over and damage millions of hectares of farmland nationwide in the future. “I wonder what our descendents would think about our decision to eliminate millions of hectares of farmland which had been created by our ancestors,” Hung said. Vietnam’s population is estimated at about 86 million and is expected to increase by 1-1.2 percent in the next few decades. Researchers estimated rice demand would jump to 53.2 million tons in 2020 from 47 million tons in 2010. The farmland revocation from 2003 to 2008 has affected 950,000 farmers in more than 627,000 families, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reported. Between 25-30 percent of these farmers became unemployed or found unstable jobs, leading to a 53 percent decrease in income for these families, the ministry said. Resettlement problem Housing for displaced farmers has been a monumental headache for the families, advocates said. Hung of the construction association said he was “allergic” to the term “resettlement” because the poor quality apartments and houses are not suitable for the displaced residents. He said between 60 and 70 percent of displaced residents in major cities have sold their new accommodations because it was worse than their previous houses or not suitable for living. Hung suggested providing sufficient compensation, equal to market prices, for residents to find their own accommodations instead of compensating less and offering cheap resettlement residences. Anh from the Land Bureau also criticized the farmland compensation rate. “Compensation for farmland is often not enough to buy the same area of farmland in other places, or to help the farmers find other employment,” she said. Phan Van Tho from the Land Bureau said some localities, due to their limited budget, have offered compensation equaling only 30-50 percent of market prices. In many localities, project investors negotiate directly with farmers about the amount of compensation for land revocation. But they have failed to do so in a structured and unified manner, creating compensation differences in a locality, which has also caused complaints, he said. In addition, the resettlement process has not been planned well enough so that those affected could be assured of being provided with equal or better housing than before, said Huyen from the Land Science Association. Tho also said the shortage of funds for housing, land and capital in resettlement is now all too common and serious. Hanoi’s housing and land fund meets only 40 percent of its demand for resettlement, and Ho Chi Minh City’s is 70 percent, he said. Reported by Bao Van – Quang Duan