(VOVworld) – The Vietnamese Farmers’ Association held a workshop on Thursday to look into the impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement on Vietnam’s agricultural industry and seek solutions to help farmers overcome difficulties, develop production, and improve their competitiveness in the global market.

Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Vietnamese Farmers' Association Leu Vu Dieu addresses the meeting (photo: danviet)

Participants agreed that while the TPP will open up large markets for Vietnam’s farm produce, boost investment of TPP countries into Vietnam, and help Vietnam access new production technology. But over 10 million Vietnamese farmer households are also expected to face various difficulties.

Experts said the most important challenges at present is to raise farmers’ awareness of the opportunities and challenges of joining the TPP, so that they will change their mindset towards business production, increasing productivity and product quality. Farmer associations at all levels need to serve as bridges to connect farmers with businesses to sell their products to the market.

Chief Representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Vietnam, JongHa Bae, said Vietnam is forecast to benefit most from the TPP compared to 11 other member economies. He suggested setting up a mechanism to attract private investment in agriculture and urged Vietnam to improve food quality and safety via strengthening institutional frameworks and building competitive capacity for farmers.