At the meeting, Vice President Nguyen Xuan Dinh introduced Mr. Alexander Jaeger about the organizational structure, functions, tasks and outstanding activities of VNFU.
 
Particularly, in Vietnam, VNFU coordinates with the Government to propose the promulgation of many specific policies and projects related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas. Every year, VNFU actively cooperates with relevant ministries and branches to organize activities of dialogue of the Prime Minister with farmers; dialogue of leaders of provinces and cities with farmers. Therefore, the organization of forums, thematic dialogues on agricultural insurance will contribute to raising awareness for members and farmers, and at the same time contribute to the finalisation of relevant policies according to reality.
 
Vice Chairman Nguyen Xuan Dinh said: VNFu is currently implementing three key tasks, including: First, to protect the legitimate rights and interests of farmers; secondly, to organize consultancy, support, service and vocational training activities to help farmers develop production and business conditions to improve their income and life; thirdly, to build and develop a collective economic model in agriculture and rural areas.

Over the years, VNFU has focused on promoting the farmers supporting service activities, bringing many practical effects. With a complete organizational structure at all 4 levels from central to grassroots levels, VNFU has over 10 million members and farmers participating in.

Notably, VNFU currently has a focal point including 52 Farmer and Rural Support Centers directly under the FUs of provinces and cities. This is a great advantage of VNFU in organizing and implementing effective consulting and supporting services for members and farmers, including in the insurance sector. Besides agricultural insurance, VNFU is also coordinating with related sectors to well implement social insurance, health insurance, non-life insurance...

  “We are very grateful for the practical support of GIZ organization over the past time, which has accompanied us in implementing small projects in 05 provinces and cities including: Hanoi, Ha Tinh, Bac Lieu, An Giang, Ca Mau. With  the support of GIZ, VNFU has received and implemented the project: “Promote Agricultural Insurance through VNFU system”, within the framework of the Program “The Regulatory Framework Promotion of Pro-poor Insurance Markets in Asia - RFPI Asia phase III "- Vice President Nguyen Xuan Dinh affirmed.

At the meeting, Member of the Standing Committee, Chief of the Central Office of VNFU Nguyen Khac Toan on behalf of the Project Management Board provided more specific information about the remarkable initial results of the project implemented in the period 2019-2022.

VNFU clearly recognizes the role and importance of the agricultural insurance for agricultural production in Vietnam in general as well as for farmers in particular. The Central Committee of the Vietnam People's Association has focused on directing the People's Associations of 5 provinces and cities participating in the project to develop early plans and actively implement them.

On the basis of supporting resources, in 2019 two training courses were organized for the staff of 10 northern provinces and 31 southern provinces FUs to raise awareness about agricultural insurance and Decree No. 58. /2018/ND-CP of the Government; develop criteria and select 200 FU staffs from 4 provinces to participate in 4 training courses for trainers (TOT) on agricultural insurance; organized 3 field training courses in the commune with the participation of 125 farmers, directly taught by the lecturer who participated in TOT (with the direct companion and advice of the lecturer).
 
Besides, in 2020, despite difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic, VNFU has taken flexible and creative measures to deploy activities accoding to actual situation. Specifically: Organized TOT training course for 50 staffs of the Ca Mau provincial FU; printed 3,000 leaflets about agricultural insurance and products to distribute to members and farmers in the provinces participating in the project.

In 2021, organize a workshop on "FU with agricultural insurance and strategies to cope with risks in agriculture" combined with a field visit to the model in Son La province. In 2022, organize a training course to raise awareness on agricultural insurance for the staffs of FU of the 4 new participating provinces following Decision 13/2022 of the Government; develop propaganda video clips, raise awareness about agricultural insurance for staffs, members, farmers in 27 provinces participating in the project...

Mr. Nguyen Khac Toan said: Over the years, VNFU is well managing the loans from the Farmer's Supporting Fund, the entrusted capital through banks (Bank for Social Policies, Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development). . Up to now, the total capital sources managed by the VNFU reached about 150,000 billion VND, with nearly 3 million members, farmers are interested in supporting loans to invest in production and business helping to accelerate the process of restructuring crops and livestock in provinces and cities; improve productivity and quality of agricultural products as well as increase profits for households.

“Reality shows that in our country's agriculture, besides many favorable conditions, also there are also difficulties and challenges and risks. Therefore, agricultural insurance is considered a solution to support and protect farmers against the risks from natural disasters, weather, diseases, environment and price fluctuations in the market. For many years, agricultural insurance has been piloted, but there are still many problems. I hope that GIZ will continue to support more resources for the VNFU to implement projects in the next stages," said Mr. Nguyen Khac Toan.

Mr. Alexander Jaeger on behalf of GIZ also introduced about the organization, activities and programs and projects related to agricultural insurance implemented by GIZ in Asia and the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam in the recent year. Mr. Alexander Jaeger highly appreciated the role of VNFU when participating in the project implementation, the activities of the VNFU have been really successful in recent years.

Mr. Alexander Jaeger expressed his pleasure to know that in Vietnam, the Government has a policy on agricultural insurance through many documents; especially Decree 58/2018/ND-CP, Decision 22/2019/QD-TTg, Decision 13/2022 of the Government. On the other hand, he said that the above functions, tasks and operational structure of VNFU are very suitable for the development goals of the project. Hopefully in the coming time, the cooperation between the two sides will become closer and closer, continue to have longer new projects and strategies, helping more members and farmers in Vietnam.

Speaking at the end of the meeting, Vice President Nguyen Xuan Dinh thanked GIZ organization, affirmed that VNFU will continue to focus on implementing the project, and at the same time, suggested GIZ continue to research and build the project for the next phase. Therein, attention should be paid to strengthening the role of VNFU in organizing and implementing the project's activities so that more and more members and Vietnamese farmers have the opportunity to well respond to the natural disasters, rise up in production, increase revenue