The Necessity of Developing Industrial Zones in Rural Areas

- Household economy is a small-scale but effective production unit. Small-scale production does not mean backwardness and low productivity. Farmer household economy is still capable of higher labor productivity than large-scale agricultural enterprises. In particular, farmer household economy is an economic form that integrates the characteristics of agricultural production, in which the main production objects are crops and livestock. The reality of agricultural production development in the world has proven to us that: small-scale household economy mainly uses family labor associated with livestock and crops, which is an effective production unit. [11]

1.1.1.4. The necessity of developing industrial zones in rural areas

In recent years, concentrated industrial parks in the region have been an important driving force for the socio-economic development of the region, turning purely agricultural areas into key economic areas with high economic growth rates, commonly over 10%/year. The economic structure has shifted towards increasing the proportion of industry and services, reducing the proportion of agriculture in GDP at a fairly rapid pace. Many formerly purely agricultural provinces, thanks to the development of industrial parks, will quickly become industrial provinces such as Vinh Phuc, Bac Ninh, Hung Yen, Hai Duong... The face of the countryside has changed towards civilization and modernity. Many factories, enterprises, and foreign-invested enterprises with modern industrial production processes and high technology have been built and developed, attracting tens of billions of USD and thousands of billions of VND from domestic investors. Industrial parks have attracted hundreds of thousands of rural workers, creating a new labor market to promote the process of shifting the social labor structure in the region. New infrastructure systems are built and upgraded, especially in rural areas, and the poverty rate has decreased.

Why do we need to industrialize and modernize agriculture and rural areas? Because agriculture and rural areas are the most populous areas and have the highest level of development.

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development is generally the lowest compared to other sectors of the economy. Farmers account for more than 70% of the population and more than 76% of the country's workforce, contributing from 25% to 27% of the country's GDP...

Moreover, our Party considers this a very important task, because Vietnamese farmers and rural areas have strategic significance in the country's revolutionary cause in the past and in the current renovation cause. The agricultural and rural areas currently have large land resources and other natural potentials: more than 7 million hectares of cultivated land, 10 million hectares of unused cultivated land; Vietnam's export items are mainly agricultural, forestry and seafood products (such as coffee, rice, pepper, etc.). Agriculture and rural areas also play a key role in providing raw materials for the development of industrial and service clusters.

The face of Vietnam's rural areas has changed a lot in recent times, from a place of food shortages and having to import rice, to now being the second largest rice exporter in the world (after Thailand). However, there are still limitations and weaknesses, for which there have been no effective solutions for many years. For example, investment capital for this area is still low (accounting for 11% - 12% of total social investment); agricultural products are mainly quantitative, not yet improved in quality, agricultural product prices are still high, labor productivity and production efficiency are still low; although agricultural output has increased, input costs are still high (the cost of producing 1 hectare of rice has increased from 1 million to 1.5 million VND), while the prices of agricultural products on the international market have decreased. Meanwhile, the policies and measures that the State has applied to agricultural development in recent years have not created a strong breakthrough. The educational level of a part of farmers (especially in remote areas) has not been improved, although the life and society in rural areas have changed, it is not strong and uneven. That situation leads to the difference between urban areas.

and rural areas are increasingly large. According to data from the General Statistics Office and the World Bank (WB) (2003), the difference coefficient between urban and rural areas is 3.65 times.

Furthermore, experiences from countries around the world and in the region (such as Singapore, Thailand, China, Sweden, Spain...) all show the lesson: industrialization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas are the basis for restructuring and developing the country's economy.

In short, implementing the industrialization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas is a step by step to develop Vietnam's rural areas in a modern direction, gradually eliminating the gap between urban and rural areas. To do this, many solutions are needed, of which an important solution is to develop services and tourism. With the nature of a comprehensive economic sector that is interdisciplinary, inter-regional and highly socialized, the development of tourism will create many jobs for rural workers without the need for elaborate training, thereby contributing to gradually increasing accumulation and shifting the rural economic structure. Currently, the rate of service-based households in rural areas accounts for only 11.2%. Continuing to encourage the strong development of tourism will help rural areas solve a series of problems: creating jobs, improving people's knowledge, developing rural infrastructure, thereby changing the economic and labor structure in rural areas towards increasing the proportion of services, developing civilized and modern rural areas in line with the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country.

1.1.1.5. Impact of industrial zones on farmers' lives

Impact on land

The rapid development of industrial zones has caused agricultural land to shrink, and the demand for specialized land for infrastructure construction and urban land has increased rapidly. This has led to the situation of "swallowing" agricultural land which is very necessary for a

urban areas such as: food production, creating green spaces that play a role in "detoxifying" the living environment, creating resting areas for people... The recovery of agricultural land has affected the lives of households because they lack traditional means of labor and livelihoods, many of which have fallen into poverty.

To serve industrial zones, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, on average, 73 thousand hectares of agricultural land are reclaimed each year. In the 5 years from 2001 to 2005, the total area of agricultural land reclaimed was nearly 370 thousand hectares. The two key economic regions in the South and the North are the places where the most land is reclaimed, in which the leading localities are: Tien Giang (20.3 thousand hectares), Dong Nai (19.7 thousand hectares), Binh Duong (16.6 thousand hectares), Hanoi (7.7 thousand hectares), Vinh Phuc (5.5 thousand hectares)... That affects the lives of about 2.5 million people with nearly 630 thousand farming households. The data shows that, on average, for every hectare of land reclaimed, more than 10 farming workers will lose their jobs. Due to lack of qualifications, after land recovery, up to 67% of farmers still maintain their agricultural production profession, 13% switch to new professions, 20% are unemployed or have unstable jobs, 53% of farming households whose land was recovered have lower incomes than before, so life is difficult.

Vietnam is the second largest rice exporter in the world, exporting 4.5 million tons of rice in 2007. However, this does not mean that we are not at risk of food security imbalance in the future, especially local food shortages in poor residential areas, when agricultural land is reduced, population increases, natural disasters, epidemics, food prices increase... The top goal of our country is to maintain the rice area at least at 3.8 million - 4 million hectares, with an output of about 36 million tons/year as present, then Vietnam's food security is guaranteed. However, this output only provides for a population of about 100 million people, while Vietnam's population is forecast to reach

about 120 million people by the mid-21st century. Therefore, if a stable rice growing area is not maintained, the risk of imbalance in domestic food security will occur. [8]

Environmental Impact

The establishment of industrial parks aims to create conditions for business owners to invest in expanding production scale, but in reality, many businesses have imported technological lines that are decades out of date. This not only reduces competitiveness, but also makes production activities unstable and pollutes the environment.

Waste treatment from factories before being discharged into the environment is a headache for managers. According to estimates, each industrial park discharges about 3,000 -

10,000 m3 of wastewater/day and night. Thus, the total amount of industrial wastewater

of industrial parks nationwide to about 500,000 - 700,000m3 / day and night.

Even in industrial parks that have centralized wastewater treatment plants, the actual quality of these facilities is still limited, not meeting the prescribed standards, causing environmental pollution, especially in some industrial parks that concentrate light industries such as textiles, leather, chemicals, etc. that are highly toxic.

In addition, in industrial parks, air pollution, dust and noise are difficult to control and are not given attention. Emissions from production facilities contain many toxic substances that are discharged directly into the environment, affecting the health of people in the surrounding area.

According to monitoring results, the concentration of SO 2 , CO and NO 2 near industrial parks or in industrial parks is increasing. The concentration of dust along the main traffic routes has exceeded the permissible standard by 2 - 6 times. At many mechanical factories, metallurgical factories, chemical industries, construction materials industries, mineral processing industries... in industrial parks, the concentration of dust and toxic gases (typically SO 2 gas ) in the air exceeds the permissible standard by 2 - 5 times.

Along with that, people are suffering from negative impacts from the development of local industrial parks, pollution of domestic water sources, land degradation caused by toxic waste from industrial parks...

There are many reasons for the increase in environmental pollution in industrial parks, including unreasonable planning of industrial parks, such as the arrangement of some industrial parks near traffic routes, too close to residential areas. Therefore, pollution in industrial parks easily causes negative impacts on the surrounding environment. In addition, the awareness of environmental protection in industrial parks of local authorities is not high, and the environmental issues for sustainable development are not properly assessed. State agencies at the local and central levels do not have sanctions and closely monitor the construction of industrial parks according to the planning and projects approved by competent authorities. Therefore, in the feasibility report, the items of wastewater treatment, waste and environmental protection are not actually implemented. On the other hand, the cost of building a waste treatment system along with the lack of adequate support mechanisms from the State are among the reasons why investors are slow to implement these systems.

Industrial waste is also a threat to the lives of some localities with industrial parks located in the area. Industrial waste that has not been properly treated will cause serious pollution to water sources, air, noise, etc. Many localities have paid the price for this issue; people's lives are truly threatened. If we do not properly assess and do not come up with effective solutions, and do not organize well the prevention of this reality of pollution, it will cause unpredictable harm.

Impact on labor

The development of industrial zones has created a very potential and effective labor attraction channel, contributing significantly to solving employment for workers.

local workers (including workers of households whose land has been recovered) and migrant workers.

In recent years, the labor force in industrial zones has increased sharply, associated with the increase of newly established and expanded industrial zones. However, the proportion of trained workers is still low and unsynchronized, leading to low quality human resources, which is a barrier to the application of scientific and technological advances in agricultural production and the construction of new, civilized and sustainable rural areas. In industrial zones, most of the workers have just left the fields or general schools without basic vocational training. Seasonal unemployment is a current difficulty in rural areas. The capacity of the grassroots political system has not met the development requirements of reality. The level of enjoyment of farmers is still low, the income and living standards gap between urban and rural areas is increasing. Rising prices are pressing issues, greatly affecting the lives of farmers.

Impact on farmer household economy

Agricultural production in localities still follows old, small-scale and scattered methods, so economic efficiency is low and there is a risk of unsustainability in the face of natural disasters, epidemics and market fluctuations. Agricultural land area is decreasing rapidly due to the development of industrial zones, thereby limiting opportunities to increase income from the main sector of cultivation, while the ability to develop livestock, aquaculture and non-agricultural industries is still limited. Vegetable and fruit products and livestock and poultry farming have low competitiveness.

Farmers whose land is confiscated for industrialization or urbanization also find themselves in a situation where their means of production are lost or reduced, while they are not yet prepared to change their occupation. Most farmers who have money (compensation money due to land confiscation) also find it difficult to find an effective solution.

to use for production and business to make it flourish. Many farming households are falling into a losing situation before the "vortex" of market rules, especially in places where cooperatives no longer exist, the local government is weak, and they do not know where to rely on? Therefore, the harshness of the situation of "the poor get poorer, the rich get richer faster" is the main factor deepening the gap between the rich and the poor, between rural and urban areas. This is the main cause of the phenomenon of people freely migrating to urban areas to find work is increasing. They are always in a fear of risk, so the mindset of "eating well, wearing durable clothes" is still common, any money is poured into "building houses" patchwork, expanding in a fragmented and very costly way.

Impact on economic restructuring

The development of industrial zones has accelerated the economic restructuring towards industrialization and modernization. During that process, the economic structure has changed towards reducing the proportion of the agricultural sector and rapidly increasing the proportion of the industrial and service sectors. For agricultural production in particular, it has contributed to changes in the structure of cultivated area and production value. Crops with low economic value and using a lot of labor are gradually decreasing in area. Crops that require less labor and have higher economic value are gradually increasing in area. In the total production value of the agricultural sector, the general trend is to gradually reduce the proportion of the crop sector and increase the proportion of the livestock sector.

Impact on rural society

The capacity of the grassroots political system has not met the development requirements of reality. The level of enjoyment of farmers is still low, the income and living standards gap between urban and rural areas is increasing. Rising prices are pressing issues, greatly affecting the lives of farmers.

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