Identifying mechanisms and policies as the guiding compass for agriculture to exploit advantages and foster growth, the province regularly reviews outdated policies for amendment or replacement. At the mid-2026 regular session, the provincial People’s Council issued Resolution No.23/2026/NQ-HĐND, stipulating support policies for agricultural restructuring toward concentrated, green, smart, and sustainable commodity production across the province, alongside Resolution No.21/2026/NQ-HĐND, specifying support levels for production development projects using national target program capital for the 2026-2030 period. These are considered crucial steps to unblock bottlenecks, establishing a legal corridor and resources to drive agricultural development.

A prominent feature of Resolution No.23 is its comprehensive support scope, covering almost the entire agricultural value chain. Specific provisions govern support for concentrated commodity production, crop structure conversion on rice land, investments in slaughterhouses, agricultural processing facilities, livestock feed production, and fertilizers, as well as developing OCOP products, granting planting area codes, building quality management systems, and investing in high-tech agricultural zone infrastructure.

One policy expected to create a powerful breakthrough is support for smart agricultural production development. Under regulations, enterprises, cooperatives, cooperative groups, and households receive support up to 50% of investment costs for constructing greenhouses, net houses, water-saving irrigation systems, and smart irrigation systems for various crops including vegetables, flowers, medicinal plants, grapes, strawberries, coffee, macadamia, pineapples, and passion fruit. Maximum support reaches VND 1 billion for enterprises and cooperatives, VND 700 million for cooperative groups and household clusters, and VND 300 million for individual households.

As one of the pioneering enterprises investing in high-tech agriculture in Điện Biên, Cara Farm Vietnam Co., Ltd. currently develops nearly 4 hectares of red-flesh oranges and green-skin pomelos in Mường Thanh ward. Nguyễn Thị Lan Hương, Director of Cara Farm Vietnam Co., Ltd., noted that initial investment costs for greenhouse systems, automatic irrigation, and technical infrastructure are quite large, while the capital recovery period is prolonged. Therefore, support policies dedicated to enterprises will generate additional motivation for businesses to boldly expand production scale, apply modern technology, elevate agricultural product quality, and gradually establish concentrated production zones.

Another bottleneck over many years involves establishing planting area codes and packaging facility codes, which serve as mandatory conditions for agricultural products to join modern supply chains and engage in official export. However, to date, Điện Biên has only been granted 16 domestic planting area codes covering a total area of 75.6 hectares. Notably, the entire province still lacks planting area codes serving export purposes. Primary causes stem from small-scale production with many regions failing to reach minimum required acreages, limited production logging and origin tracing, alongside technical requirement awareness and execution capacity among a section of enterprises, cooperatives, and residents falling short of requirements.

To resolve these difficulties, Resolution No.23 stipulates 100% cost support up to a maximum of VND 50 million for each planting area code or packaging facility code, encompassing training expenses, dossier preparation consultation, soil and water sampling, and quality testing. For the 2026-2030 period, the province aims to support granting planting area codes across 50,000 hectares along with 20 packaging facility codes. When deployed synchronously, this policy will provide an important impetus for Điện Biên’s agricultural products to gradually meet export standards, elevating market value and competitiveness.

Beyond production support, the resolution opens avenues to attract enterprise investments into high-tech agriculture. Accordingly, enterprises investing in high-tech agricultural zone infrastructure receive 30% support for constructing technical, digital, scientific-technological, and social infrastructure, with maximum support reaching up to VND 50 billion per project. This substantial support level demonstrates provincial determination to attract strategic investors and form modern production zones and processing chains.

Concurrently, Resolution No.21/2026/NQ-HĐND supplements resources for production development through national target programs. For value-chain linkage projects, the State budget supports up to 100% of total project execution costs, excluding citizen labor costs. Linkage leads that are enterprises or cooperatives receive support up to 30% of investment costs for machinery, equipment, and linkage infrastructure construction.

For community production development projects, the State budget supports up to 60% of total project execution costs, excluding citizen labor costs, within assigned budget estimates. Target groups including poor households, near-poor households, recently escaped-poverty households, and families of meritorious services receive maximum support up to 100% of content costs under national target programs, while other households receive maximum support up to 50% of costs.

Simultaneously issuing two resolutions on supporting agricultural production and executing national target programs creates a relatively comprehensive policy framework. As mechanisms are unblocked, residents gain additional resources for production investment, enterprises gain confidence to expand investment, cooperatives secure conditions to foster linkages, and local authorities gain a solid legal foundation for unified implementation. That serves as a vital premise for Điện Biên to materialize its goal of building a concentrated, green, smart, and sustainable commodity agriculture.