Lesson 2: Promoting the strengths of industrial crops
(Baonghean) - Western Nghe An has a diverse land area suitable for many types of crops. In particular, there are 13,000 hectares of fertile red basalt soil in Phu Quy area suitable for short-term and long-term industrial crops and fruit trees. The land in the West for growing rubber, oranges, tea, sugarcane, cassava, and pineapple all give high yields. Therefore, creating conditions for the West to develop the strength of this industrial crop is a suitable socio-economic solution to reduce poverty and get rich quickly.
According to the economic plan for the period 2011 - 2015 of the province, the West focuses on giving priority to the rubber tree development project. By the end of this period, the target is to reach 22,660 hectares. The business area is 5,860 hectares, the dry latex rubber product is 8,200 tons. Currently, the total area of the whole region is 8,577 hectares (newly planted in 2011, an additional 1,100 hectares, mainly invested by the Rubber Joint Stock Company).
Rubber tapping in Nghia Dan
Units and households in the area clearly see that rubber planting brings high economic efficiency: export advantage, planting once can be exploited for decades, the same area unit gives higher efficiency than sugarcane and other industrial crops. Through survey, the yield of the new rubber variety reaches 13.1 quintals/ha of dry latex, which is quite average compared to the whole country. In the new direction, in addition to Nghia Dan and Quy Hop areas, our province will expand the rubber planting area to Que Phong, Anh Son, Thanh Chuong, Tan Ky districts and midland districts where there are no or few plantings.
The second strength of the West is raw sugarcane. In addition to Quy Hop Sugar Factory, there are also Song Con Sugar Factory (Tan Ky) and Song Lam Sugar Factory (Anh Son) which are currently not producing at full capacity. In the recent past, sugarcane has enriched hundreds of thousands of farmers in the region. The highest area (in 2008) reached 28,000 hectares, with an output of 1,630,000 tons. Unfortunately, in recent years, due to the problem of grass shoots, productivity has decreased, the area has shrunk, and output has decreased.
As of 2011, the sugarcane area was 23,313 hectares, with an estimated total output of 1,440,000/1,650,000 tons. In the 2011-2015 period, the province still considered sugarcane a strategic crop and planned to stabilize the area to 29,000 hectares; intensive cultivation yielded 65 tons/ha, output of 1,931,490 tons to ensure the requirements of 3 sugar factories and create jobs, increase income for farmers in the region. Third is tea, which has long been identified as a hunger eradication and enrichment plant in the midlands and lowlands. Currently, the total tea area of the province has reached 8,834 hectares; the area for products is 6,000 hectares, and the output is 60,000 tons.
Nghe An Tea Development Investment One Member Co., Ltd. alone has a raw material area of 7,579 hectares; has formed concentrated raw material areas such as: Thanh Chuong 4,200 hectares, Anh Son 1,800 hectares, Con Cuong 400 hectares. The possibilities have been and are opening up: Thanh Chuong is determined to plant 1,800 hectares of new tea to stabilize 5,000 hectares; Anh Son district will continue to plant 1,200 hectares and Con Cuong district will plant more to reach 1,800 hectares...
The target by 2015 is 12,000 hectares; the business area is 9,744 hectares. Strive to increase the average yield to 110 tons/ha (currently only 95 tons/ha). This is possible because the Tea Development Investment One Member Co., Ltd. has expanded the new high-yield, high-quality tea variety LDP2 to replace the PH variety, which is no longer suitable. In addition to LDP 2, the Company has planted 3 specialty tea varieties: Hung Dinh Bach, Hoa Nhat Kim and O Long. Thanks to the new tea varieties and many incentive policies, the yield in many places has reached 12 tons/ha of fresh buds.
On the other hand, the tea industry has also invested in technology to process high quality products. Currently, the whole region has 8 large and small tea processing factories with a capacity of 148 tons/day. Of which, there are 6 CTC black tea processing lines with a capacity of 76 tons/day, 6 green processing lines with a capacity of 112 tons/day. In addition, there are dozens of mini processing machines in some raw material areas. Nghe An tea is present in the markets of the US, Japan, China, Taiwan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, England, Germany... Export turnover in 2009 reached 9 million USD. In 2011, of the 66 million USD of exported agricultural products, tea reached 10.5 million USD, the plan is to produce 107 thousand tons by 2015, more than one and a half times the current output.
In addition to the three main crops above, oranges, cassava and pineapples still hold important positions. Currently, pineapples only cover 1,600 hectares, but by 2015, they will increase to 3,000 hectares, enough to supply the Quynh Chau concentrated pineapple factory, which is striving to increase pineapple productivity to 45 tons/ha to ensure about 562 thousand tons in 2015.
Cassava is the easiest plant to grow, growing on all types of soil, including barren, poor and shallow hilly land; Cassava flour products are also consumed quite stably. Therefore, the raw material area has increased to 9,000 hectares. However, because this plant eats soil, the efficiency is still not high, so the plan until 2015 is to keep the same area, enough 4,000 hectares of regular raw materials for the two factories Thanh Chuong and Yen Thanh. The area will not be expanded, but more attention will be paid to intensive farming, because the current yield is only 33 tons/ha, while many provinces in the Central region have reached an average of 40 tons/ha.
In addition, orange trees will remain the same area of 2,000 hectares in the region until 2015. Currently, oranges in the Western region only reach an average of 300 tons/ha, which will increase to an average yield of 45 tons/ha. In addition, about 1,000 hectares of coffee are planted in the area to exploit the existing yield fund.
Industrial crops are suitable for land with average slopes and thick cultivated land in the midlands and low mountains of the West of our province, especially the rare red basalt soil of Phu Quy. In general, the land fund is limited and productivity is still low, all types of crops must increase productivity and quality to participate in export. In which, the most lacking intensive farming measures today are irrigation water and processing plant systems to increase the value of goods.
Hoang Chinh
