A shift in the new rural construction movement

(Baonghean) -Implementing the National Target Program on New Rural Construction, Nghi Loc has achieved encouraging results. Not only has the "leading" commune Nghi Thai completed the program, but many other localities have also achieved very high criteria. The results were achieved thanks to the district's excellent work in disseminating policies and good practices to gain experience in implementation.

Nghi Lam is a mountainous commune located in the west of Nghi Loc district, people's lives are still difficult, but this locality is a bright spot of Nghi Loc district in the movement to build new rural areas. First of all, we must mention the movement of donating land to build roads by the people here. In Nghi Lam, the family of Mr. and Mrs. Tran Van Lien and Nguyen Thi Hoa in hamlet 4 is considered one of the exemplary households, leading the movement of donating land to build roads, despite the family's difficult circumstances. Immediately after the commune's policy, they voluntarily donated 74m2 of garden land, on which there is a livestock farm. Up to now, Nghi Lam people have donated more than 11 thousand m2 of land.²Garden land and construction with a total estimated value of nearly 2 billion VND to widen the road; nearly 20 hectares of agricultural land to build internal irrigation traffic. Vice Chairman of the Commune People's Committee - Mr. Tran Van Binh said: Up to now, Nghi Lam has achieved 14/19 criteria in building New Rural Areas such as: culture, health, education, average income per capita (22.6 million VND/year)...

Making rural traffic in Nghi Thai commune.

With the support of the state and the mobilization of resources, Quan market has been built spaciously with a total cost of approximately 5 billion VND. Regarding the form of production organization, the commune continues to improve and consolidate the activities of two cooperatives, the People's Credit Fund and the Electricity Service Cooperative. To develop the economy and increase income for people, Nghi Hoa actively receives projects, builds models for producing high-quality rice varieties (15 hectares of AC5 and 30 hectares of RVT), builds and develops models of cucumbers, winter-spring glutinous corn, opens vocational training classes... Up to now, the average income per capita of Nghi Hoa has reached nearly 20 million VND/year.

In particular, identifying production as the core factor of building a new rural area, Nghi Loc attaches importance to developing production to increase income for rural people. The movement of helping each other develop the economy, solve employment, eliminate hunger and reduce poverty, and get rich legitimately has developed widely. There are more and more advanced models and examples in production and business. The poverty rate in 2012 (according to the new criteria) was 11.57%, of which 3 communes with a poverty rate of less than 5% met the new rural standards: Nghi Thai, Phuc Tho and Nghi Hop, the average income per capita in 2012 reached 17.4 million VND, the expected income in 2013 reached 21.3 million VND. Mr. Nguyen Duc Tho - Head of the district's Agriculture Department said: Many communes have well implemented the work of land consolidation associated with large-scale commodity planning, thereby creating conditions for mechanization in production, applying scientific and technical advances, and building large-scale model fields.

This result was achieved thanks to the district's good work in disseminating and popularizing the Party's guidelines and the State's policies, promoting new rural construction movements, typical models in all fields, and good practices of each locality, through which people and local authorities can learn and draw experiences to implement in their units. Local leaders as well as people have gradually shifted their awareness from thinking that the New Rural Program is a State investment project, to an endogenous thinking that relies mainly on people's strength.

Since then, the movements of concreting rural roads, the movement of people donating land to build rural roads, renovating residential areas, the movement of launching campaigns to build internal irrigation traffic... have been enthusiastically responded by the people. The district also organized seminars on agricultural production models, visited the land conversion model in Yen Thanh, some communes organized visits to new rural construction models in the northern provinces to gain more experience. In particular, the coordination between sectors with organizations and the Fatherland Front to integrate content and programs of activities has brought practical results, such as the District Farmers' Association calling on members to actively participate in donating land for rural traffic, installing signs to maintain rural roads, and providing vocational training; the Women's Association launched an environmental sanitation movement, building a "5 no, 3 clean" family...

Through the campaigns, many movements have been widely deployed. Farmers have voluntarily donated over 375 thousand square meters of land for rural roads, dismantled many architectural works... mobilized thousands of working days, sand and gravel materials to concretize 42 km of rural roads in Nghi Lam, Nghi Kieu, Nghi Trung, Nghi Thai communes... At the same time, up to now, 29 communes have announced planning, 19 communes have placed markers.

In addition, in 3 years, Nghi Loc has built 13 more national standard schools, bringing the total number of national standard schools in the district to 50/92 schools; built 5 more communes to meet national standards in health care including Nghi Cong Nam, Nghi Yen, Nghi Xuan, Nghi Quang and Nghi Tien. Cultural institutions have been gradually completed, up to now, basically residential areas have conventions and village rules, the number of cultural families has reached 85%, cultural villages 59%, many communes such as Nghi Thai, Nghi Lam, Phuc Tho, Nghi Hop, Nghi Trung have basically completed the new rural criteria in terms of culture.

However, to complete the goal of building a new rural area, Nghi Loc still has many difficulties to overcome. Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hai - Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee shared: To be able to complete infrastructure criteria such as transportation, irrigation, culture, etc., a huge amount of resources is needed while the State's support capital is still limited. Faced with these difficulties, Nghi Loc advocates implementing comprehensive measures. In agriculture, directing the effective implementation of land conversion to ensure large production areas, thereby focusing on introducing new plant and animal varieties to promote efficiency in conversion, increasing income for people. At the same time, consolidate service organizations for farmers to connect with businesses in production and product consumption. Focus on implementing the district's Environmental Protection Project well, and well managing production and business units in environmental protection. Along with that, doing a good job of democracy to mobilize resources from the people to build infrastructure to serve production and life, it is expected that by the end of this year, the whole district will be able to build over 80 km of rural concrete roads.

Article and photos: Phu Huong