The "difficulty" of Phu Son
(Baonghean) - We had a hard time getting through 13km from Ho Chi Minh road to the center of Phu Son commune (Tan Ky). The road is bumpy and rocky with unfinished construction sections, although this road has been under construction for 4 years. Phu Son bridge, the hope of escaping the "ferry-dependent" situation of the people, was built in 2009, and was expected to be completed by the end of 2012. The deadline has passed by more than half a year, but only 6/7 pillars have been completed. Therefore, Phu Son people who want to expand trade to the central areas of the district still have to "rely on the ferry". A woman waiting for the ferry to Phu Son shared: "Without a bridge, it is very inconvenient, especially when having to cross the river late at night. Sometimes the ferrymen refuse to cross, so we have to give up. We don't know when the bridge will be completed, but we are very eager!"
Talking to us, Mr. Nguyen Van Duong - Vice Chairman of Phu Son Commune People's Committee, said: The commune has 4,800 people with 11 hamlets, over 4,300 hectares of production land. The area can be called "large land, sparse population", which is a good condition for developing household economy, because of abundant human resources and very large production land area, suitable for the comprehensive model of VAC, VACR... However, these things seem to have only stopped at... policy! Because, in the past 10 years, Phu Son farmers mainly grow acacia, in addition to cassava and sugarcane (currently the whole commune has nearly 1,800 hectares of acacia, 270 hectares of sugarcane), and that is the main source of income, but to expand the area of acacia and sugarcane is facing many difficulties because it is difficult to sell the products due to traffic "blockages", the selling price is often much lower than the general market price.
A famous farmer in Phu Son commune, Mr. Vi Thanh Chau, residing in Quyet Thang hamlet, said, “The price of raw acacia is too cheap, each truck of about 15 tons sells at the garden for about 4 million VND, only 1/3 of the price at the factory. The reason for such a cheap price is also because the road to Phu Son is too difficult, and many inter-village routes in the commune have not been paved, when cutting down acacia, buyers have to spend money to hire people to carry the acacia from the garden to the truck; high transportation costs, buyers are forced to squeeze the price of growers. The whole Quyet Thang hamlet has over 200 hectares of acacia, currently suffering from the same situation, while with that amount of planting area, there should be a raw material route connecting the main inter-regional axis.”
The situation of difficult transportation, price pressure, and product quality deterioration... does not only happen with raw materials. The sugarcane harvest season often has rain, the roads are muddy, so sometimes the harvested cassava is left in the field for a whole week, leading to rotting. The road to transport sugarcane from the raw material area of Phu Son commune to Song Con sugar factory has to go through Tien Ky commune, extending to 32km, the transportation fee is up to 80 thousand VND/ton. On rainy days, it is often impossible to transport, many times the sugarcane is left in the field for a long time, reducing the quality, the buyer deducts impurities, the sugarcane growers have to suffer double losses. In addition, the price of fertilizer in the commune is too high, farmers invest poorly, so growing sugarcane is not profitable.
Poor transport infrastructure has led to many consequences that hinder the development of all other economic and social sectors; services in Phu Son are not developed, there are no passenger buses to the commune center, the whole commune only has 4 trucks to serve transportation needs. Currently, over 40% of households in Phu Son commune are poor, of which 4 Thai villages have a poverty rate of 60 - 75%. Also because of transportation difficulties, farmers here do not want to invest in large-scale business, while local authorities are struggling to find ways to help people escape poverty.
Mr. Nguyen Van Duong shared: If the traffic is convenient, the area of raw acacia trees in Phu Son can potentially grow to over 2,000 hectares, and sugarcane about 350 hectares. In addition, it is possible to develop raw tea areas in Thai Son and Tan Lam hamlets, which have soil very suitable for tea trees.
The prerequisite for Phu Son to exploit its potential well and soon have a strong change in poverty reduction is transportation. That issue, with only concern and mobilization of internal resources of the commune is certainly not enough; it is time for the district and province to pay great attention to this locality.
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