Focus more on income growth criteria

(Baonghean) - Increasing farmers' income is one of the core criteria, affecting many other criteria in the new rural development program. However, achieving this criterion is difficult for many localities, because agricultural production still depends heavily on natural conditions and market instability... Up to now, the whole province has only 102/431 communes meeting this criterion.

Checking the stevia planting model in Nam Son commune - Do Luong district.

According to Decision 342/QD-TTg dated February 2013 of the Prime Minister, deciding to amend a number of criteria of the national criteria set on new rural areas, the criterion of average income per capita in rural areas (criterion number 10) for the North Central region in 2015 is 18 million VND or more, by 2020 it is 35 million VND.

Identifying income criteria as the most important area in the criteria for building new rural areas, in recent times, with the support of the province, localities have always prioritized investment capital sources to implement programs and projects, promote production and livestock development to increase people's income. By the end of 2014, the total investment capital sources for the New Rural Construction Program (from mobilizing people's strength and integrating programs) in the whole province reached 15,374 billion VND; of which, direct support capital for the production and livestock programs was more than 2,410 billion VND... At the same time, since 2013 and the first months of 2014, the whole province has opened 394 vocational training classes for rural workers; the total number of rural workers trained in vocational training according to Decision 1956 is 12,687 people; The budget allocated to support rural workers in vocational training for 2 years (2013, 2014) is over 270 billion VND.

Many localities have built a number of vocational training models and used them effectively for rural laborers. The application of science and technology in production has increased productivity, output of crops and livestock, reduced costs, and contributed significantly to increasing farmers' income, reducing the poverty rate from 22.89% in 2011 to 13.4% in 2013 and is expected to reach 10-11% by the end of 2014; the poverty rate decreased by an average of 3.02% per year, the number of poor households decreased by 20,000 households per year according to statistics, the average income per capita of Nghe An province in 2014 reached 15 million VND.

In general, it is like that, but in reality, from the communes implementing the NTM program in the period of 2013 - 2015, it shows that not all localities have found a suitable direction to shift the economic structure and increase people's income. Most communes in the province have a low starting point, are purely agricultural, the proportion of agricultural labor is high, and economic development conditions are still difficult, so increasing income and reducing poverty is not an easy problem.

Nam Son is a purely agricultural commune in the mountainous area of ​​Do Luong district. Out of a total of 128 hectares of double-rice land, more than 30 hectares can only produce one crop, and cannot grow the summer-autumn crop due to the nature of the terraced fields and the irrigation water source depends entirely on the weather. In addition to poor soil quality, the 34 hectares of fertile land specializing in growing peanuts and corn also have lower yields than the average yield of the whole district. For example, in the winter crop of 2013, the commune only achieved 150 kg/sao of corn, and in the spring crop, 1.1 quintals/sao of peanuts, while the average corn yield of the whole district is 200 kg/sao, and peanuts reach 1.5 quintals/sao. Even the annual spring rice yield, the highest, is only 60 - 62 quintals/ha, compared to the neighboring commune of Dang Son, which is 6 - 8 quintals/ha lower...

According to Mr. Nguyen Trong Ha - Vice Chairman of Nam Son Commune People's Committee: The commune's income is currently only 12.3 million VND/person/year. With the desire to soon complete the new rural construction program, helping people stabilize and improve their quality of life, in recent years the commune has put many new economic models into testing, such as the stevia planting model, invested in by Asia Stevia Company in the 2012 spring watermelon planting model, but all were unsuccessful. Currently, the main income of local people still depends mainly on agricultural production, so the criterion of increasing the average income in 2015 to 18 million VND/person is difficult to achieve.

As one of the 6 communes of Hung Nguyen district registered to reach the goal of building a new rural area in 2015, but in Hung Phu commune, the income criteria have not yet met the standard, the average income per capita is 16.5 million VND/year (the standard income level for the new rural area in 2014 in the North Central region is 17 million VND). Mr. Hoang Van Nghia - Vice Chairman of Hung Phu Commune People's Committee said: "The commune has 130 hectares of rice land and 30 hectares of colored land mainly for growing spices. The land here is in a low-lying area, with heavy loam, so up to 120 hectares of rice land cannot produce winter crops. The remaining 10 hectares in hamlets 4, 6, 7 mainly grow corn and sweet potatoes. From only being able to produce one rice crop, with an average harvest of 60 - 62 tons/ha, the total output of the whole commune has reached 7,800 - 8,000 tons of rice/year; corn and sweet potatoes are grown in one crop with an area of ​​less than 10 hectares, giving insignificant productivity. Currently, the total herd of buffaloes and cows in the whole commune is 450, but raising them is not very favorable due to insufficient food sources and no grazing areas...".

As of November 2014, the whole province had 24 communes meeting 19/19 criteria (of which 17 communes had decisions), 68 communes meeting 15 criteria, 140 communes meeting 10-14 criteria, 157 communes meeting 3-9 criteria for new rural construction. After 3 years of implementation, besides some criteria with high rates of communes meeting standards such as general planning, post office, electricity grid, schools, political-social organization system, national defense-security, there are still some criteria with low rates of meeting standards and difficult to achieve such as income, transportation, production forms... According to the assessment of the Office of the Provincial New Rural Construction Program Coordination, the criteria of income, job creation and labor structure are a challenge for the whole province as well as in localities. According to the plan, by 2015, the province will have 20% of communes (87 communes) meeting the NTM standards, creating the premise for 50% of communes (216 communes) to meet the NTM standards by 2020. However, up to now, according to incomplete statistics, out of 87 communes, 29 communes have not completed the income criteria. Currently, the Provincial Steering Committee for New Rural Development is reviewing to eliminate communes that cannot reach the finish line, continuing to add communes that meet the conditions to meet the criteria of 20% of communes reaching the NTM finish line in the 2015 period.

Increasing income is considered one of the problems that is difficult to solve overnight. To complete the criteria of increasing income, in addition to the efforts of local authorities, each person himself needs to be proactive in finding jobs to increase income and improve his life. In addition, localities need to combine agricultural development with processing, services, and attract industrial investment to gradually shift agricultural labor to many other industries with higher income. In theory, this will contribute to the completion of the new rural construction work according to the set goals, but in reality, it is a problem that requires many levels of sectors and the people themselves to actively participate in finding suitable solutions...

Ngoc Anh