Converting crop structure to increase income

(Baonghean) -As a key rice district of the province, Yen Thanh is a locality with a tradition of intensive rice cultivation. However, in the current trend, when the agricultural economy is changing in the direction of transformation, increasing the value of goods and land use efficiency, this purely agricultural rice district requires drastic breakthroughs in transforming the structure of crops and seasons.

Of the 252.7 hectares of agricultural land in Hung Thanh commune (Yen Thanh), there are 235.7 hectares of rice land and only 17 hectares of fertile land. With such a large area of ​​rice land, rice has been the main source of income for the people for many years. However, rice cultivation and intensive cultivation in Hung Thanh still face many difficulties. According to Mr. Nguyen Duy Ai - Secretary of the Commune Party Committee, about 40 hectares of land in Son Thanh hamlet depend on the limited water source of small dams in the locality, in addition, there are about 20 hectares with extremely difficult irrigation water sources.

In recent years, the commune has strongly shifted to growing other crops that are both more economically efficient and drought-resistant, such as corn, vegetables, and beans of all kinds. In mid-July, farmers are focusing on growing early winter corn. “We have converted 15 hectares of rice land with difficulty in irrigation water and 17 hectares of land for growing other crops. With about 3,000 pigs, 21,000 poultry, and 947 cattle, the demand for food in the area is quite large. In addition, this winter crop, we will grow soybeans and potatoes in Kim Thanh and Son Thanh hamlets. The whole commune also has over 20 hectares of cucumbers, squash, and vegetables,” said Mr. Ai.

Taking care of squash in the fields of Bac Thanh commune (Yen Thanh). Photo: Ho Cac

However, this is still a purely agricultural district, rice production has a large proportion in the agricultural production structure, the quality of agricultural products of all crops is not high, and competitiveness is low. Mr. Nguyen Van Duong - Head of the District Agriculture Department shared: Determining that in the market economy conditions with the challenges of the economic integration process, the level of competition in product quality will become increasingly fierce. From there, we advocate focusing on strongly shifting traditional, small-scale agricultural production to concentrated, large-scale production, promoting the application of scientific and technological advances, especially biotechnology in production to achieve high productivity, good product quality, increase economic efficiency per unit area and income for farming households.

With the goal that by 2015, one hectare of land will have a production value of over 92 million VND, in addition to rice, the district plans to develop and stabilize other crops with high economic efficiency such as corn, peanuts, sugarcane, cassava, bananas for export, planning a grass growing area of ​​about 2 thousand hectares to serve dairy farming, especially developing an area for growing flowers and ornamental plants with a scale of about 50 hectares and over 2 thousand hectares for growing vegetables.

The first thing that Yen Thanh focused on was to re-plan the production area in accordance with the conditions and characteristics of each region. Carrying out land conversion, helping farmers to accumulate land to form economic zones of family farms and ranches, and at the same time forming areas of crop rotation and intercropping. Besides the concentrated rice production area, over 8,000 hectares of land with proactive water supply that previously produced two rice crops were encouraged to increase the winter crop with corn and various vegetables, and at the same time, convert 200 hectares of deep-lying areas to aquaculture.

The third crop of fish farming has also been promoted, especially in the communes of Do Thanh, Tho Thanh, Hong Thanh, Phu Thanh... The highland areas without water control in Tay Thanh, Quang Thanh, Thinh Thanh... have proactively changed crops and grown other crops. In the past 2 years, the district has also planted stevia on these areas. The spring rice areas that are forced to be planted and the land for growing low-yielding crops have been switched to corn. The peanut growing area has been expanded on the highland areas that are forced to be planted in the semi-mountainous communes, the land for growing two rice crops. Peanut varieties with high yield potential have been put into production such as L14, L23, TB25...

Strive to increase peanut productivity from the current 23 quintals/ha to 27 quintals/ha by 2015. Increase the area of ​​vegetables, tubers, fruits, flowers, ornamental plants of all kinds, focusing on plants with high economic value such as squash, cucumber, green beans, onions, garlic, cabbage... In particular, in recent years, Yen Thanh mushrooms have gradually become a popular "brand". Currently, the whole district has more than 300 households in 14 communes growing mushrooms, many households earn from 200 to 300 million VND/year from this profession. Mr. Duong said: The goal by 2015 is that we will have more than a thousand households producing mushrooms on a household scale, 100 households producing on a farm, family farm, cooperative model and 1-2 industrial scale models with a total mushroom output of more than 5 thousand tons, worth about 50 billion VND, creating jobs for 1,500 workers.

Along with planning production areas and converting land use purposes, Yen Thanh also focuses on converting the rice variety structure to improve productivity and quality. In the past 3 years, high-quality rice varieties have been introduced to Yen Thanh more and more, with purebred rice varieties of good quality and grade such as AC5, Bac Thom No. 7, glutinous rice varieties 89, glutinous rice 87, or Bio 404, hybrid rice F1, L25, especially the district is gradually introducing the yellow flower sticky rice variety which is currently very popular in the market. For example, this spring crop, the whole district planted more than 13 thousand hectares of rice, of which only 5,600 hectares are hybrid rice, the rest are purebred rice varieties. In particular, the demonstration model of 3-line hybrid rice GS 9 in hamlet 17, Phuc Thanh commune emerged. In this summer-autumn crop, Yen Thanh is also experimenting with planting high-quality rice varieties such as Khang Dan 28, ADF 5, NAR 1... so that if successful, they will continue to be widely replicated. In Phuc Thanh commune, in recent years, model fields producing F1 hybrid rice have brought in hundreds of millions of VND/ha in income for farmers.

Phu Huong