Story at Pha Khao

(Baonghean) -From Pha Khao village (Pha Danh commune - Ky Son - Nghe An), for several farming seasons, a "strange" story has been passed down: For the first time in history, the Kh'mu people of Nghe An knew how to compost cow and buffalo manure with leaves to create a good fertilizer for plants.

The crop is not traditional upland rice; it is grown by the villagers themselves with technical guidance from Huong Son Cooperative, including digging holes to plant raw material forests… The head of the technical team for acacia seedling rearing, Ven Van Manh - a local man from Pha Khao village, said so.

Pha Khao villagers harvest acacia gourd seeds.

And this Huong Son Cooperative is equally “strange”. It was born in the misty highlands of Ky Son from the passion for forest planting of a lowland man named Nguyen Van Luan (in Block 3, Muong Xen town) who brought hundreds of tree varieties to Ky Son forest land without any success or failure. At one time, he was the “king of gac planting” whose reputation was as famous as Xop Thang peak. He used the “3 together” – eating, living, and working with the people to realize his “green dream”. It is impossible to calculate how many hundreds of millions he spent and how many times his family was in turmoil because of that adventure. Providing rice, providing food, providing packages of things I can’t remember the names of to change the way of thinking and working of the people of Pha Khao village was difficult, the effort was immense! Initially, the success was as high as… a mountain: Tens of thousands of acacia trees kept growing, looking so happy. What's more, the afforestation programs in Ky Son a few years ago mainly used acacia seedlings from this "strange" nursery.

Harvesting elephant grass for livestock farm model



Local people actively expand cassava growing area

Ven Van Manh did not know all the reasons, but hundreds of hectares of acacia trees, with the enthusiasm and efforts of Manh and his team members, all of whom were Kh'mu Pha Khao villagers, had "stood" green and lush all over the forest slopes of neighboring communes, but suddenly thinned out and disappeared. Mr. Luan sadly said: "When we sold them to the forest planting program, they made all kinds of promises, but the money for the seedlings was not paid; but they did not care about the regime for the people as promised, so no one took care of them, protected them, and the buffaloes and cows destroyed them all...".

So are you all discouraged? Ven Van Manh shook his shaggy head and said: “What do you mean discouraged? Now the villagers are following Mr. Luan to grow high-yield cassava. They are less enthusiastic, but seeing the cassava growing well, and Mr. Luan committed to selling it to cassava factories in the lowlands, they are very confident…” Yes, the mountains and forests around Pha Khao are already full of high-yield cassava. Mr. Luan said that the Mong people from Muong Long also came to ask for seeds and cooperate with him to grow high-yield cassava. They rented land from Pha Danh and grew it very enthusiastically.


I believe in cassava. I am planning to establish more cattle ranches and elephant grass plantations of Mr. Luan, and he is certainly determined. What about Ven Van Manh and the Kh'mu Pha Khao villagers? Manh nodded his messy head and said: "Mr. Luan, please help me at first, let's do it!"

That is the story of Pha Khao village. And there will surely be many more “strange stories” in this highland village!

Sam Temple