Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company: Developing raw material areas, caring for workers' lives

(Baonghean) - In the context of fierce competition in the sugar industry, Song Con Sugar Factory (Song Con Sugar Joint Stock Company) maintains its development and affirms its spirit of integration, thanks to the unit always taking care of the raw material area, constantly investing in innovation, applying technology and factory equipment to press sugarcane in time for the season, and having good investment policies.

Building clean raw material areas

The important conditions for sustainable development of sugar enterprises are the market and raw materials. To create conditions for the unit to develop sustainably, clearly seeing that farmers are the ones who make sugar, in recent years, the leaders of Song Con Sugar Joint Stock Company have continuously cared for and invested in raw material areas to ensure the development of factory capacity and jobs for workers, increasing income for farmers by mobilizing farmers to grow sugarcane, lending money to buy rice, supporting people in difficult times, investing, making advances...

From only over 2,000 hectares of sugarcane a decade ago, the sugarcane raw material area of ​​Song Con Sugar Factory has now reached 7,000 hectares and is striving to reach over 10,000 hectares by 2020. The factory has been approved by the Provincial People's Committee to increase its capacity to 5,000 tons of sugarcane per day.

Thai sugarcane variety has a yield of 100 tons/ha in Tan Xuan commune (Tan Ky).

The sugarcane weed disease once devastated the sugarcane raw material areas in Nghia Dan and Quy Hop districts. In that context, thanks to the timely implementation of many measures by the Song Con Sugar Factory, the raw material area affected by weeds in Tan Ky district has been controlled. The factory has replaced the stubbled sugarcane with new high-yield sugarcane varieties such as Thai sugarcane and other disease-free sugarcane varieties, creating a healthy raw material area of ​​7,000 hectares of sugarcane. The company's raw material sugarcane area, which used to be only in Tan Ky, has now been invested in and developed to Anh Son, Thanh Chuong, Do Luong and Huong Son districts of Ha Tinh province.

In Tan Ky, raw sugarcane is carefully cared for by the people, actively spraying pesticides against planthoppers, and preparing the land carefully. There are communes with sugarcane acreage reaching 80% such as Nghia Dong, Giai Xuan, Tan Xuan, Dong Van... In some communes, especially the Tho people, have invested in planting Thai sugarcane varieties with a yield of 100 tons/ha.

It can be affirmed that the stable results of the factory's raw materials are not only the efforts of the unit, but also the close attention and timely direction of the Party Committees and authorities from the province to the grassroots. Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Xuan Duong himself assigned the task to Tan Ky district to take care of investing in raw materials for the factory. Leaders of Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company as well as agricultural and agricultural extension staff at all levels in the locality have spent time caring for and training on the process of caring for and planting new sugarcane varieties, applying intensive farming technology to increase sugarcane productivity...

Support loans of hundreds of millions of VND/household for sugarcane growing

This year, sugarcane growers in Tan Ky are happy that the factory has an open, attractive investment mechanism that benefits sugarcane growers. The minimum purchase price for raw sugarcane with a sugar content of 100 CCS or more (at the field) is 860,000 VND/ton, 60,000 VND/ton higher than last year. The company commits to purchasing all sugarcane output from households that have signed agricultural product consumption contracts.

Transport sugar cane to the factory.

Investment support policies for sugarcane growers are also higher. Farmers are eligible for loans to buy sugarcane cultivation machines with 100% interest support for 24 months for households that are eligible for loans to buy land preparation and sugarcane planting machines. The maximum loan amount is 100 million VND/household for households with sugarcane areas of over 5 hectares; 50 million VND/household for households with sugarcane areas of over 3 hectares; the maximum repayment period is 24 months from the date of money transfer.

The company also provides loans to buy sugarcane care machines and pesticide sprayers; the maximum loan amount is 10 million VND/household for households with sugarcane area of ​​over 3 hectares; 5 million VND/household for households with sugarcane area of ​​over 1 hectare; 1 million VND/household for households with sugarcane area of ​​over 2,500m2.

Regarding support for sugarcane planting on concentrated land areas, contiguous plots of 50 hectares or more, in addition to enjoying all the new planting mechanisms mentioned above, sugarcane planting households also receive a cash support of 4 million VND/ha; support of 6 tons of treated sugarcane sludge and added microorganisms for each newly planted hectare...

To increase sugarcane productivity, the company has piloted the application of mechanization in the stages of planting, caring for and harvesting sugarcane to increase labor productivity, reduce labor, reduce production costs, increase sugarcane productivity and quality; invested in a drip irrigation model for sugarcane reaching 40 hectares and continued to expand in the following years.

Bringing sugarcane to press at Song Con sugar factory

The company also built a sugarcane seed farm to propagate sugarcane varieties to supply raw material areas to replace old, degraded varieties; currently propagating 14 varieties at the seed farm and evaluating and selecting suitable varieties for replication in the area.

In the 2015 - 2016 pressing season, Song Con Sugar Factory pressed 349,791 tons of sugarcane and 35,535.25 tons of sugar.

Mr. Le Dinh Hoan - Director of Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company said: "Identifying the difficulties ahead for the sugarcane industry, the company has proactively applied high technology in the factory's operations, invested in new sugarcane varieties, "3 together" with farmers; built a seed production center to import new sugarcane varieties with high quality and yield, suitable for climate conditions, gradually replacing old, ineffective varieties; continued to invest in mechanization, applied technical advances in the stages of planting, caring for and harvesting sugarcane, invested in a drip irrigation model using Israeli technology...".

The company is increasingly paying due attention to the lives and spirits of its employees: Fully implementing the commitments in the labor contract, ensuring the average income of employees is more than 64 million VND/person/year. The company allocates a portion of its profits with a total amount of more than 2.6 billion VND to partially support the lives of employees in the factory, especially highly skilled workers. Along with that, it ensures social insurance, health insurance, and periodic health check-ups for employees; organizes professional development training, and timely exams for promotion; organizes sports and cultural activities, etc.

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