"Awakening" the land in the most remote places

Conquer the land of poverty

More than 10 years ago, Vinh Kim village (Hoa Son commune, Anh Son district) was a poor and backward land. Until human power softened the rocks and gravel so that the fallow fields and bare hills were covered with acacia trees, fruit trees and vast farms... Vinh Kim really took on a new, prosperous appearance.

On the road leading to Vinh Kim village, Mr. Nguyen Van Linh - Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Hoa Son commune, laughed and shook his glasses when telling us a story that happened more than ten years ago, when Vinh Kim village was the poorest in the commune. Once, a reporter came to Mr. Huynh's house - the father of 9 children, born only one year apart - the journalist jokingly asked, half-jokingly, half-seriously: "So when do you plan to "stop" giving birth?". Mr. Huynh replied: "I will stop when my children line up long enough from the house to the gate!"

“Back then, giving birth was very innocent and careless. But now it is different, people have realized that giving birth to many children without making a living will only add to their suffering, so for the past 6 years, since the “No 3rd Child” Club was established, no couple has broken their plan. Even among 20 couples of childbearing age, about 7-8 couples who only have daughters have pledged to stop at 2 children.

From a barren, barren land, Vinh Kim (Hoa Son, Anh Son) is now covered with lush green tea, acacia and crops. Photo: Thanh Quynh

From planned births, people have invested time and money to focus on economic development to bring the income closer to the average level of the commune, which has now reached 34 million VND/household/year. Vinh Kim village is also a pioneer in helping Hoa Son commune reach the New Rural finish line in 2017", Mr. Linh said while stopping the car next to the acacia hill stretching nearly 20 hectares of Mr. Luong Van Nghiem's ​​family (born in 1963).

There were guests at home, but it took a long time before Mr. Nghiem returned in his forest-working clothes. His stilt house was nestled in the middle of vast mountains and hills, surrounded by the green of more than 1 hectare of sugarcane, cassava, and 19.7 hectares of acacia. Arranging his forest-working tools, including a knife, a machete, and a helmet, Mr. Nghiem slowly recounted the early days of his pioneering work in Khe Tro.

Mr. Nghiem is a Thai Thanh ethnic. In 1991, his house was located at the beginning of Vinh Kim village, but then the State's land reclamation policy for economic development forced the couple to move here. At that time, Khe Tro - the place he chose to settle down - was full of rocks and gravel, with wild plants growing close to people's heads. After temporarily building a shelter to shelter from the rain and sun, the couple began weeding, clearing bushes, and digging holes to pull nearly ten buffalo carts carrying seeds to plant.

Mr. Luong Van Nghiem (right) is the one who cleared the Khe Tro land to plant nearly 20 hectares of acacia and more than 1 hectare of industrial crops. Photo: Thanh Quynh

At that time, the way through Khe Sung to enter Khe Tro area of ​​his did not have the sturdy and majestic Vinh Kim bridge like today. No matter where to go or what to do, one had to wade through the flooded stream. During the dry season, it was fine, but during the rainy season, the stream water rose to nearly 7-8 meters, the water flowed so fast that one could not walk steadily, let alone carry things and belongings.

After crossing the stream, there was still a bumpy and slippery forest road. However, both buffalo and man continued to carry the seeds, level the land, and level the hills. By the time his hands and feet were thick with calluses, 7 hectares of acacia were planted. After planting acacia, Mr. Nghiem turned to planting sugarcane, cassava, and corn to have something to eat until the acacia was ready to harvest.

Build a prosperous life

After 17 years of “eating dew and sleeping in the wind” in the remote mountains and rivers, Mr. Nghiem and his wife have expanded the acacia acreage to 3 times the original time. The road leading to the farm is now wide enough to welcome dozens of trucks with a capacity of more than 20 tons transporting acacia for consumption.

In addition to acacia, Mr. Nghiem also raised a herd of nearly ten cows and pigs to take advantage of livestock by-products from the 2 hectares of agricultural crops he was cultivating. Thanks to that, his annual income has reached hundreds of millions of dong - a figure that he previously only dared to dream of.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Hop and village chief Luong Van Thai at his family's tea hill of more than 3.5 hectares. Photo: Thanh Quynh

In Vinh Kim, Mr. Nguyen Quang Hop (born in 1964) is also an old farmer who dares to "get rich by crushing rocks". In the 90s, he used to reclaim nearly 5.5 hectares of forest land in Khe Khuom. When the drops of sweat fell and wore away the rocks, the corn, bean, peanut gardens... sprouted and grew.

However, when the sweet fruits began to bear fruit, his family also faced many difficulties due to market fluctuations and long droughts that dried up the grass and trees. Thinking that all efforts had come to a dead end, in 2006, when he witnessed people in Hung Son commune "living" from tea trees, Mr. Hop and his wife went to work for hire and learn. In the early days of bringing tea back, he only dared to try growing 5 sao; unexpectedly, after 3 years of care, the tea had taken root well, yielded high yields and was delicious and rich.

In addition to being a pioneer in getting rich from the service industry, Mr. Vi Tien Anh also developed a large herd of cattle for grazing. Photo: Thanh Quynh

Following the previous generation like Mr. Nghiem, many young people in the village also have the will to rise from poverty. One of them is the young man Vi Tien Anh (born in 1980) - who got rich from the service industry which is still very unfamiliar to most people in Vinh Kim village.

Contributing to the story, Mr. Luong Van Thai - Village Chief could not help but excitedly tell us about Vi Tien Anh's start-up process. That was around 2006, when people in Anh Son district town started to catch up with the trend of building new-style houses, then installing corrugated iron roofs and iron doors. Therefore, the demand for welders was increasing.

However, the number of skilled welders in the area could be counted on the fingers of one hand. At that time, Tien Anh had also graduated from the district's vocational training class and had worked for a while in a few small shops to practice his skills. Thanks to his talent and hard work, he quickly became a skilled worker and became his own boss.

Now, the small owner has also opened many services to support people in the village in agricultural production such as renting plows and threshing machines. Talking about renting machines, Mr. Thai is more excited: "Don't think that people here don't know how to use machines and science and technology. In the past, small-scale farming was really unnecessary, but now our village also does wet rice farming, and "consolidates and exchanges plots" properly. The whole village has more than 18 hectares of agricultural land along with 50 hectares of fertile land and residential land.

A corner of the new rural area of ​​Hoa Son commune. Photo: Nguyen Hai

In addition to growing rice, people also grow corn and other crops. With agricultural by-products, people also raise buffalo, cows, pigs, and almost every household has 40-50 chickens.

Like Tien Anh here, in addition to working in the service industry, he also grows nearly 1 hectare of corn and raises more than a dozen cows. Every time the mother cow gives birth, the whole herd now goes to the valley to graze in the morning and returns to the barn in the afternoon to eat corn bran, so each cow is fat. Every year that he sells a lot of cows, Tien Anh's family's income increases by hundreds of millions of dong, allowing him to freely rotate production!

When we said goodbye to Vinh Kim, Mr. Nguyen Van Thuy - Secretary of Hoa Son Commune Party Committee did not forget to remind us that the village now has only 9 poor households out of a total of 145 households. Now Vinh Kim has internal canals bringing water to the fields, large-scale fields have produced heavy rice grains, and acacia and tea gardens have flourished and are sustainable.