"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 efforts 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 as he told 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, only one year apart - the journalist jokingly asked, "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’s different, people have realized that having many children without making a living will only add to their suffering, so for the past 6 years, since the “No Third 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 committed to only having 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 invest time and money to focus on economic development to bring 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 as he stopped his car next to the nearly 20-hectare acacia hill 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 endless green of more than 1 hectare of sugarcane, cassava and 19.7 hectares of acacia. Arranging his forest-working tools including a machete, a machete and a helmet, Mr. Nghiem slowly recounted the early days of his pioneering career 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 government'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 his head. After temporarily building a shelter to shelter themselves from the rain and sun, the couple began weeding, clearing bushes, and digging holes to pull nearly ten buffalo carts of seedlings to plant.

Mr. Luong Van Nghiem (right) is the one who reclaimed 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 house did not have the sturdy and majestic Vinh Kim bridge like today. No matter where you go or what you do, you have to wade through the flooded stream. During the dry season, it was fine, but during the rainy season, the stream water would rise to nearly 7-8 meters, the water flowed so fast that you could not walk steadily, let alone carry things and belongings.

After crossing the stream, there was still a bumpy, slippery forest road. Yet, both buffalo and man continued to carry the seeds, level the land, and level the hills. By the time his feet and hands were thick with calluses, 7 hectares of acacia had been planted. After planting acacia, Mr. Nghiem turned to growing sugarcane, cassava, and corn to have something to eat while waiting for the acacia to be harvested.

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 developed a herd of nearly ten cows and pigs to take advantage of livestock by-products from the 2 hectares of agricultural crops he is cultivating. Thanks to that, his annual income has reached hundreds of millions of dong - a number 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 breaking 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 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 a service profession that is still very unfamiliar to most people in Vinh Kim village.

Adding to the fun, Mr. Luong Van Thai - Village Chief couldn't help but happily 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 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 boss 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 was even 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 also “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 a mother cow gives birth to a calf, now the whole herd goes to the valley to graze in the morning and returns to the barn in the afternoon to eat corn bran, so each calf is fat. Every year when 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 the 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.