Bustling early spring forest planting in Nghe An

In the early days of Spring, walking along the hills of Mau Duc commune, Con Cuong district, we saw people busy planting forests for the spring crop. Mr. Lang Van Chin in Ke Sung village, Mau Duc commune, who is planting forests, said: The price of acacia has been stable for the past year, reaching over 1.1 million VND/ton, so we are excited. After the harvest, the family hired workers to process the ground cover, dig holes, and after the Lunar New Year, they started hiring workers to plant 10 hectares of forest for the spring crop. It is expected that in about 20 days, the planting of the raw material forest area will be completed.

Mr. Vu Dinh Thanh - Chairman of Mau Duc Commune People's Committee said: The whole commune has over 3,000 hectares of raw acacia forest, this year the commune will plant over 350 hectares of new raw acacia, up to now the whole commune has planted over 120 hectares of spring forest. After Tet from the 5th, the people of the whole commune will continue to process the vegetation to plant over the remaining 270 hectares of forest.

Ms. Dinh Thi Thuy Anh - Deputy Head of the Agriculture Department of Con Cuong district said: In 2025, the province assigned the district to plant 2,000 hectares, but every year Con Cuong exceeds the target (400 hectares). This spring crop alone, the district planted over 1,000 hectares. Up to now, the district has planted over 300 hectares of spring forest, concentrated in the communes of Don Phuc, Thach Ngan, Bong Khe, Lang Khe, Chau Khe, Chi Khe...

The new feature in afforestation work is that in the past, people mainly planted forests extensively without care, but now they focus on intensive afforestation, digging holes combined with fertilizing, planting seeds to ensure quality and proper care, so acacia trees achieve high productivity.

However, in the spring forest planting work, there are still difficulties because most localities in Con Cuong district do not have raw material roads, so people transporting forest planting materials mostly have to use human power such as carrying fertilizers and seeds up the hill to plant acacia.

These days, taking advantage of favorable weather, farmers in Anh Son district are also actively planting forests in the spring crop. Mr. Le Van Tri - Head of the district's Agriculture Department said: In 2025, the province plans to assign over 1,500 hectares of raw material forests, but Anh Son will plant 1,800 hectares. Currently, the communes implementing spring forest planting include: Tho Son, Thanh Son, Binh Son, Hung Son, Duc Son...

According to the report of the Forest Protection Department, in 2025, Nghe An will plant 20,000 hectares of raw material forests (an increase of 1,500 hectares compared to last year). This year's spring crop alone, the whole province will plant 8,500 hectares (of which about 1,000 hectares of large timber forests are planted, mainly in Thanh Chuong, Nghia Dan, and Quy Hop districts). Currently, localities are actively planting forests in the spring crop to ensure progress, and have planted over 2,000 hectares of spring forests. According to the plan, spring forest planting will be completed by the end of April 2025.

The whole province currently has 30 units producing and trading seeds (with business registration certificates), which have produced over 25 million forestry seedlings of all kinds for spring forest planting. In which, Song Hieu Agricultural Forestry Company Limited has invested and built 5 acacia tissue culture nurseries producing over 5 million high-quality seedlings for large timber forest planting.

In order to ensure the quality of seedlings, the Forest Protection Department recommends that localities further strengthen the management of production and trading of plant varieties, and advise farmers to buy seeds with clear origins... Along with that, it directs localities to immediately replant forests wherever they are exploited, not leaving bare land to ensure the year's forestation plan. Localities assign professional staff to promptly provide technical guidance to people for spring forest planting to ensure progress and quality.

In addition, in 2025, the Forest Protection Department will coordinate, consolidate, renovate and upgrade about 13 nurseries belonging to forest owners and the State that are currently producing and trading forestry plant varieties in the province.

Support about 12 million high-quality tissue culture seedlings with technical transfer for care and training to serve high-quality forest planting for protection forest management boards, special-use forest management boards, forestry companies, with the form of post-investment support to access and improve skills in producing high-quality tissue culture seedlings to serve the needs of forest planting in the area.

Forestry in Nghe An has many favorable opportunities for development due to the increasing demand for processing, production of wood and forest products for domestic consumption and export. Therefore, related industries also need to have policies, credit support, infrastructure investment, encouragement to promote research, transfer of high-yield plant varieties, improve product quality to meet standards to meet domestic consumption and export needs in order to increase economic value per unit area.