Reading newspapers helps find ways to escape poverty.

(Baonghean) - Lang Van Trung (born in 1981) was born and raised in Phuc village (Don Phuc commune, Con Cuong district), a rural area on the left bank of the Lam River, where life is still full of difficulties and hardships. Difficult transportation, outdated farming practices, and limited education levels are the "walls" that trap the people in poverty and deprivation. Each year, the people here only cultivate one crop of upland rice and one crop of paddy rice. In years with favorable weather, with rain and sunshine at the right times, they might have enough to eat. But in years with erratic weather, from drought to floods, the people in his village are certain to go hungry, sometimes having to go into the forest to find wild yams and other tubers to eat instead of rice.

Living near the commune's People's Committee headquarters, Lang Van Trung often went to the community learning center to read books and newspapers in his free time, because, according to him, books and newspapers contain a lot of useful and valuable information. One time, he came across an article introducing a model of integrated farm and forest-based economic development. He asked for a copy to take home and read it repeatedly. He realized that his hometown shared many similarities with the location mentioned in the article. The people in the article were around his age; they had boldly taken on forest land to plant acacia trees and develop commercial cattle farming. Thanks to this, they gradually escaped poverty, became wealthy, and were able to invest in their children's education. Lang Van Trung thought that he and his wife were both healthy, and their hometown's forest land was vast and suitable for planting acacia trees for raw materials. That was the path to escaping poverty; he should boldly borrow capital to plant trees and build a farm. Without hesitation, Trung applied for land to plant trees and took the opportunity to study documents on farm economic development and buffalo and cattle breeding.

Mr. Lang Van Trung takes care of the herd of cows.

Having been allocated over 11 hectares of forest land by the state, Lang Van Trung boldly borrowed capital to develop his production. Most of the land is planted with acacia trees, which are now nearly four years old and will yield hundreds of millions of dong in harvest in a few more years. The remaining area is used for growing grass to feed cattle and intercropping cassava to raise pigs and chickens, following the principle of "using short-term gains to support long-term growth." To date, in addition to the 11 hectares of acacia, Trung and his wife own nearly 10 cows and almost 200 chickens, ensuring a stable family economy and promising a substantial income in the near future. He shared: "I realize that planting forests and developing farm economics is a sustainable way of doing business in this area. This work isn't too difficult; it just requires diligence, perseverance, and dedication. If done well, the forest will generate food and money..."

More importantly, seeing the promising economic results of Lang Van Trung's approach, the people of Phuc village and other villages in the commune followed suit. Anyone who came to learn about his methods and experience in forest planting and farm development was enthusiastically guided and given technical documents for research. He became an active "propagandist," encouraging and guiding the villagers to boldly pursue wealth, especially through planting hybrid acacia trees. Currently, there are no specific statistics on the area of ​​acacia trees in the entire commune, but it is estimated to be in the thousands of hectares. Acacia trees are gradually establishing their position and will become the main crop. Lang Van Trung can be considered one of the "pioneers" in Don Phuc.

Text and photos:TUONG ANH