Land consolidation and plot exchange - "Voices" from the fields. Part 2: New values

(Baonghean) - After land consolidation and plot exchange, people have the conditions to apply mechanization and scientific and technological advances to production, stimulate agricultural production services to save production costs, increase economic efficiency per unit area... gradually accelerate agricultural and rural development, improve farmers' lives.

Mechanized land preparation in Hung Thang commune (Hung Nguyen). Photo: Phu Huong

Reduce labor, increase production value

It is not difficult to see positive changes after localities basically completed the land reclamation work in the field. Regarding Thanh Lien commune (Thanh Chuong), Mr. Dinh Viet Nam, Vice Chairman of the Commune People's Committee, took us to the "reality" in the fields and said: Now, cars have gone to every field without any obstacles. All kinds of machinery have reached every field, ensuring favorable production, reducing working days and labor for the people. The entire internal traffic system is built with 7m wide rice fields, with 1m wide irrigation canals on both sides. Thanks to land conversion, the commune has planned 22 hectares of bad land, near rivers and lakes to build 19 farms and ranches with high income. Here, we came to the farm of Mr. Pham Van Dung and Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong, on an area of ​​just over 1.3 hectares, in addition to the structure of growing rice once a year and raising fish, they have invested in raising 500 chickens, 30 pigs, and sows for an income of hundreds of millions of dong each year. Mr. Dung said: Thanks to the land conversion, the family has the conditions to receive more land, from which to build a farm and until now the economic conditions have improved, and have the conditions to take care of the children's education.

Thanh Tien Commune (Thanh Chuong), which is a locality with mainly hilly land and small fields, is often affected by droughts and floods every year. Although it has an abundant labor force, due to the small area of ​​​​production land, combined with the weak economic development and proactive restructuring mindset, people's income is still not high. The situation has changed after the commune completed the land reclamation. Families with many children but little land have now boldly received fields in bad land areas to improve and cultivate to increase productivity. Or families lacking labor have applied mechanization to production, reducing labor but still ensuring family income. Mr. Nguyen Trong Bay, Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh Tien Commune, said: Thanks to the land reclamation, the commune has planned specialized areas such as rice cultivation, vegetable cultivation and farm construction. Currently, there are hundreds of plows and threshing machines in the commune, people no longer have to work as hard as before.

Phuc Thanh Commune (Yen Thanh) is considered a pioneer in the agricultural land reform in Nghe An. With an area of ​​over 500 hectares of cultivated land, Phuc Thanh has the conditions to develop and improve the efficiency of agricultural production. However, in the past, because the commune's land was fragmented, each household had an average of 5-10 plots of land, it was difficult to organize concentrated production as well as bring mechanization to the fields. The agricultural land reform has been carried out since the year 2000, but only since 2010, in conjunction with the National Target Program on New Rural Construction, has the agricultural land reform in Phuc Thanh really become active. Chairman of the Commune People's Committee - Mr. Dinh Van Duong, said: "Each household only has 1 - 2 rice fields left, along with that, we are proceeding to improve the fields, creating favorable conditions to build large-scale fields. From the contract of rice seed production with the enterprise purchasing the products on the large-scale field of 40 hectares, Phuc Thanh farmers have had an income of up to 140 - 150 million VND/ha/year from rice."

Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development - Mr. Ho Ngoc Sy said: The most remarkable thing is that the awareness and habits of farmers in agricultural production have changed. Previously, on the same field, there were many seasons and many varieties. People produced according to their family's habits and needs, without community awareness, and production was concentrated in the direction of goods. After the land reclamation, from large, square, mechanized fields being introduced, plus the efforts of the agricultural sector and localities in organizing production, joint ventures, and associations with enterprises, people have gradually become familiar with large-scale field production, concentrated commodity production, and gradually approached and applied scientific and technological advances in agricultural production. Thanks to that, specialized and concentrated commodity production fields, creating large volumes of products to meet market demands, are increasingly being replicated.

Forming large model fields

Harvesting rice with a combine harvester in Hung Tan commune (Hung Nguyen). Photo: Phu Huong

Thanh Chuong is one of the leading districts in the field of land use planning. The most obvious changes are that the water shortage in the summer-autumn crop is no longer as complicated as before thanks to the synchronous investment in the canal system. After the conversion, the district is promoting the mobilization of people to build livestock farms on poor and ineffective land. The total number of existing farms up to this point is 300, of which the number of farms increased after the conversion is 206. The application of machinery to agricultural production has also had a very strong development with a total of 1,699 machines, an increase of 702 machines compared to before the conversion. Throughout the fields, large-scale fields and specialized fields with high economic efficiency have been formed, such as the large-scale field specializing in corn in Thanh Lien commune, the field specializing in rice production in Thanh Phong... Mr. Phan Dinh Ha, Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee affirmed: The success in the land reform work has overcome the situation of fragmented land, created conditions for the formation of a number of concentrated production areas, encouraged farmers to invest, apply technical advances, and increase the value of agricultural production in the direction of commodity production.

By completing the project early, the entire Yen Thanh district has favorable conditions to promote the effectiveness of large and square rice fields. Mr. Nguyen Vuong Ngoc, Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee, said: Currently, Yen Thanh has nearly 20 combine harvesters, serving over 80% of the district's rice area, more than 1,000 tillage machines, mechanizing land preparation at a rate of over 80%, harvesting and threshing at the field at over 60%, contributing to quickly solving the crop season and increasing labor productivity, helping to shorten the harvest time from 7-10 days to 2-3 days. From the results of the project, the district also promotes cooperation with enterprises inside and outside the province, building large model fields for higher economic efficiency. Every year, this locality cooperates with enterprises to produce nearly 1,000 hectares of rice seeds per crop in communes such as Hoa Thanh, Tho Thanh, Do Thanh, Hau Thanh, Phuc Thanh, Lien Thanh, etc., creating many high-quality rice production areas with an area of ​​nearly 3,000 hectares, each year providing 10 to 15% higher income value, organizing the production of nearly 40 large production fields, ensuring stable output for the people.

Currently, the entire province has an agricultural land area of ​​nearly 196 thousand hectares. Previously, agricultural land was fragmented and dispersed, the number of rice fields per household was large, from 3-5 plots/household, even some households had more than 10 rice fields. After 3 years of implementing the land use change policy, the land situation in the entire province has changed in a positive direction. The number of rice fields per household has been reduced, even in some localities such as Phuc Thanh (Yen Thanh), Nghia Dong (Tan Ky)... each household has only 1-2 rice fields. This is an important premise to create fundamental changes in production. Starting to build large-scale model fields from the spring crop of 2012 on the basis of concentrated land, Nghe An now has 28 large-scale model fields with main crops being rice, corn and peanuts, with productivity, output and efficiency at least 10-15% higher than mass production. At the same time, 157 effective production models have been organized throughout the province.

Pham Bang - Phu Huong