Difficult transportation in raw material areas: Products are forced to lower prices

(Baonghean) - Due to difficulties in transportation, raw materials at harvest age are often forced to lower prices, leading to losses for growers.

Coming to Chau Ly commune (Quy Hop), from afar, you can see the vast green color of hybrid acacia trees. Along National Highway 48C, you can occasionally see people carrying acacia trees to the side of the road to wait for trucks to come and pick them up. Mr. Luong Van Tien in Tham village, Chau Ly commune shared: “My family has just sold 1 hectare of acacia but at a cheap price, over 15 million VND/ha. The reason for such a low price is because the traffic is very poor. From National Highway 48C to the acacia harvesting site, about 6 km away, the road is muddy, we have to rent a "tank bo" truck to the asphalt road, which costs more than 4 million VND/ha”.

It is known that Tham village has over 12 hectares of sugarcane and over 100 hectares of hybrid acacia. When it comes to the acacia and sugarcane harvest season, people are very miserable because of transportation. Currently, due to the difficulty of traffic to the harvest area, Tham village still has over 60 hectares of acacia that has reached maturity and has not been harvested. In addition, many other households are also in a "half-crying, half-laughing" situation because they cannot sell acacia because some areas have planted forests but do not have access roads. For example, Mr. Nguyen Van Binh's household has over 10 hectares of acacia, Mr. Vi Van Huong in Con village has 7 hectares of acacia that has not been sold... Many households growing acacia and sugarcane in Chau Ly said that they have contributed money and put effort into opening roads to the acacia raw material area, but have only built temporary roads, and large cars cannot get to the place to transport acacia.

Mr. Vi Van Quanh - Vice Chairman of Chau Ly Commune People's Committee said: Chau Ly is the commune with the largest area of ​​hybrid acacia trees in the district, with over 1,600 hectares. Of which, over 1,000 hectares of acacia are ripe for harvest, but due to traffic difficulties, Chau Ly has only harvested over 40% of the area, the rest has not been sold. The commune benefits from National Highway 48C passing through the area, which is over 2.3 km long, but the traffic system serving the raw material trees is mainly temporarily opened by the people themselves. Mainly "ungraded" roads are used for ox carts and small agricultural vehicles to transport "tang bo" to the asphalt road. Many key villages with hybrid acacia trees have not been harvested, such as the Chong village route connecting National Highway 48C, over 7 km long, with more than 90 hectares of acacia. The Bon village route connecting National Highway 48C, 6 km long, has over 100 hectares of acacia yet to be harvested. Not to mention the roads to Xao village, Bung village, and Con village, most of the trails that people built themselves are so muddy during the rainy season that even small vehicles cannot enter.

Mr. Quanh added: Due to difficulties in raw material transportation, farmers are forced to lower prices by traders, because each hectare of acacia usually costs 3-4 million VND in transportation costs, and in more difficult places, it costs 6-7 million VND/ha. The entire Chau Ly commune really needs the government to integrate project programs to invest in a 17km raw material transportation route to exploit the potential of planted forests, avoiding the situation of traders forcing down prices. In 2013, the entire commune planted over 350 hectares of acacia, mainly in remote locations without access roads, and when harvesting, this is also a difficult problem in terms of output.

Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa - Chairman of Chau Thai Commune People's Committee said: Chau Thai has over 2,000 hectares of acacia, up to this point only nearly 500 hectares have been harvested, the remaining over 1,000 hectares of acacia have reached harvest age and have not been sold due to difficult traffic. In many areas, private traders have offered too low a price, so people have not sold, waiting for a better price. Currently, people in some villages have contributed to open roads, such as the road to Thai Hoc village, with 3-4 groups of people, each group of 4-6 people contributing to open the road, each household contributing from 2-3 million VND. Up to this point, people in the whole commune have contributed over 600 million VND to open roads for raw material trees.

The road to the raw material area of ​​Don Phuc commune (Con Cuong) is muddy.

The entire Quy Hop district has over 16,000 hectares of hybrid acacia (the largest area in the province). Currently, Dong Hop Forestry Enterprise and Quy Hop Forestry Enterprise have planned and opened raw material transportation routes, but they are mainly "ungraded" roads that can only be used in the dry season. For the communes in Quy Hop district, most of them do not have roads serving raw materials, mainly some roads are combined from roads serving people's lives such as Chau Quang route to Chau Thai, Nam Son, Bac Son, Quy Hop Town route to Chau Cuong, Chau Hong, Chau Tien... The remaining branch roads to the raw material tree area connecting with inter-commune roads, were built by the people themselves but were very makeshift, in the rainy season many roads built by the people themselves are muddy, vehicles cannot enter.

Currently, Quy Hop has 3 investment routes for people combined with raw material roads but the construction is still unfinished due to lack of capital, only reaching over 40% of the volume. Such as Chau Loc, Chau Tien route, 16km long, worth 69 billion VND; Nghia Xuan - Ha Son route, 13km long, worth 35 billion VND (people's road combined with sugarcane transportation); Chau Quang, Chau Thai, Chau Cuong road, 10km long, worth 57 billion VND. Due to difficulties in raw material roads, the consumption of acacia is limited, out of 16,000 hectares of acacia in the whole district, about 10,000 hectares are ripe for harvest but only over 4,000 hectares have been sold.

Besides, Quy Chau district has over 12,000 hectares of acacia, the communes with large plantations include Chau Binh 700 hectares, Chau Hanh 500 hectares, Chau Thuan 400 hectares... with over 7,000 hectares for harvest but only about 3,000 hectares have been sold, the rest have not been consumed due to difficult traffic.

To improve the traffic on raw material roads, in addition to the routes that people make themselves, forestry companies also invest their own capital to build raw material roads. Mr. Ho Dinh The - General Director of Song Hieu Forestry and Agriculture One Member Co., Ltd. said: From 2008 to now, the Company has invested its own funds to open over 200km of new raw material roads with a width of 4 - 5 meters, worth 7.5 million VND/km. In 2013 alone, the Company opened over 19km. Thanks to that, the Company has stably exploited over 1,000ha of acacia annually, but the road has no bridges or culverts on the route, so it can only be transported in the dry season, and cannot be circulated in the rainy season, so many acacia areas cannot be harvested. In addition, Tuong Duong Forestry Company has invested up to now to open over 20km of raw material roads, Con Cuong Forestry Company has invested in opening over 12km of new roads...

Up to now, the whole province has over 100,000 hectares of raw material trees, of which the age for harvest accounts for over 60%. Many areas have not been harvested due to difficult traffic. To overcome the above difficulties, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has submitted to the Provincial People's Committee for the establishment of a project on the internal raw material traffic system in Nghe An province for the period 2010 - 2015, focusing on the districts: Thanh Chuong, Nghi Loc, Quy Hop, Nam Dan, Yen Thanh, Quy Chau, Tan Ky, Con Cuong, Do Luong, Nghia Dan... with a system of main roads and branch roads, with a total length of 361.70km. However, up to now, some traffic road construction projects have started, but due to capital difficulties, construction has had to stop.

Van Truong