Nghia Hop Dairy Cooperative: A bright spot in Tan Ky

(Baonghean) - Dairy farming households in Nghia Hop commune, Tan Ky district have established a dairy farming cooperative and are operating effectively. The cooperative takes care of breeding, veterinary, and output for farming households.

From 4 original breeding cows

By chance, through a friend's introduction, Mr. Nguyen Hung Son in Hamlet 3, Nghia Hop Commune (Tan Ky) brought the first 4 dairy cows home to raise. At first, the whole family was worried because they did not know how to raise dairy cows, whether they could raise them or not? Every day, people from the village came to see...

Cooperative members feed cows.

Each cow costs 60 million VND, which is a great asset for rural farmers, so Mr. Son and his wife take care of and raise them every day according to the technical process instructed by large farms... Thanks to that, in the first year, each day, his family collected 100 kg of milk, priced at 13,000 VND/kg, which means he earns 1.3 million VND per day. Every day, he diligently milks and transports the milk to the Vinamilk Milk Factory.

With a high and stable income from milk, friends and people in the neighborhood came to Mr. Son's house to learn, watch him feed the cows, watch him milk them, and then were surprised when drinking the first cups of hot milk produced by their hometown people... They were gradually attracted by a new and attractive job, especially the income. The number of people raising dairy cows following Mr. Son's model is increasing. Mr. Son said that every calf born from his farm is bought by people to breed at a price of 10 million VND/calf. In the first months of 2016, he sold 9 calves.

Members bring milk to import.

To create a collective to share experiences in business, cow care, create a large enough source of goods to import for the factory, especially to undertake the product consumption stage, Mr. Son and other cow raising households established a dairy cow raising cooperative in Nghia Hop with 12 members, including 1 member in Nghia Dong commune and 2 members in Tan Phu. Up to now, after 2 years of bringing dairy cows to Nghia Hop, the total number of cows in the cooperative is 157. Of which, Mr. Son's household alone has grown from 4 cows to 20 cows; Mr. Ngo Van Ngoan's family in Nghia Dong has 50 cows; Mr. Le Van Hieu's family in Tan Phu has 10 cows...

To ensure that milk is always purchased by the factory, the cooperative always thoroughly instructs its members on cleaning machinery, keeping barns clean, milking according to technical procedures, importing milk immediately after milking, and absolutely not importing milk with vaccines...

Mr. Ngo Van Ngoan said: “When my family proposed to build a dairy farm, the commune gave us 5 hectares of land in the field, then paved the road, and brought electricity... Thanks to that, from the initial 5 dairy cows, I now have 50 cows, earning 550 kg of milk a day, and I was able to buy a truck to import milk for the people every day... Thanks to Mr. Son's bold start, my family's life has changed.”

More policies needed for new cooperative models

Tan Ky currently has many agricultural cooperatives, but innovations like the dairy cooperative in Nghia Hop are few. Although the cooperative model is simple and has few members, everyone is united and works towards a common goal. Dairy farming is a new profession and brings high income in Nghe An localities.

Milk is filtered before being imported.

To develop this profession, we need a large enough area to grow grass, an area to build barns, ensure rural environmental sanitation, capital to invest in machinery, and especially capital to buy breeding cows. The current market price of a breeding cow is 60 million VND, so most households have to borrow money from banks to buy cows. At Nghia Hop Dairy Cooperative, members currently have to borrow hundreds of millions of VND from banks, many of which borrow 300 - 400 million VND.

Some localities in the province have had policies to support the development of dairy cow herds. For example, Thai Hoa town, in 2015 and 2016, supported the first year of interest for households buying dairy cow breeds, which means that each cow is supported with 6 million VND, and households raising many cows are supported with 60 - 80 million VND. In Tan Ky, the goal is to raise over 1,000 dairy cows by 2020. Initially, the district has invested funds for farm owners to learn from experience and visit models in other provinces, creating favorable conditions for granting land certificates for farms, however, there is no "stimulus" policy for breeding cows.

Members of Nghia Hop Dairy Cooperative also hope to be granted land and lease land to build farms away from residential areas to ensure environmental protection. The issues raised require commune and district levels to actively participate in supporting people to develop new models that bring high economic efficiency.

Pearl