Dien My Agricultural Cooperative offers diverse services

(Baonghean) - Agricultural cooperatives in Dien Chau have made important contributions to the movement of developing commodity agriculture in the area. Among them, Dien My Agricultural Cooperative is truly an outstanding cooperative when participating in the transformation of economic structure, bringing new advances into production.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh visited the peanut model of Dien My Agricultural Cooperative.

Breakthroughs

Together with Hamlet 3 Chief Phan Thang, he visited the 5.5 hectare field of genetically modified corn on 2-rice land. He said: This area used to grow rice but was often drought-prone, so this summer-autumn crop, Dien My Agricultural Cooperative proposed to the local government to switch to growing corn in the summer-autumn crop. The cooperative has cooperated with Syngenta Company to bring genetically modified corn varieties for farmers to grow. Farmers have been supported with all varieties and intensive farming processes, so they are very excited to switch. Currently, the corn is growing very well, hopefully bringing higher income than growing rice for farmers.

This is just one of many crops that Dien My Agricultural Cooperative has successfully piloted in the fields. As a purely agricultural cooperative, it has more than 270 hectares of rice and other crops, of which 200 hectares are rice fields and the rest are other crops. With the primary goal of improving the economic efficiency of production in the fields, in recent years, Dien My Agricultural Cooperative has focused on working with local authorities to change the crop structure and introduce new crops to the fields. The Cooperative actively advised the locality to come up with production plans for each crop season. Thereby, in the spring crop of 2016, the Cooperative proposed to convert 30 hectares of rice production due to lack of water to peanut cultivation.

Dien My people, who mainly grow rice, were surprised when switching to peanut cultivation. Many people did not agree to the conversion. However, the cooperative has cooperated with the North Central Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology to build a model of "high-yield peanut intensive cultivation for conversion". Thanks to that, farmers received technical support and the People's Committee of Dien Chau district supported 30 million VND for seeds and fertilizers. After harvesting spring peanuts, Dien My people were excited because the peanuts had a high yield of up to 2 quintals/sao, earning more than 4 million VND/sao, twice as high as growing rice before. The model was visited by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh, praising the way of doing things of Dien My commune members.

Previously, people in Dien My commune only grew 2 rice crops, and the winter crop left 200 hectares fallow. To encourage members to produce the winter crop, Dien My Agricultural Cooperative has boldly introduced new varieties such as supporting seeds for people to plant 5 hectares of pumpkin and soybeans to multiply widely. Notably, for the past 3 years, people in Dien My have grown winter peanuts and cabbage. Thanks to that, 120/200 hectares of rice land in Dien My produce 3 crops/year. And currently, all 270 hectares of production land of the commune have achieved revenue of over 50 million VND/ha. Dien My commune has been commended many times by the People's Committee of Dien Chau district for its achievements in winter crop production on rice land.

Dien My is also a famous locality in Dien Chau for mechanization in the fields, especially mechanization in the summer-autumn and winter crops, thanks to which, land in Dien My is not abandoned.

Enhanced service

Currently, Dien My Agricultural Cooperative is operating with 6 types of services including irrigation pumping, seed supply, fertilizer, plant protection, animal feed, internal credit services. Each year, the Cooperative provides 300 tons of fertilizer, more than 15 tons of seeds to farmers. The average profit of the Cooperative is more than 200 million VND/year.

Mr. Hoang Ngoc Thuong - Chairman of Dien My Agricultural Cooperative shared: Previously, the problems in the cooperatives such as: The problem of members' debt to the cooperatives lasted for a long time, causing the cooperatives not to expand their services and industries, the cooperatives did not bring many economic benefits from service activities due to the quantity, quality and price of services were not good... leading to many difficulties in operation. Realizing these limitations, the management board innovated and improved the apparatus.

To provide good services, the Cooperative has delivered materials to registered members' homes at a price 5% cheaper than the market price, and has offered interest-free credit purchases for a certain period of time or until the end of the season. Every year, the Cooperative coordinates with specialized departments, Plant Protection Stations, and Agricultural Extension Stations to organize training, seminars, demonstrations, etc. for members and farmers on plant disease prevention and control; applying the "3 reductions, 3 increases" program.

Genetically modified corn field of Dien My commune (Dien Chau) was planted for the first time on converted drought land.

With effective operations, bringing many benefits, farmers of the cooperative have helped Dien My commune complete criterion 13 on production organization, ensuring an income of more than 30 million VND/person/year, contributing significantly to helping Dien My commune reach the NTM target in 2015. Mr. Dang Van Linh - Secretary of the Party Committee of Dien My commune said: To develop agriculture to ensure the criteria in building the NTM of the commune, Dien My has identified the role of cooperatives as extremely important to gather farmers and mobilize farmers to change crop structure.

The commune has had many activities to help improve the capacity of cooperatives such as supporting training, fostering human resources, and solving difficulties of cooperatives in the process of joint ventures and partnerships with businesses. At the same time, it has linked up with banks and credit funds to support capital sources, ensuring the cooperative's operations.

Mai Giang