Arousing people's strength to "make" new rural areas
(Baonghean) -Coming to Thanh Lien commune (Thanh Chuong), the people of the commune are busy with spring crop production. In the large fields after conversion, tractors are bustling to replace human and buffalo power; the banks of the fields are built high, internal traffic is expanded, agricultural vehicles carry seeds and fertilizers to the fields... That success is partly due to the Party Committee and the commune government knowing how to mobilize the people's strength...
Taking us around the fields after conversion, comrade Phan Ba Ngoc, Chairman of Thanh Lien Commune People's Committee, excitedly said: "Thanh Lien's land is basically terraced, some places are low-lying, some places are hollow, so it is very difficult to convert the land. Therefore, despite the difficulties, the Commune's New Rural Development Steering Committee still shows its determination to do it. The government and the people have a high consensus on the plan to reclaim all the land and then redistribute it by region. Accordingly, it is necessary to ensure that each household receives land closest to their place of residence, and secondly, it is necessary to rotate land for internal commune transfers, especially ensuring that the coefficient/household does not exceed 2 regions of both rice fields and colored land. In the total of 528 hectares of production land, there are 75 hectares of low-lying land, which can only produce one crop; 54 hectares of hollow land, so how to ensure fairness for the people is a matter of concern.
Thanh Lien farmers bring machinery into production after land conversion.
After the meetings, the proposed plan was to first build intra-field traffic to meet production requirements, ensuring that in any area, vehicles with a load capacity of 3.5 tons can reach the place; invest in upgrading and rebuilding canals to ensure water is brought to the fields; the production level (the output level that must be paid according to the season) must be accurate, fair, based on criteria (distance, traffic, irrigation and soil). Farmers saw that their interests were guaranteed, so they agreed to support, contributing 1.6 billion VND, 2,100 bamboo poles and thousands of working days to build intra-field traffic, canals, and redistribute land. Up to now, Thanh Lien has successfully converted land according to new rural criteria with 1.89 areas/household; focusing on 385 hectares of rice production, 128 hectares of color production and 12.8 hectares of fish. After the conversion, the land was spacious, creating conditions for farmers to use machines to replace human labor. This spring, the commune directed the planning of specialized areas and the introduction of commercial crops on the land such as sugarcane (12 hectares), watermelon, squash (3 hectares), and planned 19 integrated farms. "The re-planned production land has a large scale, no longer fragmented and small-scale as before, so the farming efficiency will certainly be higher, and people will be excited to do business. At this rate, Thanh Lien's economy will change, and people's lives will improve...", said the Chairman of the Commune People's Committee.
Not only successful in land conversion, in recent times, Thanh Lien has mobilized people to invest in building rural infrastructure, people enthusiastically donated land and property to support the construction of inter-village and inter-commune roads, and hardened canals... Mr. Phan Duc Duong, head of Lien Thuong hamlet, said: “Although the lives of people in the village are facing many difficulties, when there was a policy to build nearly 1km of road, people all agreed to support. On average, each household contributed 1 million VND to build a concrete road; specifically for site clearance, 100% of people voluntarily donated land (14 households along the road axis all voluntarily donated land, the largest household donated 300m2, the smallest household donated 50-70m2, and cut down 500 hybrid acacia trees) and contributed dozens of working days to build the road. Up to now, the village has basically closed the concrete road according to standards”.
Up to this point, the people of the whole commune have donated more than 124,500m2 of land and thousands of working days worth billions of VND to plan 15.46km of intra-field traffic, harden 2.9km of canals; contributing to the completion of 6/19 new rural criteria, 7 criteria reaching 70% and it is expected that by the end of 2013, 5-7 more criteria will be completed. Mobilizing resources well, in which the main resources are identified from within the people, is the premise for Thanh Lien to complete the new rural criteria.
Article and photos: THANH PHUC
