Farm economics towards large-scale commodity production

(Baonghean) - With a total annual output value of more than 900 billion VND, of which over 85% are commodity products, it can be said that developing farm economy is a right and effective direction in economic development, improving income and people's lives, especially in rural and mountainous areas.

Farm model in Nam Thanh - Yen Thanh. Photo: Van Truong

Mr. La Van Toan (Hoa Son village - Ta Ca commune - Ky Son) started building a farm in 1997, mainly protecting forests and raising livestock. In mountainous areas, this is considered the right and effective way to do it. With 10 hectares of protected forests, including all kinds of precious timber trees such as 300 individual cassia trees, 500 clove trees and 1,000 mahogany trees... when put into exploitation, it will bring in a huge source of income. Mr. Toan shared: Ta Ca commune is a poor area, family life was very difficult in the past. Thanks to the local government creating favorable conditions for land consolidation, land leasing, bank loans, and transfer of scientific and technological advances, after nearly 20 years of starting a farm economy, from a poor household with nothing in the house, I have now built a solid house, bought expensive furniture, and raised my children to study properly. In addition to the forest area we have protected, my family also raises dozens of goats, pigs, geese, chickens, fish ponds and especially in the pond there are always several hundred soft-shell turtles. In the past 3 years, after deducting all expenses, the family has earned about 125-130 million VND/year. In addition to the 6 main workers of the family, we also hire 3 seasonal workers with a salary of 3-4 million VND/person/month.

Nam Dan is considered one of the localities with strong development in farm economy. Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee - Mr. Nguyen Xuan Que said: Developing livestock, aquaculture and farm economy is an important policy of Nam Dan, aiming to promote the restructuring of agricultural and rural economy, creating concentrated areas for commodity production, increasing farmers' income. Small farms and family farms are encouraged to transfer to each other to expand their scale. As of December 2013, the whole district had 685 farms and family farms, an increase of 653 farms compared to 2000, with a total land area of ​​903 hectares, creating jobs for about 1,460 regular workers and 1,400 seasonal workers. Notably, 325 hectares of poor, barren, and low-lying land have been put into farms with the lowest net profit of 40 - 50 million VND/ha/year. Currently, Nam Dan has 32 farms that meet the criteria. Notably, the whole district has 348 livestock farms with very high economic efficiency, with 26 farms achieving a product output value of 1 billion VND/year or more. This result is thanks to Nam Dan taking appropriate and effective steps. Since 2001, farms have been supported, given investment loans and interest rate support. Up to now, the district has allocated nearly 4 billion 760 million VND from the budget to support people to build and develop farm economy.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dinh (Head of the Department of Agriculture of Quynh Luu district) said: In order to promote the development of farm economy in the area, Quynh Luu has created the most favorable conditions for 47 farm owners to receive and lease land. All farms are exempted from income tax, exempted from paying agricultural land tax for the area within the land limit, and are facilitated to borrow capital; many farm owners are supported with capital to build new models such as growing jackfruit in Tan Thang, raising shrimp according to Vietgap process. In particular, Quynh Luu is very interested in the issue of product consumption - an important step and considered to have many shortcomings in the current period. In addition to the expanded rural market system, a number of large commodity farms are facilitated to contact product consumption companies, attend seminars, and provide market information. A number of farms in Ngoc Son and Tan Thang communes are participating in non-governmental projects to find markets for their products. Four-house linkage models were formed, such as the linkage model between Quynh Luong vegetable producers, Phu Luong safe vegetable production cooperative with the North Central Institute of Science and Metro Hanoi Supermarket to produce and consume hundreds of tons of safe vegetables each year. Or the linkage model between corn seed producers in An Hoa, But Linh cooperative with Nghe An Agricultural Materials Joint Stock Company and officials of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in the production and consumption of F1 hybrid corn seeds...

Developing farm economy is considered one of the appropriate directions to develop the economy in rural and mountainous areas. Since 2000, Nghe An has issued many mechanisms and policies to develop this important economic type. Land consolidation has been focused on promoting, mechanisms and policies to create land funds, encourage land accumulation to develop farm economy have been issued. Transferring, renting, borrowing... to accumulate land for farms has become a movement in almost all localities in the province. Although it is still a poor province, the total budget revenue is not enough to cover expenses, but since 2000, every year our province has had policies to support investment in agricultural and rural development, including farm economy. In addition, programs and projects in the area are also integrated to support the infrastructure system for concentrated farm areas with large volumes of goods. In particular, many policies to encourage economic sectors to participate in industrial development, processing and consumption of farm agricultural products have been issued, promoting the linkage between production, processing and consumption of agricultural products.

From 178 farms in 2000, by 2012 the whole province had nearly 3,000 farms, with all types of cultivation, forestry, livestock, aquaculture and mixed farms. And up to now, according to the new criteria, the whole province has 420 farms, of which 116 farms have been granted farm economic certificates. Localities have paid attention to the planning of concentrated farm areas to develop commodity economy, investing in infrastructure construction to create conditions for farms to develop. Thanks to the development of farm economy, tens of thousands of jobs have been created for rural workers, contributing to the redistribution of labor, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, and economic efficiency has been increasingly improved. According to Mr. Ho Ngoc Sy - Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, by 2013, the total value of goods and services output of 420 farms reached 903,917 million VND, the average income of a farm reached 2 billion 152 million VND, the average income of a farm reached over 547 million VND, many farms had an income of over 1 billion VND.

“Farm economy is a new development in the right direction of household economy associated with the goal of large-scale commodity production, contributing to promoting the process of transforming the agricultural and rural economic structure towards rapidly increasing the proportion of commodity production, creating concentrated production areas, creating a premise for the agricultural, forestry and fishery processing industry, bringing industry into rural areas. In particular, it has contributed to effectively exploiting a large area of ​​vacant land, bare hills, and poor wasteland, creating a premise to encourage land concentration and accumulation, forming large-scale model fields, creating jobs for thousands of rural workers. Some farms have produced and provided good seeds, provided technical services, consumed products, transferred technical advances to farmers in the region, and are models for people to learn and replicate. Although there are still some limitations such as ineffective implementation of farm planning in some localities, some issues related to land use in farms have not been handled promptly, the management level of Farm owners and workers' skills are still limited, environmental protection work still has many shortcomings..., but with a total annual output value of more than 900 billion VND, of which over 85% are commodity products, it can be said that developing farm economy is an effective direction in economic development, improving income and people's lives, especially in rural and mountainous areas" - Mr. Ho Ngoc Sy affirmed.

Phu Huong