A politician with a strange passion for agriculture

Rarely is there anyone as passionate, dedicated, and knowledgeable about agriculture as Mr. Nguyen Cong Tan - A heart devoted to farmers.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan visits a wild goose farm

A person who is always looking for new things and determined to do it. Determined until the end of life.

"I beg for the farmers"

Perhaps, most farmers know that many varieties of plants and animals currently in our country bear the mark of Mr. Nguyen Cong Tan. Plant varieties include rice, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, VA06 grass for animal feed, macadamia, oranges, tangerines, tea, etc. Livestock varieties include ostriches, French geese, French pigeons, Tam Hoang chickens, Luong Phuong chickens, Egyptian chickens, etc. Partly from passion, but partly from intelligence.

There are people who are passionate and enthusiastic about agriculture, but there are not many people who are ministers, agronomists, and understand the climate, land, soil, and scientific basis for which plants and animals grow in which regions in Vietnam like him.

That's why the Minister himself carried dozens of Egyptian chicken eggs, as the old saying goes, "handle them like eggs, catch them like flowers" for thousands of kilometers, transferred many flights, passed through several airport customs gates to bring them to Vietnam, starting the popular Egyptian chicken breeds today.

Generations of farmers often joke that: Uncle Tan is a person who always asks but never takes anything for himself. I always remember his saying whenever I ask someone this question: I ask for the farmers, I take it back for the farmers. And, the impression of Uncle Nguyen Cong Tan's contribution to Vietnam's agriculture is probably the introduction and direct and drastic direction to develop ostriches and macadamia trees, creating two new fields in the agricultural sector.

It was in 1995, during a business trip to Australia, Mr. Tan asked Ms. Dung (Vietnamese Counselor in Australia) to help him get 2 ostrich eggs. After bringing them back to Vietnam, he personally gave them to the Animal Husbandry Institute to incubate, but because the field was so new, the institute gave them to the Hanoi Zoo to successfully incubate.

Realizing that ostrich farming, which had developed in some countries, could be a new direction for the livestock industry, Mr. Tan used his personal name, not that of the Minister, to ask Nghe An Tate & Lyle Sugar Company for 100 ostrich eggs (at that time, these 100 eggs were worth the equivalent of 35,000 USD) to give to the Animal Husbandry Institute for research, incubation and breeding.

That was the milestone that marked ostrich becoming a new commodity production industry of Vietnam, later exported to South Africa, China...

The same is true for macadamia trees. Although previously, some forestry scientists had imported and planted nearly 10 trees in Ba Vi (Hanoi), there was no specific research mark for development. In 2002, after studying related documents, Mr. Tan asked a friend in Australia to import about 10,000 trees for trial planting. In 2003, another friend there gave 100 original macadamia trees. After more than 10 years of experimental planting and development, this tree species is now being planted on a fairly large area in the Central Highlands and Northwest provinces...

Science must take shortcuts

“Science always has to take shortcuts,” Uncle Tan often confided to us or in talks with scientists like that.

Working in agriculture, sometimes in a lifetime, successfully researching just one good variety is already very valuable. Moreover, our country is still facing difficulties, our capacity and qualifications are still limited, and there is a lack of mechanisms and policies to serve research work, so importing varieties that people have researched, testing them, and if suitable, then expanding them is also a good way.

Not all imported varieties are successful. When they fail, Mr. Tan often encourages and affirms his point of view: If 1-2 out of 10 are brought back, that is very good. Therefore, Mr. Tan always hopes that in the field of science, especially in the field of agriculture, where the subject is biology, the risk is very high. If we want to go fast, the State must have a "venture capital fund" to encourage scientists to be more bold and enthusiastic and to encourage private investment in scientific research. Unfortunately, due to limited resources and different opinions, it has not been possible at present.

The main thing is to practice in order to quickly apply scientific achievements with less time and State budget. Doing agriculture with only theory is useless. I think that will and enthusiasm of a leader like you are rare.

Not only using personal relationships, friendships, and people who admire him, Mr. Nguyen Cong Tan often encourages colleagues in the agency who go on business trips abroad to try to bring back suitable plant and animal varieties for testing.

Many people may not believe these stories, but there are some friends who are leaders and scientists in the agricultural sector abroad or who do not work in agriculture but believe in and have the ability to obtain good seeds and scientific documents, and Uncle Tan always relies on them. Whenever there is any new plant or animal breed that is suitable for Vietnam, they will try to send it over and of course they have to spend a lot of money to bring the breed back to Vietnam. Sometimes it is a branch of oolong tea, a few parent seeds hidden carefully at the bottom of a suitcase.

To me, Mr. Nguyen Cong Tan is a man who devoted his whole life to the agricultural sector. In 1995, China had been cultivating tens of millions of hectares of hybrid rice every year, but for Vietnam, this was a completely new production technology; however, there were also some opinions in the country that hybrid rice varieties were only grown to feed livestock.

It was Mr. Tan who was determined to bring the technology of producing hybrid rice parents into production, aiming to increase productivity and gradually expand the production of hybrid rice with higher quality, reduce part of the rice growing area to grow other crops and animals, and aim for an export agricultural sector.

I will never forget the scene of a Minister who, after finishing his office hours, would drive down to a commune in the old Ha Tay to see how hybrid rice was growing. He went 18 times in one season. He went without any notice. When the commune and district leaders heard about it, they insisted on inviting him to their headquarters, but he said it was not necessary.

Or once when he went to work at the Binh Lieu border gate (Quang Ninh), he heard the people in this border area say that they imported delicious longan varieties from China, so Mr. Tan took out his own money to buy more than a dozen trees and gave them directly to Mr. Tran The Tuc, Director of the Fruit and Vegetable Institute, to plant for testing. Or once when he went to Ben Tre, he heard the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development officials report that the province was testing some new sugarcane varieties, so he asked his colleagues to take him to see them. The road was bad, cars could not enter, so he left his colleagues behind and took a motorbike taxi to visit by himself...

Such small things show how passionate Mr. Tan is about agriculture. Later, when he became Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Tan himself was the one who determined: Aquaculture is the breakthrough of agriculture in the 21st century. A saying of Mr. Tan that many people working in the aquaculture sector remember forever is "catch birds that perch, not birds that fly". The general idea is that, for aquaculture, especially aquaculture in the sea is the strategy, not just offshore fishing.

That passion has the power to spread to many people when working and interacting with Mr. Tan. I remember that there was an Italian man who once withdrew 5,000 USD and gave it directly to a unit in the agricultural sector when he heard Mr. Tan talk about silkworm farming so well. And it was also the passion that permeated his blood that made him believe that: If you are not passionate and determined to try, then do not do agriculture.

I have seen that passion and enthusiasm since the days I worked with him and it has not diminished at all. After retiring, Mr. Nguyen Cong Tan successfully selected high-quality RVT rice varieties, which were grown in many localities and were recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and a plant seed company bought the copyright.

Just at the beginning of this year, Mr. Tan asked me to provide data from the natural resources sector on meteorology, hydrology, and the area of ​​bare hills in each region of the country so that he could select a number of suitable tree species to grow in each region and to write a book. Yet...

Former Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Cong Tan passed away on November 1 at the 108 Central Military Hospital at the age of 80.

Mr. Nguyen Cong Tan was born in 1935, in Thai Son commune, Thai Thuy district, Thai Binh province. After graduating from the University of Agriculture, Mr. Nguyen Cong Tan worked in the agricultural sector, then moved into politics with the positions of Standing Committee Member of the Hanoi Party Committee in 1983; Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee and Deputy Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee in 1986.

In 1987, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry, and then became the first Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development when the Ministries of Agriculture and Food Technology, Forestry, and Irrigation merged in 1995.

Mr. Tan served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1997 to 2002. After retiring, he founded Thanh Tay Private University in Ha Dong (Hanoi) and devoted much time to the agricultural sector. In 2007, he became Chairman of the Small and Medium Enterprises in the Rural Sector.

According to NNVN/VnExpress