Behind the "stillborn" economic models in Western Nghe An

Part 1: "Short-lived" economic models

Although Western Nghe An has great potential and advantages, many villages and hamlets are still in difficult situations, with low incomes and the lives of the people have not really improved. Among the many reasons for this situation, there is the reason that the economic models implemented are not effective.

The "elephant head, mouse tail" model

In Yen Son village (Tri Le commune, Que Phong), at the end of 2018, passion fruit was in its main season, but dozens of hectares of the village's "life-changing tree" showed signs of yellowing and stunting in gardens filled with grass. Ms. Ha Thi Tam (born in 1952) said that her family had planted 200 passion fruit trees in 2016. However, in 2017, the trees were infected with disease and nearly 2/3 of the garden died. Now there are only 70 trees left, but the yield is low, only 200 kg per harvest, so the family is planning to cut them down to plant other trees.

Mr. Vi Van Quang - Head of Yen Son village said that this is the general situation of the whole village. If in the past, nearly 70 households in the village cultivated passion fruit, now there are only about 20 households. The cultivation area of ​​these 20 households has also decreased by about half. The villages that used to be the "capitals" of passion fruit such as Na Nieng, D1 or Xan village, Bo village are also in the same situation. Recent statistics show that the passion fruit growing area of ​​Tri Le has decreased sharply from 212 hectares in 2017 to 153 hectares in September 2018. And after 5 years of approving the 1,500-hectare planning, the current passion fruit growing area of ​​Que Phong district has only reached 201 hectares (down 82 hectares compared to 2017).

Explaining this decline, Mr. Nguyen Ba Hien - Head of the Rural Development Department of Que Phong District said that among the many reasons leading to the rapid decrease in passion fruit area, there are two main reasons. Firstly, passion fruit is a difficult plant, easily infected with disease-causing viruses, but the specific medicine has not yet been effective. Testing the effectiveness after spraying shows that the medicine only stops at the level of minimizing but has not completely eliminated the pathogens for the plants.

Second, people are afraid to spend a large amount of money, so they only invest moderately; or half-heartedly, causing the crops to decline. On the side of "business owners", the leader of Nafoods Passion Fruit Joint Stock Company said that for many reasons, almost 100% of people do not comply with the production process recommended by the company, leading to cross-infection from other diseased gardens to newly planted seedlings. In addition, recently, the passion fruit growing area in Que Phong is mainly from the district's policy programs, and people have not invested in planting and developing themselves. Therefore, awareness and responsibility in managing, caring for and protecting their assets have not been promoted.

Western Nghe An is identified as the province's key economic region, linked with the coastal plain and urban areas. The entire region has 11 districts and towns with a natural area of ​​13,709 km2.²(accounting for 83.15% of the total natural area of ​​the province). With a total population of over 1,131 thousand people (accounting for 36.93% of the province's population), including 7 ethnic groups (Thai, Tho, Kho Mu, Mong, Dan Lai, O Du and Kinh) living together, each ethnic group has its own distinct cultural identity, creating diversity and richness in life, which is the potential to develop community tourism, promoting socio-economic development.

Western Nghe An is also a region with rich potential for developing forest economy, ecotourism, mineral industry, cement and hydropower; with over 1,685,061 hectares of forestry land, 789,787 hectares of natural forest, 601,845 hectares of planted forest, 32,000 hectares of long-term industrial crops. In particular, Pu Mat National Park is the 6th biosphere reserve in Vietnam with over 2,500 species of plants, 130 rare species of animals, 295 species of birds, 54 species of amphibians and reptiles, 83 species of fish and 39 species of bats. Here, there are many river and stream systems originating from the Truong Son range with large slopes, very favorable for developing waterway transport, hydropower industry and ecotourism.

In contrast to the failure and decline in growing tea and passion fruit in the above localities, in Mai Son commune, Tuong Duong district, with methodical steps, carefully assessing the potential, advantages and challenges, and careful implementation, the results have been opposite. Only about 5 years ago, the current changes in the lives of the people of Nhon Mai commune, Tuong Duong district seemed like a distant dream. Different from the poverty, backwardness, and hunger as before, in Nhon Mai, many economic models have begun to appear, typically the model of developing passion fruit. The Mong people in Tham Tham and Huoi Co villages have had high income from this plant, people's lives have been increasingly improved, and their children's education has also been given more attention and care.

Mr. Luong Xuan Hiep - Chairman of Nhon Mai Commune People's Committee shared: "From a commune with "4 no's" (no road, no electricity, no market and no phone signal - PV), Nhon Mai now has "3 no's", only lacking a market, but trading has also become much more convenient thanks to the development of transportation. All thanks to identifying the right investment target, passion fruit, the government, people and businesses all got involved right from the first steps until the products were consumed.

Tea trees are also one of the main crops that have been developed as a model for planting for people in the Western localities. However, in many places, tea trees have gradually decreased over time. In 2014, Thanh Son commune (Thanh Chuong) implemented a model for planting tea for people with the target of reaching 320 hectares by 2020. In 2014, 70.4 hectares were planted; in 2015, 27.67 hectares were planted; in 2016, 4.45 hectares were planted. However, from 2017 until now, there has been no further development, the area has not only "stagnated" but also shown signs of decline. Even many households in Kim Hanh and Dai Son villages have removed or intercropped with acacia and cassava, so tea has not grown.

Regarding this issue, many experts and managers believe that the people's mindset of relying on and considering the model implementation as a project rather than for themselves makes the maintenance of the model ineffective after the project withdraws its funding support. Sometimes, after signing contracts with businesses that guarantee the products, people break the contracts when they do not comply with the regulations. Another reason is that when implementing the pilot model, farmers are largely supported with seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and farming and care techniques, so the economic efficiency achieved is much higher than with traditional crops and livestock. However, when implementing on a large scale, many households still maintain the habit of producing according to traditional methods, while the new model requires strict production processes, leading to lower productivity and quality compared to old farming methods, and farmers are no longer interested in participating.

According to Decree No.05/2011/ND-CPof the Government, ethnic policies are divided into 13 policy groups and related to 17 departments and 11 branches and sectors to deploy and direct implementation. Currently, the whole country has 96 policies expressed through 152 documents in effect for implementation. Of which, ethnic policies still in effect in Nghe An province are70 central policies, 12 provincial policies(as of June 30, 2018) and directly related to 14 departments, branches and sectors directing implementation.

Difficult to replicate

Besides the "elephant head, mouse tail" models, some models, although bringing initial income to people, cannot be replicated as originally planned. For example, the passion fruit growing model in 3 communes My Ly, Muong Long, Bac Ly of the border district of Ky Son. To implement this model, the People's Committee of Ky Son district supported 14 households to participate with an area of ​​0.8 ha. After 1 harvest season, the yield was quite good, with a total revenue of about 32 million VND/ha. However, according to an official of the People's Committee of Ky Son district, "through survey and assessment of terrain conditions, soil and many other factors, this passion fruit growing model is difficult to replicate to create a commodity production area as planned. Therefore, the People's Committee of the district decided not to replicate this model, but only stop growing for domestic consumption".

Or like the model of supporting livestock breeds, specifically Sind crossbred cows in Tam Quang commune, Tuong Duong district. According to Mr. Lu Van Bien in Son Ha village, Tam Quang commune, one of the households supported with Sind crossbred cows under Program 30a, said: In 2015, after borrowing to pay an additional amount of more than 4.5 million VND, his family received a Sind crossbred cow but for some reason the more he raised it, the more stunted it became and then had to be butchered and sold for meat to buy goats to raise. This is the reality of many poor households after receiving Sind crossbred cows to raise in the area.

Explaining the reason, the officer in charge of agriculture in Tam Quang commune said that Sind crossbred cows are very suitable for well-off households, households with conditions for barns and food, because in reality, in the area, households that raise a lot of cattle still use Sind crossbred cows for development. However, for poor households, they lack the conditions to build barns and maintain the habit of free-range grazing, and also do not have the conditions to grow milk grass. Therefore, the cows eat whatever they come across, so they become increasingly stunted. Not to mention, although Sind crossbred cows have a large body, they have weak resistance, and if not well cared for, they are susceptible to disease. Therefore, basically, the Sind crossbred cow breeding model cannot be replicated in the Western districts, but is only suitable for some households with large and systematic investment conditions.

Mr. TruongMinh Chau- The Head of the Department of Science and Technology Management (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) said that in the past 8 years, the whole province has built 5,369 agricultural extension models. However, the total number of successful models is only over 3,700 (accounting for 69%). The total cost of building the above models is estimated at about 560.375 billion VND. So the remaining 31% of the total models did not bring the desired results or even "died prematurely", causing a waste of nearly 174 billion VND in investment money and a lot of people's efforts in caring for and planting, wasting a lot of human resources, material resources, time and potential.