Sweet sugarcane Ha Son

(Baonghean) - We arrived at Ha Son (Quy Hop) on a late afternoon. This is the land known as the "sugarcane capital" of Quy Hop district, a land that is on the rise.

Before going to Ha Son, I called the Chairman of the Commune People's Committee - Mr. Le Van Thanh, on the other end of the line, Mr. Thanh reminded me over and over again, if you go by motorbike, you should go along the Ho Chi Minh road to Milestone 0, from Lat Town (Tan Ky) up the asphalt road through Tan Long, Nghia Hoan, Tan Phu to Tan Xuan Commune, from there, it's only 4-5 km to Ha Son, which is the most convenient. But now the State is constructing a 30 km road from Quy Hop Town to the commune, and it's raining like this, so we can't go. Following Mr. Thanh's instructions, we returned to Ha Son in the freezing cold of a day at the end of the year.

Touching the land of Ha Son are the immense green sugarcane hills with fresh air. This season is the sugarcane harvest season, on the hillsides people are busy cutting, bundling into bundles, gathering sugarcane to the end of the field, loading it onto cars to take to the factory. After a warm handshake with the Chairman of the People's Committee of Le Van Thanh commune, we felt the warmth and enthusiasm when we first set foot on this land. Mr. Thanh was the first person to bring sugarcane to plant on Ha Son land. With that achievement, he was able to report on the implementation of Directive No. 03 on continuing to promote "Studying and following the moral example of Ho Chi Minh" at the typical conference of the province, May 2013. And now wherever we go in Ha Son land, in the story of sugarcane, people mention him with admiration and love.

Through Mr. Thanh's sincere and open words, we know that Ha Son is transforming itself to become one of the top communes in the inner region of Quy Hop district. Before the 90s of the 20th century, the lives of Ha Son people were very poor, the agricultural land only knew how to grow upland rice all year round, low productivity, so the rice grains were not enough to feed more than 4 thousand people, most of whom were Tho ethnic people. Therefore, poverty has clung to Ha Son people for generations. As a young and dynamic local key official, in the process of carrying out leadership, direction and management tasks, Mr. Le Van Thanh has always been exemplary, daring to think, daring to do, daring to take responsibility before the collective, actively practicing thrift, fighting against corruption, waste... Therefore, in the local economic development strategy, as a key official, he identified two key points: growing sugarcane and raising goats for sale. In 1998, the Tate & Lyle Quy Hop Sugarcane Factory came into operation. He was the pioneer in mobilizing people to gradually convert the area from upland rice to growing raw sugarcane. In order for sugarcane to prove its economic efficiency, he and the Party Committee and People's Committee of the commune agreed to assign each cadre from the commune to the hamlet to plant first.

Since 2000, Ha Son people have focused on expanding sugarcane acreage, combined with investment to increase productivity. Up to now, Ha Son's sugarcane acreage has reached 1,100 hectares, accounting for 70% of the commune's agricultural land area. It is known that the entire Quy Hop district currently has about 7,000 hectares of sugarcane to provide raw materials for the Tate & Lyle Quy Hop Sugarcane Factory, so Ha Son commune alone accounts for more than 1/7 of the total sugarcane acreage of the district. Ha Son's average sugarcane yield is also higher than the district's average, with 65 tons/ha, while the average for the whole district is more than 50 tons/ha.

Mr. Le Van Thanh - Chairman of Ha Son Commune People's Committee guides people on how to harvest sugarcane.

In Ha Son, sugarcane areas with a yield of over 100 tons/ha are not rare. For one thing, the locality knows how to evaluate each type of land to structure the sugarcane variety appropriately. For example, hilly land mainly grows MI sugarcane, while areas with high humidity concentrate on ROC 10 and QD 93 sugarcane varieties. The family of Mr. Truong Van Thuong, in Dong Nang hamlet, is one of the households that got rich from sugarcane. Mr. Thuong and his wife openly said: If they continued to cultivate upland rice, corn, and cassava like before, the family would not be able to build a solid house to live in, and would not have money to raise their children to study. The couple moved out in 1994, their only assets being a wooden box, a few earthen pots, a hut built on the mountainside, and 10 sao of land. Seeing many areas of abandoned land overgrown with trees and cassava to fill their stomachs, the couple worked hard to reclaim it, opening up a little more each day. The land does not fail the people, when the sugarcane plant started growing in Ha Son, the couple already had 5 hectares of land to grow sugarcane. Every year, the couple invested in reasonable fertilizers and took care of them on time, so the sugarcane yield every year reached over 70 tons/ha. In addition, the couple also reclaimed 3 sao of land to grow 2 rice crops, the food produced was enough for the family to eat all year round.

Mr. Le Van Thanh is the first commune leader invited by Tate & Lyle Quy Hop Sugarcane Factory to visit the disease-free sugarcane area in Lam Son (Thanh Hoa). This is an opportunity for him to learn about the experience of taking care of sugarcane from Lam Son land for the locality to apply. After that visit, he boldly took clean sugarcane seeds from Lam Son to supply to the people in the commune, so the sugarcane here is always disease-free, the productivity has increased dramatically. To do that is a concern for every cadre and party member, especially key cadres of the commune like Mr. Thanh.

In order for Ha Son to have conditions for sustainable economic development, in recent years many traffic development projects have come to this land. In just a short time, from Quy Hop Town, Lat Town (Tan Ky), or from Chau Thon of Que Phong District down, there will be asphalt roads passing through Ha Son easily and conveniently. Thus, from Ha Son, wanting to go to National Highway 48 or Ho Chi Minh Road to go to Vinh, Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City... is no longer as difficult as before. This will be the basis for creating a "push", awakening the agricultural economic potential of this great region. Therefore, there are families who intend to plan land for commercial orange growing with an area of ​​1 hectare or more.

Ha Son, anyone who comes here can easily feel the spring spreading from the sugarcane hills, the hard-working life of the people has now changed thanks to sugarcane. In the spring, Ha Son people are always grateful for sugarcane, grateful to commune cadre Le Van Thanh, who has sweetened the prosperity of the Tho ethnic people here.

Xuan Hoang