Tho Hop: A strong tripod: Sugarcane - forest - color

(Baonghean) -After many years of organizing specialized production planning and changing crop structure. The right direction that the Tho Hop Commune Party Committee (Quy Hop) has outlined is leading the poor Tho Hop commune to develop day by day as an agricultural and forestry area shaped according to a tripod: sugarcane - afforestation - color.

Although it is a purely agricultural commune, no farmer in Tho Hop has rice fields because of the complex geological and topographic conditions and the scarce water resources that make it impossible to build an irrigation system for irrigation. For that reason, the ethnic communities of Tho, Kinh, and Thai in the commune are constantly struggling with poverty. As people say, "fire tests gold, hardship tests strength", the team of cadres and party members of Tho Hop always ponder, closely follow reality, proactively seize opportunities to propose policies, plans, and projects that are suitable to reality and immediately organize implementation in local reality.

The first story we want to mention is bringing raw sugarcane to the barren land to replace the areas of low-economic-efficiency crops. Under the autumn sunlight of August, we followed the wide concrete road to Soi Duoi hamlet. The hamlet has 178 households with 765 people, most of whom are Tho ethnic people. Looking at the spacious, airy houses close together on both sides of the village road, we can see the full meaning of the two words "transformation" for this land. Because according to comrade Truong Hong Lam - Party cell secretary: "In the past, our people suffered a lot! There was a lack of everything. The land was right in front of our eyes, but how many people were full? All year round, we only knew how to cling to corn and peanuts, with extremely low productivity."

But that is a story of the past, because since the sugar factory was invested in and built in Quy Hop district, Tho Hop Party Committee has been proactive in not only becoming a supplier of sugarcane materials for the factory but also varieties for other localities in the district.

In the context of many households still having doubts, in Soi Duoi hamlet, there are 5 party members in the party cell who have pioneered the cultivation of raw sugarcane in the form of intensive farming. They are comrades such as Truong Van Di, Truong Minh Phao, Mai Thi Bich Lien... and also Party cell secretary Truong Hong Lam.

“In the first season, my family planted 2.5 sao of sugarcane. By the next season, we not only had enough seeds to expand our family’s production area but also provided seeds for the people of Ha Son. Now my family has converted all 12 sao of land to grow sugarcane,” comrade Lam recalled. Telling old stories also means talking about the present, because besides the support programs of departments and branches at all levels, it was from the small models of those party members that trust gradually multiplied in the community so that today, sugarcane has become the main crop in many localities, not only in Tho Hop but also in Ha Son, Van Loi, Chau Dinh - localities with very difficult natural and social conditions. In Soi Duoi hamlet, every house now has sugarcane, more or less depending on the land each house produces, but just come here and look at the green sugarcane fields stretching from the beginning of the village to the end of the hamlet, sugarcane will continue to bring Soi Duoi farmers "sweet" crops in the future.

Ms. Truong Thi Vy from Soi Duoi hamlet takes care of sugarcane.

Ms. Truong Thi Vy - a resident of Soi Duoi hamlet shared: “My family only has 7 sao of land, before growing 3 crops, life was very difficult. Now we have switched to growing 6 sao of sugarcane, each crop yields 25 tons. The income is not as good as other people's because our family has less land, but compared to growing crops, the efficiency of growing sugarcane is much higher. Growing sugarcane gives us more free time so we can do many other jobs. "Pick up and chop up" so life has improved significantly". Currently, the Commune Party Committee has determined that sugarcane has become the main crop for the local economy and is focusing on mobilizing people to bring high-yield sugarcane varieties to the fields. This crop year, the whole commune currently has 165 hectares of sugarcane, with an estimated yield of 55 quintals/ha, and a total output of 9,075 tons, promising to bring great value to farmers.

Another project that Tho Hop is actively implementing is to encourage people to develop forest economy in hamlets with suitable conditions such as Thung Khang, Son Tien, Coc Moc, Tho Son and is initially achieving positive results. Following the rugged, steep dirt road, I had the opportunity to visit the comprehensive economic farm of party member Le Van Tien's family in Tho Son hamlet. Amidst the limestone mountains on all sides, patches of acacia, lat, xoan dau, lychee, peach forests... persistently take root in the barren land and stretch straight up to the sky.

In the twilight, comrade Le Van Tien shared: “When I came here to farm, this area was full of bushes, extremely wild. We had to gradually reclaim the land and then calculate carefully. The most lacking thing was water. I surveyed, researched and built a water system that flows from the forest, from the basic irrigation work was solved, opening up the possibility of bringing plant and animal varieties into production”. After several years of “leaving home for the forest” to start a business with countless hardships, now his family has a fairly large farm on a total area of ​​15 hectares. Not counting the perennial forest, just calculating the revenue from fruit trees and livestock has brought in an economic value of about 300 million VND/year.

Of course, not everyone in Tho Hop has all the conditions to farm like comrade Le Van Tien's family. But his way of doing things has contributed to opening up a very effective direction for Tho Hop on lands that have been considered barren until now; the shining example of this veteran party member is a source of inspiration for people to follow, turning barren land into "golden land, silver land".

For example, in Thung Khang hamlet, implementing the commune's project, the hamlet's Party cell issued a resolution to encourage people to convert their crop economy in a suitable direction. Comrade Nguyen Ba Nam - Party cell secretary said: "The whole hamlet has 39 households, on the area of ​​​​growing beans, corn, peanuts with low efficiency, most of the people have switched to growing acacia or sugarcane, cassava. At the beginning of this year, my family just planted 1.5 hectares of acacia and it is growing relatively well". For the above project to be successful, the Tho Hop commune Party Committee not only proposed policies, guidelines and thoroughly grasped and mobilized the people but also proactively contacted units with conditions to support acacia seedlings for the people in a certain quantity. Aware of the benefits from the forest, the people of the commune have actively protected and planted new trees. Thanks to that, the forest area of ​​Tho Hop has increased steadily every year, reaching more than 510 hectares to date.

Comrade Truong Van Binh - Deputy Secretary of the Commune Party Committee concluded: "From the time when low-efficiency crop cultivation was dominant, agriculture is now shifting to sugarcane and acacia. The efficiency of the converted crops has contributed to increasing people's income. The current poverty rate has decreased to 19.9%. We strive to continue to promote the potential in the right direction to help Tho Hop reduce poverty quickly and successfully implement new rural construction."

Thanh Duy