To make the rubber development project in Nghe An effective

(Baonghean) - Nghe An Newspaper published a series of investigative articles on rubber development according to the goals of the Provincial Party Congress. The authors of this series of articles said: The target of rubber planting area in the province until the end of the 17th Congress term is impossible to achieve. The reasons are: The rubber development project is slow to be issued; and barriers from land, investment capital...

On the same day, July 30, 2014, Nhan Dan Newspaper published an article titled “When white gold loses its value”, leading to a situation where people panic and neglect rubber trees, even some households have cut down rubber trees to plant other trees. The price of rubber latex used to be 30,000 - 40,000 VND but now it is only 10,000 VND/kg, the reason for the “white gold” price to fall so dramatically is because supply exceeds demand. The world’s rubber production is in surplus, while the area and output of rubber in our country are constantly increasing. Along with that, our rubber export market is dependent on only one or two main markets. To overcome this difficulty, it is certainly not just a matter of area, nor just a matter of market, but more deeply elsewhere, which will be mentioned in the following section.

With just that information, the questions that arise are: Is it good or bad that we cannot achieve the target of 22,663 hectares of rubber to produce 8,200 tons of dry latex/year? And therefore, should we try our best to achieve that target in 2015 or a few years later? Or is there a need for a sustainable development project for rubber trees in Nghe An?

Next, please feel free to find answers to the above questions.

1. Of course, no one can say that they are happy because an important target and goal of the Resolution of the 17th Congress cannot be achieved. But in a certain aspect, it can be said that it is not a cause for concern. Because the rubber area of ​​the province by 2015 is not 22,663 hectares but much less, which would be more practical, and especially more effective when calculating the income per hectare of rubber.

But there is one thing that is very worrying because the leadership and direction must be on how to bring the Resolution of the Provincial Party Congress into life and become reality.

From the reality of the past few years, and the trend of supply exceeding demand in the world, the Vietnamese rubber industry must certainly recalculate, and of course the Nghe An rubber industry must recalculate and review the entire rubber development project in Nghe An.

2. With such a way of thinking, it is not advisable to work hard to achieve the target of 22,663 hectares of rubber in Nghe An. With a smaller area, but intensive cultivation, the productivity and quality of latex will certainly be higher and therefore, of course, the economic efficiency will be higher. And thanks to high efficiency, it will create attraction and appeal for growers and rubber growing land. Developing rubber like that is sustainable development. It is time to think about quality instead of quantity.

In some areas planned for rubber plantation, the people have not agreed with the very correct argument of the people: That is the land of the headwater forest. Maybe the whole area is not in the area of ​​​​protected forest. But it is very possible that some areas in that area are partially protected forest. And if it is a protected forest, then that land should not be used for rubber plantation. That means that we have to review the planned areas very carefully to see if it is correct and then make adjustments.

We are lacking capital to invest in expanding the area. That means we are lacking capital to take care of, cultivate, process, and create a chain of products that bring added value from rubber latex. Therefore, it is also necessary to review the project in terms of its feasibility, effectiveness, and the necessary and sufficient conditions that the project requires.

3. It is not necessary to work hard to achieve the above mentioned goals, but it is necessary to have a sustainable rubber development project in Nghe An.

This project may have the following contents:

- Accurately plan rubber plantation land in terms of area and geographical location to prevent storms from damaging the plantation. This should be noted because most of the rubber plantation area in our province is near the sea, and rubber trees are easily damaged by storms. From there, correctly determine: area, geographical location for each commune, each region, each district. This means we have to reconsider how many hectares of rubber our province should and can plant.

- Design rubber gardens (both large and small) with windbreaks and firebreaks to ensure the highest safety for rubber gardens when encountering storms, forest fires, etc.

- Whether it is a large or small plantation, it is necessary to affirm from the beginning that rubber plantation is intensive. From there, we can choose the variety, choose the land, build the intensive cultivation process, train the people and workers to plant rubber, exploit rubber latex, determine the investment level and investment steps. More than ever, agriculture and forestry in general, and rubber plantation in particular, must be intensive from the beginning, thoroughly intensive with the technical advances that have been and will be available.

- Building a team of experts (both technical and economic), a team of technical staff specializing in rubber trees. In this regard, it is necessary to learn from the lack of technical staff specializing in the concentrated industrial crops of our province: sugarcane - tea trees, to take care of rubber trees soon. If possible, there should be a Rubber Science and Technology Center to serve the research and application of technical advances, new technologies from planting, caring, exploiting to processing rubber latex, manufacturing diverse products with rubber latex as raw material.

- Build an organizational system and policy mechanisms to create close connection and linkage throughout the industry to proactively overcome common problems between stages, steps, and stages of the chain from planting, exploitation, purchasing, processing, and marketing. We have also learned lessons from large-scale industrial crops in our province.

- Build a large-scale, high-tech rubber processing enterprise with a wide range of products from rubber latex to final products. Only then can we escape the situation of only selling raw materials, which do not have high added value.

In short, the rubber tree development project must be a comprehensive, complete project, within the general project of the Vietnam Rubber Group.

In my opinion, the progress of rubber planting in Nghe An is slow, although the leaders and rubber growers in Nghe An have not shown any signs of wavering. Therefore, the issue of perseverance is not only to continue planting more rubber, but the most important decision is to persevere in intensive rubber planting from the beginning, persevere in planting rubber in places with the highest possible safety, with economic and technical solutions that achieve the highest safety against unusual changes in climate, especially the impact of storms and tornadoes. And finally, persevere to form a complete and balanced rubber industry from the beginning to the end. All of that perseverance will result in: achieving high economic efficiency on a rubber cultivation area. That efficiency will ensure that perseverance is not only a product of will but also a product of intelligence, of economic organization, of science and technology.

Truong Cong Anh