Tan Ky: Farmers sell young corn for 'fresh' money

(Baonghean.vn) - Spring-summer corn in Tan Ky district is only 80 days old, but farmers are excited to cut it down and sell it as food for local cattle farms and the Australian cattle farm in Nghia Dung commune.

Tan Ky district has more than 2,000 hectares of fertile land along the Con River, growing 2-3 crops of commercial corn each year. In recent years, Tan Ky has had many dairy farms, beef farms and Australian cow farms, the demand for cow feed is very high, so many families do not wait for the corn to ripen to get the kernels, but cut down the young corn and sell it to the farms.

When the corn plant was 80 days old, the corn was in the milk stage, the cow farm came to buy the whole corn plant for 700 thousand VND/ton.

This spring-summer crop, in the fields, large trucks are bustling in and out to buy corn plants. Farmers in the communes of Tan Long, Ky Tan, Nghia Dung, Nghia Binh... are excitedly cutting down young, milky corn to sell.

Mr. Bui Xuan Binh's family, hamlet 1, Ky Tan commune, planted 1 acre of spring-summer corn on fertile land along the river. He said: When the corn was 80 days old, the corn was in the milk stage, the cow farm came to buy the whole corn plant for 700,000 VND/ton, and the family agreed to sell. The car drove to the field, the family mobilized manpower, cut the corn plant close to the root, and loaded it onto the truck. The family sold 5 trucks, each truck weighed more than 10 tons. It turns out that 1 acre of corn yielded 1.7 tons of plants, sold for 1.2 million VND.

Large trucks go to the fields to buy corn for the people.

Currently, young corn in Tan Ky district is sold to many companies and cow farms such as: Vinamilk, TH Milk Company, Australian cow farm of Kieu Phuong Company Limited and some cow farms in Ha Tinh...

Kieu Phuong Company Limited in Tan Ky district has an Australian cattle farm of over 500 cows. This corn crop, the company plans to purchase 300 tons of young corn to process into cattle feed. Mr. To Anh Phuong - Director of the company said: Corn is the main source of food for Australian cattle. The corn is purchased and chopped, fermented for the cows to eat gradually to prevent food shortages.

The corn fields in Tan Ky are a rich source of food for cattle ranches.

Mr. Nguyen Ba Thuc - Head of the District's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said: People are selling corn plants to cattle farms completely spontaneously, households agree on prices with truck owners to buy and sell. Selling young corn as cattle feed brings in income almost equivalent to selling corn seeds, and can rotate 3 crops/year, while growing corn for seeds only yields 2 crops/year.

Growing semi-young corn is a good way to generate additional income for farmers, but in the long term, between the "3 houses" there needs to be a contract to commit to consuming products annually, seasonally and a good payment mechanism so that farmers can produce more professionally.

Xuan Hoang