Tay Hieu: Choose your own path

(Baonghean) -Thai Hoa town is being built to become a commercial and service center of the Northwest Nghe An region. In that general context, Tay Hieu commune with its available land potential has chosen its own direction, determining that the main driving force is still the agricultural sector to create a breakthrough in economic and social life, contributing to the development of the land known as the "nucleus" of Phu Quy.

Mushroom growing model of Ms. Vu Thi Thanh Nhan.

Whenever mentioning Tay Hieu, it reminds those who understand Phu Quy land of a fertile red basalt land that has sheltered and nurtured tens of thousands of people from 43 provinces and cities across the country. With the core of Tay Hieu 1 Farm, this land has been making worthy contributions to the general development of the locality. Entering a new phase, when Thai Hoa separated from Nghia Dan district to become a town, Tay Hieu has taken steps to "turn from village to city" although not too noisy or hasty.

Having been urban residents for more than 5 years, the roads have now been named streets, but the village spirit still exists with the image of rows of tea trees lining both sides of the path; houses next to each other nestled peacefully under the vast canopy of rubber forests. The people of Tay Hieu are the same, they maintain their simple and honest character; the village and neighborly love are closely attached in their daily life. This is understandable because from the first days of reclaiming the land to establish the village, life on the new, wild land has invisibly become a bond that binds them together to share difficulties, conquer nature, and make a living. Those characteristics of love for the land and love for people have now become the foundation for Tay Hieu to build a new countryside today.

Comrade Nguyen Dinh Chau - Vice Chairman of the Commune People's Committee, a son of Luong (Do Luong) and many others who came here to make a living, chose Tay Hieu as their second hometown. In a conversation with me, he affirmed: "Tay Hieu considers the root of new rural construction to be the issue of increasing people's income". Surely, it is not by chance that the development of agricultural crops such as smallholder rubber, coffee, sugarcane... is identified by the commune as a pillar to realize that philosophy. I have been to Tay Hieu many times. Every time I set foot under the cool green canopy of rubber forests of Phu Thuan farmers, which bring in hundreds of millions of VND/ha per year; and drink the fragrant, natural honey of Tay Hieu farmers, I once again admire the hard-working hands and dynamic thinking of the people of this land. And the time I returned to Tay Hieu in the early Spring of the Year of the Horse, my excitement was multiplied when the commune officials introduced a new economic model that had been introduced to the locality, which brought in a good income and had a lot of prospects for growing into a commercial scale. That was the oyster mushroom growing model.

We visited the mushroom growing model of Ms. Vu Thi Thanh Nhan in Hung Bac hamlet. On the entire small garden area, her family has taken advantage of the house to grow mushrooms with a synchronized irrigation process. Her family's mushroom growing model has only been in operation for about 6 months but already has up to 20,000 mushroom pots, mostly black oyster mushrooms, white oyster mushrooms and a little lingzhi mushrooms. With oyster mushrooms, each batch of pots can be harvested in 4 months on average; after 10 days of harvesting, there is a week off for harvesting again. Ms. Nhan said: "During the harvest season, the family harvests an average of 1.5 quintals of mushrooms per day. If calculated at the wholesale price of 30,000 VND/kg; retail price of 40,000 VND/kg, after deducting expenses, the family's income is also relatively stable." Not only does it provide a livelihood for her family, Ms. Nhan's mushroom growing model also creates jobs for 5 workers, with an average wage of 120,000 VND per day. Currently, Tay Hieu commune has 3 mushroom growing models and the commune is planning to build and expand this mushroom growing model.

The successes in agricultural development with key crops such as rubber (1,114 ha), coffee (110 ha), sugarcane (402.7 ha) and in the distant future, possibly oyster mushrooms... Tay Hieu commune's economy in 2013 grew by 15%, the poverty rate was only 1.98%. Increased income, people's lives getting better every day are also a solid foundation for Tay Hieu to embark on building a sustainable and successful new rural area. I returned to Hieu Thanh hamlet when people were harvesting sugarcane. In the early spring atmosphere of the new year, joy seemed to sparkle in the eyes of the simple, gentle farmers. Because the Giap Ngo Tet just passed, the whole hamlet welcomed a very warm and happy Tet.

Taking us to visit the hamlet's community area, Mr. Nguyen Van Long - Hamlet Chief happily said: "For the past 2 consecutive years, people have contributed more than 160 million VND to level the ground and build volleyball and badminton courts equipped with high-pressure lamps around the hamlet's meeting house. Last Tet, this place became a place for activities and entertainment for the whole community, especially young people who have a place to play, not getting involved in social evils such as gambling... Everyone is excited". Not only contributing to the construction of public works, people also voluntarily donated chairs to place around the sports fields.

Like Mrs. Phan Thi Lan (79 years old), seeing the benefits of the playground, she did not hesitate to give the hamlet 2 stone benches. "We old people can no longer walk far. Coming here in the morning to exercise or in the afternoon to talk on the stone benches, watching the children play sports is very fun, and also strengthens the relationship between the village and the neighborhood", Mrs. Lan shared. With the spirit of internal strength of the people being promoted, under the leadership of the Party committees and local authorities, Hieu Thanh hamlet has also concreted the entire 3 km of internal roads in the hamlet according to the new rural standards; the hamlet has 95 households with 365 people but only 4 households are poor. Those results are even more convincingly proven when Hieu Thanh is the first hamlet to achieve the title of Cultural Village of Tay Hieu commune.

Based on the economic foundation and promoting the internal strength of the people, in 2013, Tay Hieu built more than 3 km of concrete roads. The total capital mobilized to build rural roads was more than 2.8 billion VND, of which the people contributed more than 895 million VND in both cash and working days. The results of reviewing the commune's new rural criteria by the end of 2013, Tay Hieu had achieved 15/19 criteria and is striving to successfully complete the National Target Program on new rural construction in the near future, although it is not a pilot commune for new rural construction in Thai Hoa town.

Comrade Ta Ba Ngoc - Chairman of the Commune People's Committee said: "Under the close direction of the Party Committee, the commune government has been closely and harmoniously coordinating with the Fatherland Front and organizations to promote the local internal strength, combined with the support of superiors to plan and build markets; continue to improve facilities to meet the teaching and learning needs at schools in the area; speed up the construction of cultural villages... to successfully build new rural areas". Tay Hieu - a fertile, peaceful land on the Hieu Giang River is changing every day. In the noisy, bustling urban breath of the young Thai Hoa Town, Tay Hieu is choosing its own path that does not fade away the countryside.

Thanh Duy