Economy

'Farmer leader' is good at village affairs and people's affairs

Khanh Ly - Quynh An • May 1, 2025 10:01

With more than 10 years of working for the Farmers' Association, Ms. Lo Thi Linh (born in 1986), Thai ethnic group - Head of the Farmers' Association of Bung Xat village, Chau Khe commune (Con Cuong) has not only pioneered in developing household economy but also has many good ways to help change the village...

Model formationcommunity building savings group

Lo Thi Linh - "Leader" of Bung Xat village farmers welcomed us with a warm, genuine smile of a mountain person. She shared that, having been born and raised in the village, she understands better than anyone the difficulties of the mountain people.

Therefore, since 2012, when she was elected as the Head of the Farmers' Association of the village, she has always wondered how to make people's lives more prosperous and help many households escape poverty.

From that concern, Ms. Lo Thi Linh tried to build a strong Association, a truly reliable support for members, and at the same time had solutions to help farmers develop the economy and reduce poverty sustainably. First of all, helping people innovate in their thinking, working methods and finding sources of capital to support investment in economic development.

In addition to spending time meeting each household, combining propaganda of the Party and State's policies and guidelines, especially policies related to agriculture, farmers and rural areas, Bung Xat village farmer leader Lo Thi Linh also supports people in accessing policy bank capital sources to plant acacia, afforest, and build agroforestry models with a total loan capital of up to 3.5 billion VND.

Besides, she also called on everyone to establish a fund for the Bung Xat Farmers' Association to support poor families in buying livestock and seedlings.

Accordingly, each household contributes 100 thousand VND/year in 3 groups. After 3 years, the fund from the 3 groups has reached 120 million VND. From this amount, each household can borrow up to 4 million VND without having to pay interest, each year this fund helps up to 30 households borrow capital for production and livestock farming.

Along with the savings and loan groups, the Bung Xat Farmers' Association also built a model of savings groups for community building. Typical examples include the export rattan and bamboo weaving group model; the brocade weaving group with 30 members divided into 10 groups (each group has 2-3 people) including women with experience and skills in traditional brocade weaving in the village.

Each group is supported with a loom, and most of the participating members are trained through basic classes organized by the commune and district farmers' associations.

In addition to working time on farming and raising livestock, in their spare time, members take part in weaving traditional costumes, bringing in an income of about 3-4 million VND/month.

This not only helps develop household economy but also contributes to preserving and maintaining traditional occupations of Thai ethnic people.

Ms. Vi Thi Thuy - a member of the Bung Xat Farmers' Association said that the weaving group consists of 3 members. Thanks to regular training, the designs are diverse. If the products are not enough to sell, they will come to pick them up at home.

In addition to weaving, Ms. Thuy also borrowed capital from the farmers' association fund to raise chickens, 15 pigs, 4 cows, and plant 9 hectares of land, making her life stable.

Mr. Kha Van Tam - Secretary of the Bung Xat village Party Cell said: Thanks to the dynamic and creative ways of working of the village Farmers' Association headed by Ms. Lo Thi Linh, the people have had many changes in their thinking and working habits.

Especially the community-building savings groups, in addition to supporting each other in economic development; for some households in difficult circumstances, households with few people because young workers go to work far away, with only the elderly and children, so there is a lack of workers, every quarter there will be a group representative and the village management board calling on everyone to contribute working days to help the household clear land, plant acacia or harvest and buy membranes.

Thereby, contributing to strengthening solidarity in the community, mutual love and affection in branches and associations.

Campaign to open roads to production areas and bring electricity for lighting

Bung Xat is a village about 25 km from the center of Con Cuong district, including 191 households with 870 people, mainly Thai ethnic people.

According to village officials, in the past, transportation was extremely difficult, muddy when it rained, rough when it was sunny, especially the production area was far from residential areas, making travel difficult.

Faced with that situation, in her role as the Head of the Farmers' Association and Head of the Village Front Work Committee, Ms. Lo Thi Linh, together with the Party Cell and the Village Management Board, proposed to the commune to direct the implementation of the plan to concretize the village's roads.

With the support of cement from the state, Ms. Linh and the village management board mobilized people, first of all the farmer association members, to actively build roads in the village.

In 2023, the whole village repaired and built 350m of concrete road, in 2024, both repaired and renewed more than 300m. In which, people contributed labor days and money for sand and gravel. Up to now, the traffic system in Bung Xat village is basically closed, the internal road is enough for vehicles to travel.

In addition, farmer “leader” Lo Thi Linh also mobilized members to upgrade and expand the road to the production area. Many farmers were willing to donate land to build the road.

Typically, Mr. Vi Van Suu's household donated 400m2 of rice field, Kha Van So donated 300m, Loc Quoc Mien donated 600m2 of production land to expand the road to the production area.

Leading us to visit the farming and livestock farming model in the production area, Mr. Loc Quoc Mien, 70 years old, happily said that his family has been contracted to protect 6 hectares of forest in the production area since 1992.

At first, there were only a few households in this production area, now there are 13 households both raising livestock and growing crops. Mr. Mien's family currently has 5 hectares of acacia; 2 hectares of combined raising cows; chickens, pigs, digging ponds to raise fish; growing corn and rice.

“In the past, transporting glue and meters was difficult. Sometimes we had to build rafts to float along the water to the gathering place. That's why when Ms. Lo Thi Linh - President of the Farmers' Association, Head of the Front Work Committee and the village management board, came to campaign to open a road to the production area, my family donated 600 square meters.

Many other households joined in, thanks to that, during harvest season, cars can go all the way to the site to transport forestry products..."- Mr. Loc Van Mien said.

Not stopping at the roads, farmer "leader" Lo Thi Linh also worked with the village management board to mobilize people to contribute funds to install nearly 300 street lights, which are both convenient for people to travel at night and contribute to ensuring security and order in the village.

Besides, she does not hesitate to "go to every alley and knock on every door" to encourage members to respond to the movement of planting trees on both sides of the road and taking care of the road managed and protected by the Farmers' Association...

Talking to us, Ms. Lo Thi Linh shared: to gain consensus from members and people, she always seeks opinions and support from the Party Committee and the Village Management Board, and at the same time "practices what she says" in all movements and activities.

For example, identifying acacia and mesquite as the main crops of the locality along with livestock, to promote people to focus on developing these strengths, Ms. Lo Thi Linh actively planted more than 4 hectares of acacia and 400 mesquite trees, raised cows, pigs, and chickens to serve life as well as increase income. Many other households also consider acacia mesquite as a long-term livelihood tree.

Thanks to skillful mass mobilization, up to now, Bung Xat village has about 12 thousand hectares of land; 700 hectares of acacia. The whole village has about 1,200 pigs, 180 buffaloes and cows. In the area, there are farming households that have built highly effective agroforestry models such as Lo Van Huong, planting forests (acacia, cassia) combined with breeding cows, creating jobs for 3 regular workers; or the agroforestry model of raising soft-shell turtles of Mr. Kha Van Kim...

Currently, the poor village of Bung Xat has changed a lot. In 2025, the whole village had 25 poor households, a decrease of 8 households (24%) compared to 2024. In the 2 years 2023-2024, the village had 15 farming households that escaped thanks to loans, combined livestock farming, planting and harvesting acacia, etc.

"In that transformation, there are contributions from dynamic, creative female union officials who stick to the village, stick to the farmers and are "skilled" in mass mobilization like Ms. Lo Thi Linh" - Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Chau Khe commune Cam Thi Nam said.