Agriculture is the foundation for new rural areas

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Huu, Secretary of the Phu Luong District Party Committee (Thai Nguyen province), had an exchange with the Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper about the journey to build a new rural district, reaching the finish line in 2024.

Always identify people as the subject

The achievements of the new rural construction program have comprehensively changed the socio-economic picture. Can you share about changes in Phu Luong, sir?

Bài liên quan

Dream of a vast Gymnema sylvestre area

After more than 10 years of implementing the new rural construction program, the district has achieved many outstanding results. Currently, the district has two towns, Du town and Giang Tien town, meeting civilized urban criteria. 13/13 communes met new rural commune criteria, of which 3 communes met advanced new rural criteria and 2 communes met model new rural criteria.

In new rural construction, the district always identifies people as the subject. New rural construction has become a widespread movement, and people have enjoyed the achievements of new rural construction. Currently, the district's per capita income has reached VND 52 million/person/year. Over 90% of traffic roads are asphalted and concreted. In particular, poverty reduction work has been carried out strongly; the whole district has 736 poor households (accounting for 2.68%) and 789 near-poor households (accounting for 2.88%), lower than the average rate of Thai Nguyen province.

What is the consistent spirit of the Standing Committee and the District Party Executive Committee to create Phu Luong's mark on new rural areas?

Bài liên quan

Remembering 'vai' sticky rice, remembering On Luong tea

The district has developed a plan and clearly assigned tasks to relevant units. The consistent ideology in the direction of Phu Luong district focuses on three main axes. The first is to develop and enhance the value of tea products and other strong products in the district to increase the per capita income for farmers. The second is to invest in building synchronous rural infrastructure, ensuring rural-urban connectivity and regional connection. The third is to build a bright, green, clean, and beautiful rural environmental landscape and a civilized countryside rich in traditional cultural identity; promote digital transformation, and apply information technology in new rural construction to improve people’s material and spiritual lives.

First of all, the district clearly identified its position as a potential strength for the overall development of the province, orienting Phu Luong to develop an agricultural economy with a focus on tea plant development.

Bài liên quan

Tea 'eating' chicken eggs exported to Europe

To do that, we adhere to the Party's major policy on agriculture, farmers, and rural areas to concretize it into the local situation, creating unity throughout the entire political system according to the motto: correct policy, high unity, drastic action, and specific solution. Thereby, the district has mobilized the participation of the entire political system and received the approval of the people.

During the implementation process, the district always summarizes experiences and implementation solutions from people's recommendations, production practices, and lives into policies and solutions and issues documents directing the implementation to meet people’s wishes and build new rural areas for people.

If I do not remove my house's fence, no one will listen to what I say

Sir, as you shared, the district's goal is to build new rural areas for people, and it is clear that people have contributed to helping the district achieve outstanding achievements. So can you share typical examples from the implementation process?

In the new rural construction process, new models, good practices, and typical pioneering examples have appeared in the district.

A typical example is the movement of people donating land to build roads in Phan Me, Phu Ly, and Hop Thanh communes to deploy three new rural district roads: Du-Khe Mat, Goc Bang-Lang Hin, and ATK Phu Ly-Hop Thanh. When expanding the road, even though the households on the roadside are often business locations with solid fences and walls, they still volunteer to donate land and remove assets on the land to build the road.

Sharing with households donating land, households in the village proactively contributed funds and established groups to rebuild dismantled fences and architectural objects for households in the Prime Minister’s spirit of "harmonious benefits, shared risks."

Or in Phu Do commune, an ethnic minority area, the economy is relatively difficult, but people have great confidence in the leadership of the committee level and government. When directing the land donation movement, village leaders are the pioneers in donating land, donating more than other people. From there, it creates a chain effect among the people.

In particular, I witnessed an impressive and touching image in Tuc Tranh commune when I directly mobilized people to donate land for making roads. The house of the Cell Secretary of Goc Gao hamlet has a beautiful gate and fence, a flower wall, a brick yard, ornamental plants, etc.; opposite the house there is a tea hillside. It is possible to straighten the road into the tea hill area to limit the impact on his property. But the cell secretary said, "I am the cell secretary; if I do not remove my house’s fence, no one will listen to what I say. Thus, I have to remove my fence first for people to witness."

Such examples have created a new rural picture in Phu Luong as successful as it is today. And I believe it will be even more beautiful in the future.

Need persistence, high determination, and no haste

Good agriculture and eco-friendly agriculture is an inevitable trend in the world, and Vietnam is also making efforts to follow this trend. So what achievements has Phu Luong district had, and what are the future orientations, sir?

As I shared, according to Thai Nguyen province's orientation, Phu Luong district will develop an agricultural economy. Adhering to this orientation, in recent years, Phu Luong's agricultural sector has created many marks.

From that orientation, we restructured the agricultural sector, focusing on key products such as tea, rice, livestock, etc., shifting from agricultural production to agricultural economy to improve economic value from agricultural commodity products and increase people's income.

Currently, the whole district has 28 OCOP products, of which 11 have achieved 4 stars. According to the district's viewpoint, OCOP product development must be associated with enhancing product value, improving people's lives, and developing products with potential, strengths, and great market demand.

Phu Luong has great strength in tea. Currently, the district's tea area is over 4,000 hectares, the output of fresh tea buds reaches about 47,000 tons, and the economic value is more than VND 1,300 billion. Phu Luong is the second-largest tea area in Thai Nguyen, only after Dai Tu district. However, out of a total of VND 12,000 billion in revenue from tea, Phu Luong's figure of VND 1,300 billion is still modest in value, so it is very essential to improve the value of goods, diversify designs, diversify product segments, and strengthen linkages between households and cooperatives to improve product value.

Phu Luong has a famous specialty of vai sticky rice. This is the raw material used to create the famous Bo Dau Chung cake craft village brand nationwide. Products such as wild honey, cattle, and poultry are also focused on development and initially have a place in the market. The district strives to have 5-star OCOP products by 2024. But that product must be practical, so that from that product, people can develop economics.

One of the difficulties in promoting the value of local agricultural products is that people's production practices are still fragmented and small, based on household economics. Therefore, when implementing, it is necessary to have persistence and a consistent orientation, which is production linkage between households, to create large-scale commodity production areas in the direction of agricultural economics.

The linkage between cooperatives and between farmers, scientists, the state, banks, and businesses needs to be done better to create a stable market with mutual support to diversify products for many customer segments and enhance product value. When people see their income increase, they will respond, but to do that, it requires persistence, high determination, and no haste.

According to the goal, Phu Luong district will reach the new rural finish line in 2025; however, by the end of 2024, the district will strive to reach the finish line, meaning it will reach the finish line 1 year ahead of the set goal. So what will be the key tasks that the district prioritizes for implementation, sir?

In the Resolution of the 24^th District Party Congress, term 2020–2025, the district determined that by the end of 2025, 100% of communes will achieve new rural areas. Of which, 3 communes will achieve advanced new rural areas; 3 communes will achieve model new rural areas; and the district will basically achieve a new rural district. However, by the end of 2023, the district had 100% of communes meeting new rural criteria and over 23% of communes meeting advanced new rural criteria.

The Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee worked with the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee to evaluate the results of implementing the Resolution of the Party Congress at all levels for the 2020–2025 term. In the middle of the term, it was decided to build Phu Luong district to meet new rural standards by 2024, exceeding the Congress Resolution’s goal.

The district concentrates resources to build new rural areas, such as building model new rural hamlets, new rural communes, and advanced new rural communes; mobilizing resources from people and implementing solutions based on balancing the district's resources accordingly.

As of now, Phu Luong district has achieved 26/36 norms of 9 criteria in the new rural district criteria set and has basically approached the remaining criteria and norms. With the right direction, high determination, solidarity of the Party Committee, the government, people’s support, and creative ways from the grassroots, we are confident that we will complete the progress according to the proposed plan.

Thank you, sir!