Promoting the large field agricultural production model

Dong Hung district, Thai Binh province is a purely agricultural district with a total agricultural land area of ​​more than 14,000 hectares. Namely, the district dedicates at least 11,300 hectares of land to rice cultivation, and the annual yield of rice is estimated at nearly 150,000 tons.

After the local government made an effort to consolidate and change land plots, Dong Hung has reduced the amount of small, fragmented and scattered land plots owned by households and individuals. The reduced number of land plots as well as the decreased overall area has created favorable conditions for farmers to improve their fields, invest in intensive farming, restructure crops and livestock, and engage in business on the assigned land plot.

However, practice demonstrated that the model of widespread agricultural production is no longer consistent with the trend of social development. The withdrawal of labor from agricultural, rural areas to allow the accumulation and concentration of land for commodity agriculture development is an inevitable trend.

According to preliminary survey conducted in Dong Hung district, approximately 10% of the households with fields do not wish to engage in agricultural production. These households often lease their fields without contract, or contribute their products to other production households; 20% of the households wish to lease their fields; 20% of the households will agree to lease their fields if the price is reasonable; 50% of the households still have production needs to create food for their families. This has caused many communes to abandon their fields without organizing agricultural production.

As a result, Dong Hung district has encouraged its households to exchange, lease, rent and accumulate land with emphasis on abandoned areas. The district aims to bring mechanization and synchronous application of technical advances to the concentrated, large-scale commodity production in order to improve production efficiency per hectare of agricultural land.

So far, more than 500 households have accumulated at least 1 hectare of rice production land per household, reaching a total of 1,200 hectares. It is reported that 67 households have accumulated at least 5 hectares of land per household; 17 households with at least 10 hectares of land per household; 1 household with 20 hectares of land. Mechanization has applied to the majority of the accumulated land; these advanced equipments include transplanters, harvesters, dryers, tillers, pesticide spraying machines among many others.

Dong Hung's effort in accumulating land has reduced the area of ​​abandoned fields in the district. The area of ​​abandoned fields has reduced from 400 hectares in 2018 to approximately 35 hectares in 2023. The remaining abandoned fields concentrate mainly in the foothills of villages, in the industrial park's vicinity where the rat infestations, polluted wastewater and the low-lying areas have made it impossible for machineries to enter.

According to Dong Hung District People's Committee, the restructuring of agricultural production and the construction of land accumulation models still face many challenges. Namely, the district's agricultural land area is still small, fragmented, and scattered. Furthermore, the organization of production cooperatives as well as the linkage of production and consumption between farmers and businesses through contracts are inefficient.

Farmers are afraid of losing their land, so they avoid leasing it. The spontaneous accumulation of land is not centralized, causing difficulties in the management and application of mechanization in agricultural production.

Many accumulating households lack investment capital for production, and the state's support capital is limited. Access to various credit sources is challenging, so investment in machinery, science and technology for agricultural production is restricted.

Mr. Dinh Vinh Thuy, Director of Thai Binh Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that statistics have shown that Thai Binh province has over 1,700 households with ​​at least 2 hectares of farming area per hectare.

The household with the largest area belongs to Ms. Tran Thi Lanh at 70 hectares of farming land. She is the head of Giao Nghia village, Binh Minh commune, Kien Xuong district. Additionally, the application of mechanization through the use of transplanters are increasingly popular.

The rate of transplanting by machine in the province has reached 18%. Dong Hung district is a major contributor over 40% of farming area transplated by machine.

According to Mr. Thuy, Thai Binh's agricultural sector is developing following three main trends. Firstly, a part of agricultural labor will be reallocated to other areas and they will lease their fields to others. On the other hand, there have been cases of farmers avoiding both labor and leasing their fields.

Secondly, households have collected land from non-producing farmers to form large fields. Thirdly, several large field households have gathered land to form cooperatives such as Quang Lanh Agricultural Production and Business Cooperative with 10 members contributing 100 hectares of land for rice cultivation.

Thai Binh is promoting solutions to encourage the establishment of cooperatives on a voluntary basis after acknowledging that large field is a highly effective agricultural production model. This model is considered to share many similarities with the successful Guild model in Dong Thap province.

Regarding the support mechanism for land concentration, for households lease fields to others for agricultural production, the province provides farmers with an annual support of 20 kilogram of rice per sao from the province's budget. Communes who encourage farmers to accumulate land will also receive a support capital of 20 million VND per hectare.

Additionally, Thai Binh supports 50% of investment costs for dryers and transplanters (not exceeding 40 million VND per machine), because many households will face great difficulties in the post-harvest stage without the help of drying machines or transplanters.