Bac Ninh: Motivating women to be creative and start businesses

Confidently start a business in your homeland

Born in a poor agricultural area, Ms. Bui Thi Mai (Dai Lai commune) always had the desire to get rich in her homeland. After getting married, she and her husband boldly invested in producing quality, safe chicken breeds and said no to antibiotics. In 2022, with the support of the Women's Union of Gia Binh district (old) to access preferential loans of 1 billion VND from the Social Policy Bank, she boldly expanded the scale of the barn to 1,000 m² and learned more knowledge and techniques through the Union's training courses. At the same time, she established the Son Mai breeding production cooperative model, gathered 6 more members, and registered to operate in the field of clean, modern agriculture .

Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy (second from left, back row) has turned Luc Ngan Xanh Cooperative into one of the typical start-up models of women in Bac Ninh .

Ms. Mai shared: “The biggest difference of Son Mai Cooperative is the application of a circular agricultural model, saying no to antibiotics from the breeding to the rearing stage. At the farm, parent chickens are raised with herbal microbial feed, creating an F1 breed between Dong Tao and Luong Phuong chickens with natural resistance and delicious meat quality. The Cooperative also invested in industrial incubators, taking the initiative in breeding. The barn is invested in an automatic cooling and feeding system. Chicken manure is treated with IMO microbial technology, deodorizing, and recycled into fertilizer. This closed production model both protects the environment and increases economic value, helping Son Mai chicken breeds to be favored by breeders in many provinces and cities.”

Currently, Son Mai Cooperative has a scale of 10,000 parent chickens, producing about 500,000 F1 chickens each year, creating stable jobs for 10-20 local workers with an average income of 6-7 million VND/person/month.

Established in 2021, up to now, Luc Ngan Xanh Cooperative (Luc Ngan commune) with Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy as Director has been growing in the number of members and diversifying the products produced and traded. The Cooperative focuses on producing safe and quality agricultural products and food such as: Growing lychee according to VietGAP standards with an area of 10 hectares, linking with a 5-hectare GlobalGAP standard garden (selling fresh lychee and products processed from lychee); growing fruit trees such as guava, apple, banana, custard apple, grapefruit... with an area of 5 hectares; combining the cultivation of medicinal plants such as: Chrysanthemum, stevia, mint, perilla, betel and producing products processed from medicinal herbs; developing specialty Chu noodles... At the same time, building tours to experience craft villages, some famous local landmarks, visiting fruit gardens. Currently, the Cooperative supplies goods to many stores, agents, businesses, and production facilities inside and outside the province; sells through e-commerce channels such as Foodmap, Garb, Tiktok, Shopee... The Cooperative's revenue in 2024 will reach more than 3.5 billion VND, striving to reach 4.8 billion VND in 2025.

Ms. Minh Thuy confided: “In 2024, Luc Ngan Xanh Cooperative participated in the contest “Women's creative start-up and green transformation” organized by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Women's Union with the project “Developing green agriculture in the fruit growing area of Luc Ngan, Bac Giang” and won the third prize in the final round of the Northern region, the encouragement prize in the national final round. That opened up opportunities for promotion, cooperation and development with many businesses and localities inside and outside the province”.

Unleashing Creativity for Women Entrepreneurs

Supporting women in starting businesses and developing the economy has been identified by the Women's Union at all levels in the province as a key and continuous task. The project "Supporting women in starting businesses for the period 2017 - 2025 (also known as Project 939) has created new motivation, inspired creativity to promote women to start successful businesses.

The Union at all levels focuses on raising awareness, creating a strong shift in thinking and working methods; applying scientific and technological advances to production and business, supporting members and women in accessing markets, producing goods, contributing to the economic restructuring in the locality. In particular, paying attention to supporting the improvement of business capacity and start-ups for women with business ideas.

The Unions at all levels proactively coordinated to organize nearly 1,000 vocational training classes for 42,000 female workers; 2,291 training classes on technical knowledge of cultivation and animal husbandry; and transferred science and technology to more than 160,000 members. Supported nearly 4,000 women to start businesses and start businesses, including nearly 1,000 women from poor and disadvantaged households, ethnic minorities, women with disabilities, and those in areas where agricultural land was converted. In particular, support was given to the establishment of 270 cooperatives/groups, 20 enterprises owned and managed by women, and nearly 2,300 enterprises managed by women were consulted on business development.

As of June 2025, the Women's Union at all levels has received nearly 4,000 ideas for women to start businesses and start businesses. During the implementation of Project 939, the Union introduced 50 projects to participate in provincial and central start-up competitions. As a result, 14 projects and creative ideas won prizes at the provincial, regional and national levels; 369 projects received loans from start-up capital to develop production and business with a total disbursed capital of more than 93 billion VND, contributing to creating jobs for 1,056 local workers. Typical examples are the model of Ms. Bui Thi Mai, Director of Son Mai Seed Production Cooperative; the project of growing mushrooms with high nutritional value under Minh Ngoc General Production and Service Cooperative of Ms. Luong Thi Kim Ngoc (Dong Cuu commune); Dai Xuan Safe Agricultural Products Cooperative of Ms. Nguyen Thi Hop (Nhan Hoa commune); Noni fruit production model of Ms. Han Thi Luyen (Luong Tai commune); fruit tree growing model of Ms. Truong Thi Bay (Giap Son commune); high-tech agricultural production model of Ms. Nguyen Thi Tram in Nhat Trai village (Trung Chinh commune)...

Ms. Vu Thi An, Vice President of the Provincial Women's Union, said: "The women's start-up movement has contributed to spreading the spirit of innovation in development, creating motivation for women to rise up to become economic masters. In the coming time, the Union will continue to diversify the forms of support, accompany and spread the spirit of start-up to many women through many activities such as: Women's Start-up Festival; fairs to introduce and connect products of women members at all levels; guidance on building projects to participate in start-up competitions; organizing forums for women to start businesses on digital platforms...

Nguyen Hoa

Source: https://baobacninhtv.vn/bac-ninh-tao-dong-luc-cho-phu-nu-sang-tao-khoi-nghiep-postid429258.bbg