Implementing the Resolution of the 13th National Women's Congress, in recent times, the Women's Union at all levels in many localities have actively implemented activities to support cooperatives with women participating in management, and to improve women's capacity to develop cooperatives.
From the story of macadamia nuts in Lam Dong land
During the “OCOP Product Week” recently held in Ho Chi Minh City, macadamia products with the brand name “Tan Thanh Macadamia” received much attention.
Ms. Luong Kim Chi, Director of Tan Thanh Agricultural Service Cooperative (Lam Ha District, Lam Dong Province), said that the products of the cooperative have stable output. Each year, the cooperative supplies the market with about 10 tons of raw macadamia nuts and 10 tons of dried macadamia nuts.
Being a Tay ethnic, following her parents to Lam Dong to do new economic activities from 1991 - 1992, Chi and her parents have been growing macadamia trees since 2008. At that time, macadamia nuts after harvest were mainly processed by hand, with a daily productivity of only a few kilograms of finished macadamia products.
Realizing that if she continued to do it on a small scale, the effort would be high but the efficiency would not be high, Ms. Chi was determined to learn about the automatic processing process, from drying, cracking the seeds to packaging.
“During that process, the provincial Unions at all levels have always encouraged, facilitated and supported Tan Thanh Agricultural Service Cooperative. They have supported me with administrative procedures, created conditions for me to participate in training courses on marketing skills, product promotion, and helped connect and expand product consumption outlets.
Thanks to that companionship, I have overcome many difficulties to develop stably as today," Chi shared.
The case of Tan Thanh Agricultural Service Cooperative is one of many stories showing the efforts of the Union at all levels in supporting cooperatives managed by women in Lam Dong province.
Implementing the Resolution of the 13th National Women's Congress, which includes targets on supporting capacity building for women participating in cooperative management and supporting the establishment of new cooperatives with women participating in management, the Lam Dong Provincial Women's Union has a plan to organize propaganda and training on production and business knowledge for women.
Accordingly, over 1,000 cadres, members and women have participated in training; 414 women have been supported to start businesses and start businesses. Many ideas from cooperatives managed by women in Lam Dong have participated and won prizes at the Women's Entrepreneurship Competition organized by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Women's Union.
“Currently, Lam Dong has 571 cooperatives, with over 75,000 members, of which 100 cooperatives are owned by women, accounting for 17.6%,” said Ms. Cil Bri, Vice President of the Lam Dong Provincial Women's Union.
Overcoming difficulties thanks to the support of the Association
According to information from the Women's Union of Lang Son province, cooperatives owned by women in the province operate effectively and stably. Many cooperatives have been flexible and responsive in grasping the market, promoting the application of information technology, and implementing digital transformation in all stages of production, processing, and product consumption.
Ms. Le Thi Minh Tra, Director of Huu Lung Agricultural Cooperative, shared: “The initial operation of the cooperative was very difficult. We received support from the Women's Union of Lang Son province. Up to now, the cooperative has built a closed organic production process with an area of 7 hectares of 2 farms.
The cooperative has an infrastructure system serving the production of organic vegetables, tubers, and fruits, a greenhouse with an area of 10,000 m2 with an automatic irrigation system, an operating house, a processing house, a packaging house... The cooperative has combined the construction of an experiential tourism model and agriculture, initially achieving positive results.
The Lang Son Provincial Cooperative Union highly appreciates the contributions of the Lang Son Women's Union at all levels in promoting the development of cooperatives. In particular, since the Lang Son Provincial Women's Union implemented the Project "Supporting cooperatives managed by women, creating jobs for female workers by 2030", cooperative models managed by women have had more favorable conditions to develop.
Currently, Lang Son province has 101 cooperatives owned by women in operation, of which 26 cooperatives were established with support from the Women's Union at all levels. The number of cooperatives owned by women accounts for about 25% of the total number of cooperatives in the province.
In many other provinces and cities, the Women's Union at all levels is also stepping up support for cooperatives managed by women, improving the scope of cooperative operations, improving quality and expanding product outlets.
Besides the achieved results, cooperatives managed and operated by women are also facing difficulties such as small production scale, lack of organization and linkage for large-scale production, lack of highly skilled personnel, lack of competitiveness, and low production and business efficiency.
Some female cooperative managers said they had difficulty accessing bank loans to expand production scale.
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