Promoting agricultural tourism, increasing income for farmers

Reporter (PV): Son La is considered a locality with great potential for developing agricultural and rural tourism. What is your opinion on this issue?

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Cong: When we do agriculture combined with agricultural tourism, each region has potential and advantages. If we know how to promote them, they will bring economic efficiency. For example, Son La has Ngoc Chien area (Muong La district), Pa Phach area (Moc Chau district) with cultural characteristics of Mong ethnic group and Thai ethnic group. We must preserve cultural identity to develop agricultural and rural tourism. To do tourism, we must invest in infrastructure. Doing tourism without investing in infrastructure makes it difficult to attract visitors and exploit tourism potential. For example, Ngoc Chien people pick stones from the stream to make roads for convenient travel, and plant flowers on both sides of the road to create landscape. That is also a way to serve and attract tourists to the locality.

PV: So what benefits do people get from participating in the development of agricultural and rural tourism , sir?

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Cong: To develop agricultural and rural tourism and benefit the people, what kind of tourism must the State orient? To develop tourism, the State must invest in infrastructure, and at the same time, it needs the participation of the people to be able to do tourism. For example, in Pa Phach, Dong Sang commune, in the highlands of Moc Chau district (known as a paradise of flowers), there are many peach and plum forests. When the peach and plum blossoms are very beautiful, people must plant, preserve and take care of peach and plum trees; the State invests in infrastructure and roads; along with that, people do business in services to contribute to tourism development: Community guesthouses, homestays, cuisine, culture... Or in Ngoc Chien area, there is a 1,000-year-old sa mu tree (a type of tree belonging to the pine family), people have built a temple to worship the tree (tree worship custom - PV) with the participation of the community and the support of businesses. Without income, people will not be able to work, this is an important factor in developing agricultural and rural tourism.

Reporter: To develop rural tourism, farmers need support from the State. In the coming time, what support will Son La provide to people to exploit this type of tourism, sir?

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Cong: The People's Council of Son La province has issued Resolution No. 128/2020/NQ-HDND on policies to encourage investment in agriculture and rural areas in the province. On this basis, the province has supported tourism and service development projects, including the project to develop tourism in the Son La Hydropower reservoir. Project to develop mountain tourism, build community tourism areas in areas with potential and advantages; use the state budget to support villages and households, help people rebuild houses, village roads, flower roads, and build rural infrastructure.

PV: Son La has a policy to build and develop into one of the key fruit growing areas. How will Son La continue to implement this issue to bring about economic efficiency and agricultural tourism?

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Cong: By 2025, Son La's fruit tree area is 100,000 hectares, of which mango alone is 20,000 hectares. However, to achieve economic efficiency, the growing area must be linked to the production, processing and consumption areas. Otherwise, we will keep growing and working until we cannot consume, then we have to rescue. Therefore, we strongly implement the opinion of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to only plant key trees with suitable areas, then go into depth, focus on processing, improve quality, towards stable growing areas, stable crops. With 100,000 hectares of fruit trees by 2025, after planting, we will create canopy, intensive farming to increase productivity, especially implementing technical measures to spread the crop. The province has applied this technique with spreading plums and spreading custard apples. Son La has also created and grafted a new custard apple variety called durian custard apple, weighing about 2-3kg/fruit, selling price at the garden is about 500,000 VND/kg.

PV: Digital transformation and e-commerce applications are taking place quite strongly in the agricultural sector. So what about Son La, sir?

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Cong: With technology 4.0, digital economy is an inevitable trend, applying digital transformation in Son La agriculture has been and is being done. Son La has issued a decision to announce the province's trading floor: nongsansonla.vn. On this trading floor, the origin of Son La's agricultural products, including OCOP products, can be traced. Applying science and technology, including information technology, is a must. Son La farmers are currently selling some agricultural products on e-commerce platforms: Voso, Postmart. We will continue to promote the application of digital transformation in agriculture in the coming time.

PV: Thank you very much!

NGUYEN KIEM (recorded)

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