Opening the forestry road, a breakthrough development direction

Investment in opening new forestry routes and roads to fruit growing areas in the northern communes of Thai Nguyen province is creating new motivation for people to develop production, contributing to the gradual formation of concentrated agricultural and forestry economic zones.

Forestry road to production area in Thanh Mai commune.

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Xe’s family in An Tho village, Thanh Mai commune has more than 4 hectares of production forest. Previously, the transportation of seedlings, fertilizers as well as the exploitation of planted forest timber mainly relied on the power of buffaloes, horses or motorbikes along the trails along streams. This led to high transportation costs and low investment efficiency.

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Xe shared: A hectare of beautiful acacia can only be sold for about 15-20 million VND because of the difficulty in transportation. But now, the State is interested in opening forestry roads to production areas and planted forests, so cars can come to the place to buy. After being exploited, the acacia wood is loaded onto trucks and transported straight to the lowlands. After deducting expenses, I still have a profit of 100 million VND per hectare. Thanks to the roads, the economy from planted forests has increased many times.

The above route is one of the projects under the Bac Kan Forestry Road Project for the period 2021-2025. In Thanh Mai commune, the more than 4km long route connecting to the production forest areas of villages such as An Tho, Khau Chu, etc. has been completed, creating favorable conditions for hundreds of households to exploit and transport forest products.

Not only relying on the state budget, many households in the area also proactively contribute funds to open roads to their family production areas. According to statistics, in Thanh Mai, Thanh Thinh, Tan Ky communes... there are over 20,000 hectares of production forests, each year more than 1,000 hectares are newly planted; the exploited output reaches nearly 95,000m3 of wood.

People transport harvested timber on forestry roads.

Not only in the forestry sector, the synchronous investment in the transportation system is also creating momentum for the strong development of specialty fruit growing areas. In Tan Ky commune, which is considered a key apricot growing area with an area of over 400 hectares, the completion of 3 roads to the apricot growing area, along with the Tan Ky - Yen Binh inter-commune route, has fundamentally solved the difficulties in transporting materials, harvesting and consuming agricultural products. According to Ms. Pham Thi Thu, an apricot grower in Tan Ky, in the past, she had to carry each bag, and it was difficult for motorbikes to travel. Now that there are roads and cars to harvest apricots, people have less trouble and can sell them at a better price.

Mr. Bui Nguyen Quynh, Vice Chairman of Tan Ky Commune People's Committee, said: The new roads have passed through nearly 200 hectares of apricots. Currently, there is a cooperative that consumes the products, and a part of the output is provided as raw materials for Misaki Vietnam Co., Ltd. in Thanh Binh Industrial Park. With the roads, people have more convenience in transportation, reducing costs and improving production efficiency.

With the advantage of about 100,000 hectares of production forests and more than 6,000 hectares of specialty fruit trees such as oranges, tangerines, seedless persimmons, apricots, bananas, etc., the agricultural and forestry sector continues to play a key role in the northern highland communes of Thai Nguyen province.

Faced with the urgent need for infrastructure to serve the development of commodity production, since 2021, Bac Kan province (old) has implemented two major projects, including: Forestry road project with a total length of more than 370km and Road project to fruit tree and perennial industrial tree growing areas with a length of over 35km. To date, the basic roads have been completed and put into operation.

Investment in transport infrastructure not only connects production areas with consumption centers, but also helps form chains linking production - processing - consumption. People have more convenience in transporting materials, seeds, and output products; the value of agricultural and forestry products increases, contributing to increasing income and legitimate enrichment.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/kinh-te/202507/mo-duong-lam-nghiep-huong-phat-trien-dot-pha-3ee79fd/