Raising income for ethnic minorities

In order to achieve the goal of sustainable poverty reduction, Quang Ninh province has always paid attention to directing and implementing ethnic policies, including many mechanisms and policies to support ethnic minority, mountainous, border and island areas. Supporting the livelihoods of ethnic minority people not only helps them increase their income and stabilize their lives, but also narrows the gap between mountainous and lowland areas, urban and rural areas.

Mr. Chieu Van Nam (Ky Thuong commune) is taking care of his family's cows.

Starting out as a poor household in Thanh Lam commune (now Ky Thuong commune), Mr. Chieu Van Nam now has an income of hundreds of millions of VND/year from the cow breeding model. Mr. Nam confided: In the past, my family had many difficulties, working all year round but still not enough to eat, poverty always followed the family. With the determination to escape poverty, I always struggled to find new directions to develop the economy .

From the Party and State's specific policies and guidelines on socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, Mr. Nam boldly borrowed capital to buy 2 breeding cows. At that time, for Mr. Nam, 2 cows were extremely valuable assets, so he took good care of them and hoped that this would be the right direction for his family to escape poverty.

Thanks to his diligence, hard work, and the support of the Thanh Lam Commune Farmers' Association (formerly), Mr. Nam was able to attend classes on animal husbandry, production development, and training on science and technology. Thanks to his knowledge in animal husbandry and proactive disease prevention, Mr. Nam's family's cattle farming model has now grown to more than 40 cows. Mr. Nam shared: In order to take good care of the cows, I actively participated in training classes on animal husbandry techniques. From there, I grasped the techniques as well as how to prevent diseases in livestock. I can now vaccinate my family's cows myself.

After a period of persistent raising, each year, Mr. Nam's family's herd of cows gives birth to 15-17 calves, helping his family escape the poverty criteria. Each year, Mr. Nam's family sells 12-15 commercial cows, earning 150-200 million VND. Since the beginning of the year, he has sold 8 breeding cows for 16-17 million VND/cow. Currently, Mr. Nam's family has also proactively planned and planted 2,000m2 ^of grass to ensure food for the herd. In addition, after each harvest, his family also stores straw and stubble to feed the cows in the winter.

Tien Yen commune people pack cellophane noodles products.

In recent years, the ethnic minority areas of Quang Ninh have made comprehensive development, and people's lives have been constantly improved. In particular, the implementation of Resolution No. 06-NQ/TU of the Provincial Party Committee on socio-economic development in ethnic minority, mountainous, border and island areas for the period 2021-2025, with a vision to 2030, has created a strong driving force to help people escape poverty sustainably. Thanks to investment resources from programs and projects, many households have been supported to develop production, access preferential loans, and convert crop and livestock structures to suit local conditions.

Along with that, the province also focuses on vocational training for rural workers, especially those in ethnic minority areas, considering this a fundamental solution to increase sustainable income. Some localities have applied some good and effective methods in solving employment for ethnic minorities such as: Coordinating with educational institutions, vocational training, consulting and career guidance to enhance support services for finding and connecting jobs for ethnic minority youth; supporting capital, means of production, production techniques, development orientation, forecasting product consumption and introducing jobs for workers after vocational training... Since then, people have had a deeper understanding of the purpose of vocational training, from learning to follow the trend, learning to receive support money to learning to grasp science and technology to apply in production to improve productivity and product value in order to reduce poverty sustainably.

In 2024, the province supported training for 1,165 people, reaching 99.15% of the annual plan. Of these, 643 were ethnic minority workers, accounting for 55.19% of the total number of workers supported to study primary vocational training, thereby significantly contributing to increasing the rate of trained workers and creating jobs for local workers.

People of Quang Duc commune plant production forests. Photo: Huu Viet

The average income per capita in communes in ethnic minority, mountainous, border and island areas in the province in 2024 will reach 83.79 million VND, an increase of more than 40 million VND compared to 2020. Collective economic models, cooperatives and enterprises in the highlands will develop strongly. The whole province has 768 agricultural cooperatives, 432 OCOP products reaching 3-5 stars. Sustainable forest development, ecological agriculture, livestock farming and coastal aquaculture in a modern direction will also be implemented synchronously.

The province has completed the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction for the 2021-2025 period 3 years ahead of schedule and has no more poor or near-poor households according to the province's poverty standards (1.4 times higher than the Central poverty standards on income criteria); at the same time, it continues to focus on improving quality and adding criteria/indicators to meet the NTM standards according to the NTM criteria set for the 2021-2025 period for communes in ethnic minority, mountainous, border and island areas. Quang Ninh has also been recognized by the Prime Minister for completing the task of building the NTM in 2024.

The results achieved are clear evidence of the effectiveness of the right policies, creating motivation for the people in the highlands of Quang Ninh not only to escape poverty sustainably but also to strive to get rich, contributing to building an increasingly rich and beautiful homeland.

Van Anh

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/nang-cao-thu-nhap-cho-dong-bao-dan-toc-thieu-so-3381507.html