Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer 2024 from Son La requests support for building agricultural processing infrastructure

Clip: Mr. Luong Van Muoi, Director of Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative (Chieng Khoong commune, Song Ma district, Son La province), is an Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer of 2024. He wishes to have more capital to expand production, invest in processing and selling agricultural products, specifically processing longan.

Farmers are facing difficulties in expanding production.

Following the officials of the Song Ma District Farmers' Association ( Son La province ), we visited Chieng Khoong commune, considered the fruit-growing capital of Song Ma district. From the villages to the hamlets, everywhere we went, we encountered farmers discussing the development of fruit trees for high income.

From planting, caring for, and harvesting to consumption, everything was discussed. When asked about exemplary households in fruit cultivation and development in the region, everyone praised farmer Luong Van Muoi, Director of Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative (Chieng Khoong commune, Song Ma district, Son La province).

Mr. Mười is a pioneer in the movement to restructure crop production, introducing new crop varieties into cultivation, proactively applying scientific and technological advancements to production, adopting VietGAP standards, and creating staggered fruit production, resulting in high productivity and economic efficiency.

Mr. Luong Van Muoi also had the honor of being one of the 63 outstanding farmers nationwide selected by the Selection Council as "Outstanding Vietnamese Farmer 2024".

Mr. Luong Van Muoi, Director of Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative (Chieng Khoong commune, Song Ma district, Son La province), tends to his family's longan orchard. Photo: Van Ngoc

Mr. Mười's longan orchard covers about 5 hectares on a high hillside. Initially, Mr. Mười only dared to try planting 1.3 hectares of the late-ripening Khoái Châu longan variety (from Hưng Yên). He learned and accumulated experience as he went along, and only when he saw high efficiency did he expand production to the entire 5 hectares.

To maximize the value of his longan trees, Mr. Mười implemented a staggered harvesting strategy by cultivating the early-ripening T6 longan variety and treating 10% of these trees with Kaliclrat to induce extremely early flowering and fruiting. As a result, his family was able to supply longan to the market as early as April, selling it at incredibly high prices of 30-35 thousand VND/kg.

However, during the cultivation of his longan orchard, because Mr. Muoi switched from another profession to agriculture, he also encountered many difficulties in thoroughly applying scientific and technical advancements to farming, from fertilizing, pruning, grafting, pest and disease control to harvesting, etc.

“Currently, during the cultivation of longan trees, I am facing difficulties in preventing and controlling diseases on the trees, as well as implementing effective measures to treat longan trees when they flower and bear fruit out of season. We hope that all levels and sectors will organize more training courses on fruit tree development, especially for longan trees that bear fruit out of season. Through these training courses, we will be able to grasp the techniques to apply to our family's longan orchard,” Mr. Mười said.

The longan orchard of Mr. Luong Van Muoi, Director of Hoa Muoi Chieng Khoong Agricultural Service Cooperative, Song Ma district, Son La province, is located on a slope. Photo: Van Ngoc

According to Mr. Mười, the most important factor in producing off-season longan is having sufficient irrigation water for the orchard. His family's longan orchard is located on a hillside, so ensuring adequate irrigation is quite challenging.

Currently, to address the immediate problem of irrigation water, Mr. Mười's family has only dug a large hole in the middle of the garden, lined it with waterproof agricultural tarpaulin, pumped water from the stream below to fill it, and then watered each tree individually.

"For off-season longan cultivation, irrigation is indispensable. However, with the large area of ​​our family's longan orchard, investing in a standard irrigation system that is convenient for cultivation, especially during the dry season, requires a large investment, which is beyond our family's means."

"I hope the government will have preferential support policies to help farmer members like us access large, long-term loans to invest in building water reservoirs and installing stable, scientific, and convenient irrigation systems that water every single tree," Mr. Mười said.

Mr. Luong Van Muoi, Director of Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative, hopes to participate in more training courses on science and technology. Photo: Van Ngoc

Farmers are hoping for more capital to expand production.

Not content with just developing their household economy, and with the desire to connect and apply science and technology in production to increase income, eight households in Huoi Bo village, Chieng Khoong commune (Song Ma district) jointly contributed capital and land to establish the Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative, developing the cultivation of safe fruit trees according to VietGAP standards. Mr. Muoi was trusted and elected as the Director of the Cooperative. To date, the Cooperative has 14 members, cultivating nearly 50 hectares of fruit trees including mangoes, longan, etc.

To develop sustainable fruit tree cultivation with high economic efficiency, over the years, the cooperative has collaborated with the Agricultural Service Center and Farmers' Associations at all levels to organize training courses on transferring techniques for planting and caring for fruit trees according to VietGAP standards; and encouraged members to invest in irrigation systems, automatic irrigation, and the use of organic fertilizers and biological pesticides in production... Currently, the cooperative has 20 hectares of longan and 10 hectares of mango that meet VietGAP standards.

Mr. Luong Van Muoi, Director of Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative, hopes to participate in more training courses on science and technology. Photo: Van Ngoc

However, according to the Director of Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative, the cooperative has encountered many difficulties in the process of cultivating and developing fruit trees.

Mr. Mười explained that developing fruit trees on sloping land is not as easy as in flat areas or valleys. This is because the fruit orchards of the cooperative members are mainly located in hilly and sloping areas. Some orchards require traversing winding dirt and rocky roads, and crossing streams with rough, stony terrain. Therefore, this greatly affects the members' ability to travel, care for the trees, and transport goods for sale.

"The roads leading to the orchards are currently very difficult to access; they are muddy in the rainy season and dusty in the dry season. This is especially true for fruit orchards, where the roads cross streams. During harvest season, on days with heavy rain, the streams rise, making it difficult for cooperative members to transport goods to traders, leading to delays in delivering goods to customers."

This not only affects the quality of fruit that is ready for harvest, but also damages the goods during transportation. Harvesting at the wrong time will affect the flowering and fruiting of the next crop.

"We hope the government will support the construction of bridges over streams and upgrade the rural roads leading to our orchards. This will make it easier for us farmers to travel, reduce unnecessary costs, and allow us to work and produce with more peace of mind," Mr. Mười said.

Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative hopes to receive additional capital to expand production. Photo: Van Ngoc

According to the Director of Hoa Muoi Agricultural Service Cooperative, in order to expand production, improve productivity and product quality, and increase income for members, in addition to selling fresh longan fruit, the cooperative also encourages and mobilizes members to build drying ovens to process longan into dried fruit.

However, building a drying system for processing longan requires a large investment. The cooperative faces difficulties in securing the necessary capital to build a drying facility that ensures production, expands production to participate in the safe food supply chain, and maintains strict control from initial production to collection, processing, and consumption, creating products that are safe for consumers' health and traceable.

"We aim to expand production and consumption linkages for agricultural products with farmers; to seek and connect with investors, and to sign production and product purchase contracts with businesses, supermarket chains, shopping malls, and wholesale markets..."

"We are developing a code for lychee growing areas to export to international markets. We hope that all levels and sectors will provide more funding to support the construction of more lychee drying facilities to proactively guarantee the purchase of products from cooperative members and lychee growers, contributing to increasing product value and improving members' income," Mr. Mười said.

Source: https://danviet.vn/nong-dan-viet-nam-xuat-sac-2024-den-tu-son-la-de-nghi-ho-tro-xay-dung-ha-tang-che-bien-nong-san-20240929180746129.htm