Developing cooperatives in Luc Nam: Exploiting advantages, raising people's income

Exploiting advantages

Having been attached to the fields since childhood, Mr. Nguyen Tien Tu (born in 1981), residing in Ha My village (Luc Nam commune), chose to raise pigs to develop his family's economy . He had great ambitions and was determined to get rich from the traditional profession of many other households in the village, but due to his youth and lack of experience, his family's pigs often got sick, and the economic efficiency was not high.

Horse breeding model of Mr. Nguyen Tien Tu.

In 2011, during a trip to Cao Bang , he was fascinated by the model of raising white horses for breeding and fattening colored horses, so he learned about it and bought 20 colored horses to raise and fatten. Thanks to his diligence in learning, taking advantage of the available grass fields in the area and supplementing starch for the horses, in the first year his family's revenue from horse breeding reached about 300 million VND, after deducting expenses, the profit was nearly 100 million VND.

In the following years, he continued to invest in expanding his horse herd. The model was effective, in 2021, he joined with 14 households in the commune to establish the Luc Nam Grass Horse Breeding Cooperative, with him as director. By joining the cooperative, households are provided with breeding animals, technical support for breeding, and all products are purchased by Mr. Tu.

Taking us to visit his family's horse farm, Mr. Tu said that when deciding to raise horses on a large scale, in addition to being proactive in providing food, it is necessary to have knowledge in disease prevention and treatment. Therefore, he has taught himself how to recognize and treat common diseases in horses. Thanks to that, the horse herd has developed stably and is disease-free. Currently, the cooperative members regularly raise 150 - 200 horses (both white and colored horses), of which his family alone raises more than 100.

Not only supplying commercial horses, in recent years, the cooperative has invested in a deep processing line of horse products such as: horse glue, horse ham, horse sausage. From buying and selling horse products, the cooperative's annual revenue reaches about 80 billion VND, minus expenses, the profit is more than 7 billion VND, his family alone earns about 4 billion VND. At the same time, the cooperative creates jobs, with an income of 7-11 million VND/person/month for 20 local workers.

“To replicate the model and help poor households and those in difficult circumstances rise up, from 2024, I will provide breeds for projects supporting sustainable poverty reduction livelihoods in the province. Along with supplying breeds, I will directly go to households to guide care techniques, especially nutrition and disease prevention for horses,” said Nguyen Tien Tu.

According to statistics, Luc Nam commune currently has 14 cooperatives operating in the fields of agriculture and services. Thanks to being established based on the potential and strengths of the locality as well as the actual needs of the people, the cooperatives operate effectively.

Experts from the Economic Department of Luc Nam commune grasp the production and business situation of Ms. La Thi Nhung's household, Cham village.

Or Luc Nam General Agricultural Service Cooperative plays a good role as a "midwife" for the local agricultural economy. The cooperative organizes the supply of input materials with guaranteed quality and reasonable prices; at the same time, it cooperates with enterprises to purchase agricultural products for the people. In addition, the cooperative also supports land preparation, harvesting, and transportation services, helping farmers significantly reduce production costs and be more proactive during the crop season.

Similarly, thanks to boldly transforming the production model, Chu Dien Agricultural Service Cooperative has affirmed its effectiveness in two main directions: Goat farming and flower and ornamental plant growing. "Taking advantage of the large hilly land and abundant natural food sources, we invested in a modern goat farming area, applied biosafety procedures, and fully vaccinated so the goats grow well, have few diseases, and have delicious meat quality, and are regularly ordered by traders in and outside the province," said Mr. Nguyen Van Tien, Director of Chu Dien Agricultural Service Cooperative.

Development companion

In fact, through the forms of cooperation and association, it has created more conditions for households in Luc Nam commune to have more resources to invest in infrastructure and machinery for production. Thanks to the application of new scientific and technological advances, the commune's agricultural products have increased significantly in both quantity and quality, better meeting diverse market needs.

Despite certain achievements, the assessment of the activities of cooperatives in the commune shows that they face many barriers; the number of cooperatives in the area is still small, the quality and sustainability are not high... "Most cooperatives are small in scale, leading to low production, processing and consumption capacity. The lack of capital, lack of modern processing and processing infrastructure makes it difficult for agricultural products to achieve high added value, and there are no OCOP products in the area", said Mr. Tran Van Canh, an expert of the Economic Department of Luc Nam commune.

Overcoming "bottlenecks", gradually expanding and effectively developing forms of association and cooperation along the agricultural value chain, after operating the two-level local government, the Party Committee and People's Committee of Luc Nam commune issued many programs and economic development plans. The Economic Department was assigned to preside over and be responsible for supporting and guiding groups of households to jointly produce and conduct business, establish cooperatives and cooperatives.

To carry out the task, the Economic Department assigned an officer in charge to proactively connect and support the subjects to complete the procedures and conditions for establishing a cooperative. Recently, grasping the need to expand production and business of horse sausage and fried pork sausage products of individual business household La Thi Nhung (born in 1976), residing in Cham village, an officer of the Commune Economic Department directly went down to grasp and guide Ms. Nhung in selecting more members to establish a cooperative. Up to now, the procedures and processes for establishing a cooperative are being urgently completed.

“By establishing the cooperative, I and the associate members will have the opportunity to participate in training courses to improve management capacity and accounting and auditing efficiency; and access preferential loans to develop production. It is expected that after the establishment of the cooperative, we will introduce Nem Ngua and Nem Thinh products to participate in the evaluation and classification of OCOP products,” said Ms. La Thi Nhung.

In order to support start-up cooperatives to quickly affirm their direction and position in the market, in the coming time, Luc Nam commune will focus on encouraging cooperatives to expand input and output services, support farmers with new varieties, mechanization and technology transfer; and at the same time, improve the quality of cooperative management.

One of the important orientations is to expand safe agricultural production areas and organic agriculture, focusing on building models of high-tech vegetable growing areas, bio-safe livestock farming areas and value chain linkage models with businesses.

In addition, the commune continues to create favorable conditions for cooperatives to access preferential capital sources and support programs of the province; coordinate with the industry to connect purchasing enterprises, forming a sustainable consumption market. Training of cooperative staff and training to improve production skills for members are also focused on to improve the efficiency of the model.

Article and photos: Sy Quyet

Source: https://baobacninhtv.vn/phat-trien-hop-tac-xa-o-luc-nam-khai-thac-loi-the-nang-thu-nhap-nguoi-dan-postid432652.bbg