The area where Mr. Hoan is standing is a barren alluvial land belonging to Thong Nhat farm (now Thong Nhat Thanh Hoa Company Limited). The terrain is mainly gravel, both poor in nutrients and unable to retain water, so people can only cultivate drought-loving plants such as pineapple, sugarcane, rubber... with income also unstable due to the fluctuating weather of the Central region.
Since 2018, this land has been revived by a major event - the inauguration of the Vinamilk Thanh Hoa high-tech dairy farm invested by Thong Nhat Thanh Hoa Dairy Cow Company Limited (a joint venture between Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company - Vinamilk and Thong Nhat Thanh Hoa One Member Company Limited). With a scale of 8,000 dairy cows, the farm is invested in the world's leading modern machinery and equipment and meets the international agricultural practice standards Global GAP on farm management and the quality of delicious, pure fresh milk.
At first, people in Yen Dinh district only knew about the modernity of Vinamilk farm through the stories of their children who were working there. People told each other that: the enterprise raised purebred imported dairy cows with much higher productivity than the cows from their hometown; the cows at Vinamilk farm were fed food without antibiotic and pesticide residues, were given chip tags to monitor their health, were bathed and freely massaged; the farm even had robots to automatically push food... For "original" farmers like Mr. Hoan, these were all strange stories and they never thought that one day they would become an important part of the farm's supply chain.
In addition to the farm’s 300 hectares of organically cultivated grassland, Vinamilk plans to cooperate with surrounding households to develop a corn biomass growing area (corn harvested at the waxy stage instead of fully ripe) to proactively source green forage for the herd. However, the transition is not necessarily easy.
"Corn is a short-term crop so it is strongly affected by the weather. When it is flowering and then encounters drought for just one week, the quality and yield of the corn plant has decreased significantly. Biomass corn is a new variety of corn in Yen Dinh district, and the people have never grown it before, so they were hesitant when Vinamilk proposed cooperation," Mr. Thuan recalled.
To help farmers feel secure in participating in the chain, Vinamilk has introduced many incentive and support policies, from interest-free loans to invest in self-propelled irrigation systems, to commitments to guarantee output at stable prices, and to provide technical advice on cultivation. Many farm technicians - also local people, assigned farm land - have been encouraged to pioneer the conversion from growing pineapple to corn.
After 1-2 successful crops, the number of farmers registering to participate gradually increased. After 6 years of operation, Vinamilk Thanh Hoa farm has developed a corn biomass material area of up to 700 hectares, creating many additional service industries, creating thousands of jobs for local workers. Since then, the "giant" in the dairy industry has gradually realized its promise to shift the economic structure of the region, improve people's income and contribute to the socio-economic development of the area.
"All the people who have joined Vinamilk are better off. My family has had enough to eat and a stable life since then. The lives of the people of Yen Dinh have clearly changed since Vinamilk came here," Mr. Hoan said excitedly.
Not only Thanh Hoa, Vinamilk's total corn biomass purchase output from farmers across the country has recently reached over 190,000 tons/year. Through that, the company is persistently contributing to improving people's livelihoods in the places it visits.
At 8am on the first day of the new corn crop, the wastewater treatment area of Vinamilk Green Farm Thanh Hoa is bustling with vehicles coming and going. Trucks or modified farm vehicles pulling large water tanks slowly enter the farm’s biogas system, lining up in front of each pumping station. It takes about 15 minutes for a truck to fill up with treated manure, then quickly head out to the fields - where corn has been harvested or grass has been cut close to the roots - to fertilize and improve the soil.
Mr. Tran Van Thuan said that this manure water source is one of the main outputs from the farm's circular economic circle. With the goal of "nothing is discarded", Vinamilk Green Farm Thanh Hoa as well as the system of 13 other Vinamilk farms across Vietnam strictly apply the principle: The output of this process is fully utilized as input for another process, thereby reducing resource exploitation, waste treatment costs and environmental pollution.
Explaining more specifically, Mr. Thuan said that all manure and wastewater from the livestock are automatically collected and transported through a closed canal system to the collection area. Here, the solid manure is composted using Japanese technology to transform into an organic nutrient source, replacing chemical and inorganic fertilizers.
The liquid manure is treated anaerobically in the biogas pond to produce methane gas used to generate energy to run the grass dryer, boil water to sterilize milk for calves, dry towels and clothes... The remaining water will continue to go through many stages such as aeration, sedimentation tank, filtration, sediment separation... to be reused for cleaning barns and improving soil.
In 2023, the farm's treated wastewater was sampled, analyzed and certified to meet QCVN 01-195:2022/BNNPTNT standards on livestock wastewater used for crops. As soon as the instructions were issued, Vinamilk invested in a pumping system to provide this resource for free to households in the linkage program, to irrigate and improve the soil for corn fields.
"Households using treated manure water from Vinamilk Green Farm Thanh Hoa to care for corn plants have seen significant improvements in both crop yields and soil fertility. As a result, farmers have gradually changed their farming practices towards using natural resources such as land and water more efficiently and sustainably. The concept of green agriculture, therefore, is not only limited within the boundaries of the farm but also spreads strongly to the surrounding community," said Mr. Thuan.
Walking in the middle of a vast green corn field of hundreds of hectares, old farmer Le Van Long bent down to pick up a handful of soil and excitedly boasted: "The soil here has never been so loose and fertile." In previous years, he also grew biomass corn to supply Vinamilk Green Farm Thanh Hoa, but the yield was only 30-35 tons/ha/crop. Since the farm has supported him with this source of treated manure, the yield has skyrocketed to 40-45 tons/ha/crop. His income from 1 hectare associated with the farm is more than 35-40 million VND/year compared to before.
Another impressive thing is that the improved soil is increasingly rich in nutrients, balancing the micro-organisms and increasing the ability to retain water. When it is time to harvest, the corn is still green from root to tip, not dry at the base like traditional farming methods.
"In the past, when growing corn, after a maximum of 2 years, the plant would get bored with the soil, giving low yields and quality that did not meet the farm's standards. Since using this fertilizer water source, we can grow continuously, and if the weather permits, we can cultivate 3-4 crops/year. Farmers also save an additional 10-12 million VND/ha/year on chemical fertilizer costs. Income has increased, everyone is excited," Mr. Long said with a smile.
Regarding the commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 (Net Zero 2050) that Vinamilk announced in mid-2023, Mr. Le Hoang Minh - Executive Director of Production and Head of Vinamilk's Net Zero project - repeatedly affirmed that it cannot be achieved with efforts from within Vinamilk alone. According to the conversion, the activities of suppliers and consumers account for 80% of Vinamilk's total emissions.
"In the process of practicing sustainable development, we pay great attention to inspiring the community to join hands, and the way Vinamilk Green Farm is doing is a typical example. By strictly adhering to the principles of emission reduction, we have spread that awareness to households in the linkage program. These households implement and succeed, and continue to replicate it to the surrounding community. I believe that is an important key to help Vinamilk achieve the Net Zero goal by 2050," Mr. Minh emphasized.
This vision has been partly proven in practice when Vinamilk became the first dairy company in Vietnam to have both its factory and farm certified as carbon neutral according to the PAS2060:2014 standard. According to the published report, the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions neutralized by the dairy factory and dairy farm in Nghe An is 17,560 tons of CO2 (equivalent to about 1.7 million trees). This is the result of a "double action", Vinamilk's efforts to reduce emissions in production and livestock, while maintaining the company's tree fund to absorb greenhouse gases over the years.
"Achieving carbon neutral certification according to European standards is not a simple process. But these are just the first units, we will soon announce the next achievements this year," Mr. Minh revealed.
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