Agricultural cooperatives make an important contribution to building new rural areas

Currently, the province has 212 cooperatives, of which agricultural sector leads in number with 68 cooperatives. Agricultural cooperatives are increasingly affirming their important role in orienting, assisting and improving the efficiency of agricultural production, contributing significantly to the local economic growth.

Kim Long hi-tech agricultural cooperative succeeds in bringing together production links, meeting the market demand well. In photo: Nguyen Hong Quyet, Director of the cooperative, introduces melon products grown according to Global.GAP standards.

To prove the role

The effective operation of agricultural cooperatives has contributed to the good implementation of the criteria of production organization renovation of the new rural construction in localities. The form of production organization is a mandatory criterion in new rural construction in order to improve income and create jobs for people in rural areas.

In fact, North Tan Uyen district is well-known for its high-quality oranges, tangerines and pomelos, thanks to the contribution of agricultural cooperatives through innovation, improvement of operational quality, application of advanced technology into production. Agricultural cooperatives have brought the brand of North Tan Uyen citrus fruits to the market, facilitating the process of new rural construction.

Up to now, North Tan Uyen district has 7/8 communes meeting 19/19 criteria of advanced new rural construction (Dat Cuoc, Lac An, Tan Dinh, Hieu Liem, Thuong Tan, Tan My and Binh My). In order for the implementation of the new rural construction program to be effective, from the beginning, the district clearly defined the objectives, targets and road map to comply with each category combined with the socio-economic development targets of each commune. Based on this, localities have utilized their advantages to implement the criteria, including the criteria of production organization.

With main products of agricultural products, namely citrus fruit trees and poultry meat. In recent years, Hieu Liem commune has made many efforts to encourage farmers to assemble and unite to develop collective economic sector. Currently, the commune has two cooperatives (Nhan Duc Cooperative and Ngoc Quang Thanh Cooperative). In the new rural construction program, cooperatives have joined hands with the commune administration to carry out the planning, zoning of agricultural production, changing the structure of crops and livestock, creating favorable conditions for households to organize production. In addition, the cooperatives transferred advanced techniques, heightening the production value on farming lands, contributing to improving people's income. Thanks to its effective operations, each cooperative creates regular jobs for more than 20 local laborers every year, generate billions of VND of income for members.

Dau Tieng district is the first new rural construction district of the province, with strengths in agriculture, currently has 14 agricultural cooperatives with 124 members, total revenue reached nearly VND 14 billion, profit reached more than VND 2.7 billion. Agricultural cooperatives, such as Minh Hoa Phat, Tam Phat (Minh Hoa commune), maintain stable operations, made transformation, expansion of production scale, variety of crops, supply seedlings, agricultural materials etc. contributing to the implementation of new rural construction in the area. According to Dau Tieng district Steering Committee for Cooperative Economic Innovation and Development, in order to stimulate the development of collective economic sector in general and agricultural cooperatives in particular. In the coming time, the district will continue to support the expansion of the professions in demand, especially in sectors of agriculture, services, transportation...

Innovation for sustainable development

It can be seen that farmers are not used to the collective economy, farming area are fragmented, consumption of agricultural products is done only through traders, leading to the “high yield, low price”. The first innovation must be the mindset of farmers to help farmers understand the linkage of production will create strengths. Therefore, for agriculture to develop sustainably, production linkage is always a new problem. Especially, in the Industry 4.0, to carry out mass production, it is necessary to cooperate, produce according to standards, then products will have a strong position on the market.

Kim Long hi-tech agricultural cooperative in Ca Na hamlet, An Binh commune, Phu Giao district is an example that needs to be expanded. Kim Long Cooperative has succeeded in uniting small producers, form a strong competitive organization to protect the interests of members in the conditions of market economy and integration. Pham Van Hien, a cooperative member, said: "As I was not a member of the cooperative, my family cultivated crops and waited for traders to buy our products with high or low prices, which we could not determine, because we did not have the market information. After joining the cooperative, I was instructed to organize my production and was suppled with input materials and signed consumption contracts. In addition, the cooperative also helps members grasp market information in order to have plans for producing crops, avoid massive production of the same product at the same time, prevent “high yield, low price".

In order to help agricultural cooperatives to develop sustainably, the Provincial Cooperative Alliance issued many policies, such as to support the application of advanced techniques to reduce production costs; to increase investment and upgrade technical infrastructure for agriculture, rural areas, human resources are well-trained and get younger. In addition, the Provincial Cooperative Alliance strengthens financial and credit support activities to increase financial capacity of agriculture and rural areas.

The province has now Tan My fruit cooperative (North Tan Uyen district) and Thanh Kien guava cooperative (Phu Giáo district), which participate in a project to support the construction of production and business cooperatives linked with the value chain and implemented by the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance with a total amount of VND 444.7 million. The initial efficiency gained was the reduction of input cost of cooperatives from 18-22%, improvement of product value, contributing to increasing income for members.

Reported by Tien Hanh – Translated by Ngoc Huynh