With new requirements, Cham ethnic minority community at Minh Hoa commune, Dau Tieng district has transferred farming structure to plant rubber trees. This is an effective change.  Cham ethnic people hope to enjoy technical guidance of planting rubber trees. 

Visiting Cham village at Hoa Loc hamlet of Minh Hoa commune, everyone will witness positive change in the locality. Immense rubber plantations have been replaced old cashew gardens. Cham ethnic people now focus on planting rubber trees and other short-time trees.

The locality now has about 97 Cham ethnic households, living on rubber trees. The rapid change of farming structure in the Cham ethnic community has created a comfortable life for the local ethnic people. The ethnic households have possessed from 0.5ha to 3ha of rubber trees. Most of their rubber plantations are under good development.

Concrete guidance needed

Mr. Sa Lin – one of rubber planting households in the hamlet, said rubber tree brings a high and stable income for farmers. Many ethnic households have enjoyed an income from VND700,000-1mil per day.

However, the transfer of planting rubber trees was started from an unprompted movement in shortage of guidance from functional agencies. Initially, many households planted rubber trees from variety of RRIV4, owing to shortage of information. The variety often suffers many diseases. In 2010, many local ethnic households spent much money to treat diseases on the rubber variety.

Mr.Kho Sanh, a local ethnic resident, said many local ethnic households are in shortage of knowledge on rubber tree and they are in need of technical guidance from functional agencies.

Reported by C.Son – Translated by A.C