With “huge” loan reaching up to 100 million dong per household and 2 billion dong per project from Supporting Fund for Farmers (SFF), many farmers got the opportunity to invest, expand the scale, connect with each other to create large production areas in value chain.

Farmers are joyful

Minh Tan (Luong Tai District) is the first commune of Bac Ninh Province to form and develop a specialized area for carrot production. Nguyen Van Cuong, Chairman of Minh Tan Commune FU, said: “In 2003, Minh Tan Commune started to grow carrots as an experiment. At first, only a few dozen households attended with a total area of 11 ha. Seeing its low-cost, high economic efficiency, the commune encouraged farmers to shift to carrot farming and expand their growing area in the following years. Consequently, starting from 11 ha at the beginning, the area for carrot farming reached 234 ha in 2017, accounting for 98% of the local total winter crops.

Up to December 31, 2017, the total budget of SFF at all levels hit 2,695.228 billion dong (397.690 billion dong (16.9%) higher compared to the same period), helped 143,629 members, farmers with loans for agricultural production.

Many households in the commune also rented land in other neighbourhoods such as Trung Kenh Commune (Luong Tai District), Cao Duc and Van Ninh Commune (Gia Binh District) to cultivate. With productivity of 40-45 tons/ha and value of 7.5-8 million dong every 360-square metre, many families escaped from poverty thanks to carrot, income from carrot was 5-6 times higher than other plants. To support farmers in forming a mass production area attached to product consumption, the communal FU in collaboration with the district FU and the Executive Board of Bac Ninh provincial SFF disburse 1 billion dong of loan from SFF to 10 households participating in the carrot farming project.

Being one of households getting a maximum loan of 100 million dong from SFF, Nguyen Van Dung, Dam Trai Village, expanded his farming area to nearly 8.3 ha which is specialized for carrot farming and vegetable intercropping. When it comes to harvest seasons, he has to hire 20-30 workmen. With the best possible selling price at 9,000 dong/kg, every carrot crop brings him billions of income.

To give farmers the best support

In Phu Hoa Commune (Luong Tai District), Nguyen Thi Lam, member of Vietnam-Japan Rabbit Farming Cooperative, also got a loan of 100 million dong from SFF. Lam currently own more than 100 breeding rabbits and 1,000 market rabbits. She excitedly said: “With the capital from SFF, business of members in Vietnam-Japan Rabbit Farming Cooperative at Phu Hoa Commune became more exciting and practical. As its members got together and formed a specialized area for rabbit farming, the cooperative, thus, got to sign an underwriting contract with Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical at the price of 178,000 dong per rabbit. And thanks to rabbit farming, our family get a monthly profit of over 20 million dong.”

Nguyen Dang He, Chairman of Luong Tai District FU, addresed that in 2017, Luong Tai District FU together with Bac Ninh provincial SFF disbursed to three projects with the maximum loan for one household to be 100 million dong. To be exact, SFF granted 1 billion dong loan for 10 household growing carrots in Minh Tan Commune, 500 million dong for 5 rabbit farming households in Phu Hoa Commune, 500 million dong for 5 woodworking households in Quang Phu Commune.

“These are first projects todevelop production in value chain model aimed at forming specialized production areas attached to product consumption. With the new maximum loan limit approved by the Standing Committee of Central VNFU to be 100 million dong for one household, farmers have the chance to expand their production scale, connect and farming in value chain, etc.”, He firmly stated.

In Hung Yen Province, in 2017, the provincial FU disbursed 2 billion dong from Central SFF to 32 households participating in the “Turmeric Farming and Processing” project in Chi Tan Commune (Khoai Chau District).

Tran Thi Tuyet Huong, Chairwoman of Hung Yen Provincial FU, shared that the total budget of SFF in Hung Yen currently reached 58.8 billion dong. She added that over those years SFF had been proactive in supporting farmers in production expansion and income improvement.

Nguyen Xuan Thang, Executive Director of SFF at Central VNFUstated that in 2017 loan grants from Central SFF was entrusted to 62 provinces, cities through 1,409 projects including 19,528 household borrowers with the total debit balance of 642.788 billion dong. He said, among those projects, there were 5 projects at the scale of 2 billion dong, 8 ones at the scale of 1-1.5 billion dong and 107 ones at the scale of 700-1 billion dong On average, each project received 456 million dong and each household got 33 million dong of loan, the maximum loan lended out to a household was 100 million dong, he added.

Thu Ha - translated by Ngoc Anh