Vietnam: Hai Phong farmers make a big success of switching from rice to onion cultivation

Transforming Courageously

In previous years, after harvesting the summer and autumn rice crops, people in Dung Tien township hurriedly prepared the land for sowing winter crops. During the harvest season, people find that their own seeds grow, everyone does their own thing, and there is a lack of uniformity in cultivation.

In the same field, some grow tomatoes, tobacco, chili, others grow potatoes, vegetables, etc. The lack of uniformity has led to low production efficiency, and even the harvest is not particularly calculated.

Based on the situation described, the government leaders and the farmers’ association of Dung Tien Commune have focused on stimulating the population to make full use of the potential and strengths of local farmland. From there, households should be encouraged to change the cultivation structure synchronously and purposefully. Create new models and proactively apply scientific and technological advances in production to improve economic efficiency.

Initially, the Dung Tien Commune Farmers’ Association sought numerous models for the cultivation of yield-increasing crops, including onions, in order to introduce them to the population and help them to produce more actively on the same area and improve the quality and efficiency of cultivation.

Accordingly, the onion cultivation model was implemented in villages 9 and 10 of Dan Dien on an area of ​​5.5 hectares. The group is led by the two farmers Vu Viet Minh and Tran Duc Hung and a number of other farmers from the two villages.

Excellent results

To support the people, the Dung Tien Commune Farmers’ Association has contacted and established contacts with companies that supply materials, seeds and fertilizers for soil preparation and planting techniques, scientific and technical support and product consumption.

According to Mr. Vu Viet Minh, a farmer with the largest area of ​​onion cultivation in the commune, this is the first harvest in which Mr. Minh’s family has bravely switched to a new variety of crop. At the beginning of his work, Mr. Minh was worried about many things, but then he made a decision because the farmers’ association was interested in production and contacts with purchasing companies, so he and the other families felt more confident in production. Since Mr. Minh had a machine to cultivate and fertilize the land, he borrowed or rented fields from some people and offered services to households in the commune so that they could work on them together.

According to Mr. Minh, onions are well suited to sandy soils like the fields in his village. They grow very well, have large bulbs, long stems and a yield that far exceeds the standards set by the purchasing unit.

Mr. Minh’s family and other households are very confident about the productivity and selling price of this crop. Currently, each kilogram of fresh onions that traders buy from the field costs 18,000 VND/kg. According to calculations, each sao yields about 800 kg of onions. After deducting seed and labor costs, farmers make a profit of 10-12 million VND/sao, four to five times more than growing rice.

As Mr. Minh, Mr. Tran Duc Hung, a farmer from Village 10, shared, Mr. Minh and I set out to collect and borrow money from other households who did not grow onions, with the determination to create a concentrated and synchronized onion growing area on Dung Tien land. Therefore, planting and fertilizing onions with machines is more convenient.

During the cultivation process, we are supported with techniques, seeds and product consumption in the field. This year, the onions are large and uniform, so the purchasing unit chooses to weigh them to make onion seeds. The selling price is higher than usual.

Speaking to a reporter from Dan Viet newspaper, Ta Huu Binh, chairman of the Dung Tien Commune Farmers’ Association, said that the association has found that the transformation of crop production structure plays a very important role in agricultural development and largely determines the successful implementation of local socio-economic development goals.