Improved production infrastructure enhances rice quality

Meet the needs of rice production development

Vi Thuy Agricultural Cooperative I (Vi Thuy Commune, Vi Thuy District, Hau Giang Province) is currently an outstanding example of developing the local rice production chain.

As a farmer's organization operating within the district, it has the advantage of being adjacent to Vi Thanh city, the center of Hau Giang province, in addition to well-invested and quite synchronous infrastructure.

Located in a rice production area of 520 hectares, within The Vietnam Sustainable Agriculture Transformation Project (vnSAT), Vi Thuy I Agricultural Cooperative has received investment in infrastructure including a warehouse with a capacity of 1,000 tons, 2 rice drying kilns with a capacity of 25 tons/batch/kiln and an electric pumping station.

Therefore, the unit's operational capacity has been improved and met the product development needs of its members.

According to Nguyen Thanh Lam, Chairman of the Board of Directors - Director of Vi Thuy I Agricultural Cooperative, the unit had 22 members farming on a total area of 40 hectares that produces 2 crops per year when it was established.

By now, the farming area of the cooperative has been expanded to over 500 hectares, enabling it to deeply participate in the contents of the VnSAT project with well-invested infrastructure.

Lam said that in the 2021-2022 winter-spring crop, Vi Thuy I Agricultural Cooperative invests in producing 30 hectares of seed rice by the sowing method, with rice varieties RVT, Dai Thom 8, OM5451, OM18.

Thanks to that sowing method, rice has grown well and been less susceptible to pests, which helps to reduce production costs.

The harvested products will be processed by the cooperative to meet the conditions to become commercial rice seeds for production.

“In order to support the cooperative members to develop rice production according to the technique of ‘one must, five reductions’ of the VnSAT project, the cooperative provides rice seed at a price lower than the market price from VND1,000-2,000/kg. For example, with the rice variety OM18 to invest in the production of the summer-autumn crop 2022, we sell it to our members for VND12,000 /kg (cash).

“If the cooperative members have difficulty in investment funds, they will be provided with rice seeds for production. It is until the rice is harvested and sold will the payment be made and the price is VND13,000/kg, "said Lam.

Expanding VietGAP paddy fields

In the 2021-2022 winter-spring rice crop, members of the Vi Thuy I Agricultural Cooperative have harvested high yields with low production costs.

They therefore can still maintain a good profit despite high input prices.

Nam Dieu (Nguyen Thanh Dieu), a member of the cooperative, said that the yield of rice that has just been harvested is from 7-8 tons/ha. Dai Thom 8 rice seed is sold at VND6,000 /kg and RVT is from VND7,000-7,200 /kg. Each member could earn an average profit of about VND20 million /ha.

Dieu said that the investment in infrastructure and the application of advanced rice farming methods trained by the VnSAT project such as "3 decreases, 3 increases" and "1 must, 5 reductions", in addition to rice transplanting machines, sparse sowing methods and integrated pest management, have helped to reduce investment costs.

In the last season, the price of input materials increased dramatically, so without any measures to reduce production costs, it would be difficult to obtain the expected profit, he added.

Besides the rice seed production program that has been successfully implemented in recent years, Vi Thuy I Agricultural Cooperative is expanding its production according to VietGAP standards on an area of ​​50 hectares located in the dike area with a complete electric pumping station.

The cooperative members have received technical training and are ready to start the summer-autumn crop in 2022.

Rice harvest from this VietGAP area will be purchased and processed by the cooperative to supply to the market and build rice brands as well as OCOP products in the future.

Recently, Hau Giang Cooperative Alliance has coordinated with the agricultural sector and local authorities to organize training courses to foster farmers and cooperative members’ knowledge of economic development.

Such courses also aim to contribute to improving the operational capacity of farmer organizations, especially those that have been selected and effectively implemented the contents of the VnSAT project, while sustainably developing Vi Thuy district's agricultural sector with large-scale production of high-quality goods.

The cooperatives are expected to be gradually connected to form linkages in production, consumption, preliminary processing and processing so that the value and competitiveness of local rice products could be enhanced.