Vitality of plantation: Reform to survive

Reform or perish

Before taking office as Secretary of the Party Committee of former Quang Xuong District and later retiring, Mr. Nguyen Van Chinh had spent more than 20 years working at Thong Nhat Plantation (now Thong Nhat Thanh Hoa One-Member Co., Ltd.). During his tenure, the subsidy mindset was still ingrained. Output was barely sufficient, as production simply followed whatever targets were handed down from above.

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Mr. Chinh recalled that during the period of production quotas, where slogans often outweighed efficiency, the plantation once decided to plant more than one hectare of chili as an experiment. The atmosphere buzzed with hundreds of workers and tillage machinery. However, the harvest yield only reached a few quintals. The revenue from selling the chilies was not even enough to pay workers' wages, let alone cover fuel and other costs.

After the Government issued Decree No. 01-CP on January 4, 1995, regulating the allocation of land within state-owned enterprises, Thong Nhat Plantation completed the handover of more than 1,600 hectares of land to residents in the former districts of Tho Xuan, Cam Thuy, Ngoc Lac, and Yen Dinh. The plantation provided seeds, fertilizers, technical guidance, plowing, and harvesting services. Meanwhile, farmers only needed to follow instructions to ensure productivity.

However, this model was only effective as long as farmers stayed engaged. As the market economy took root, input costs rose and prices became volatile. Many quietly switched to other crops on their contracted plots, finding ways to bypass quotas and contracts. Some, no longer interested in collective work with the plantation, sought ways to break away and farm independently.

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It was in those difficult times that leaders like Mr. Chinh gradually realized they could no longer follow the old rut. "If we do not change ourselves, the times will change us. Although it was the collective economy, some said the system was no different from 'tenant farming,' where we provided the land and everything else, then took a share (7% of the contracted yield). Once farmers grew weary of such constraints, no matter how we tried, we could not keep them for long," said Mr. Chinh.

At that time, retaining workers and sustaining the vitality of the plantation was not merely a task but an imperative. Amid the surrounding challenges, Mr. Chinh and the leadership had the idea of equitizing the farm, but it soon had to be shelved due to unfavorable circumstances. Unable to change the operational model, they chose a different path, maintaining land management and supporting farmers in production while boldly diversifying into new business sectors.

As a result, a bottled water plant, a rubber latex processing workshop, and a brick factory were successively established. Though seemingly modest, these initiatives provided additional revenue for the plantation and created jobs for 400–500 workers, most of whom are children of farm workers and local farmers.

Farm workers' incomes were no longer tied to a single sugarcane or pineapple crop. Household earnings gradually stabilized. At that time, the income of workers at the plantation was 40–50% higher than the regional average.

Mr. Chinh said that running a business requires countless calculations, but his greatest joy was not in profit but in securing housing for workers. During his tenure, he proposed setting aside a portion of the plantation’s unused land for residential development, auctioned publicly and in accordance with the law. Thanks to this initiative, hundreds of workers were granted legal plots of land, finally achieving the stability they had long hoped for.

A strong transformation

Mr. Tran Thanh Lam, Business Planning Manager at Thong Nhat Thanh Hoa Dairy Cow One-Member Co., Ltd., is among the few remaining members of the "old generations." He has experienced and witnessed every rise and fall of the enterprise since its difficult days. "To be honest, without changing its operating mechanism, the plantation could hardly survive in the new era," shared Mr. Lam.

In November 2013, Thong Nhat Plantation donned a new identity as Thong Nhat Thanh Hoa Dairy Cow One-Member Co., Ltd. The transformation was more than just a change of name; it marked a shift in mindset and approach. The next generation of leaders decisively moved away from traditional crop cultivation and livestock farming toward large-scale commodity production, with high-tech dairy cows as the company's key product.

Mr. Lam recalled that the site clearance for the dairy cow project proceeded so rapidly. In less than a year, hundreds of hectares of land were recovered, ready for a state-of-the-art facility and a new transformation that promised to prioritize the recruitment of workers' children, offering them high salary levels.

In August 2015, Dairy Cow Farm No. 1 in Sao Do was launched on an area of 147 hectares. Two years later, on July 15, 2017, the first dairy cows from the U.S. arrived after traveling halfway around the world. Mr. Lam recalled the scene at that time: "People lined the streets, all eager to see what the 'Western cows' looked like. The entire area buzzed like a festival. Just a few months later, the first streams of white milk flowed after months of anticipation."

By the end of 2017, the cow herd had grown to 2,520 heads, including 265 milking cows averaging 32 kg/head/day, leading the Vinamilk system in productivity. The company obtained GlobalGAP international certification, affirming its safe and sustainable farming process. Beyond dairy cows, the company also linked with local farmers to cultivate over 1,000 hectares of pineapples and 300 hectares of corn, providing feed for the cows while producing clean commodities.

To encourage farmers to remain committed, Vinamilk introduced a series of policies, including interest-free loans for installing automatic irrigation systems, guaranteed purchase of products at stable prices, and technical guidance on cultivation. Many of the farm's technicians are local residents who once managed contracted land and have now become pioneers in restructuring crops. After one or two successful crops, the number of households participating in the production linkage increased rapidly.

In just a few years, the biomass cornfields surrounding the farm took shape, creating thousands of jobs for local workers and transforming the socio-economic landscape of the region. Fields once dedicated solely to sugarcane, pineapple, and orange are now partly replaced by modern barns, surrounded by endless stretches of contiguous biomass cornfields.

In just a few years, the biomass cornfields surrounding the farm took shape, creating thousands of jobs for local workers and transforming the socio-economic landscape of the region. Fields once dedicated solely to sugarcane, pineapple, and orange are now partly replaced by modern barns, surrounded by endless stretches of contiguous biomass cornfields.