Youthful exploration, barren land blooms

Ms. Duong Thi Tuyet's family's fruit garden currently has more than 300 custard apple trees, 200 longan trees, along with sour star fruit, black star fruit... starting to be harvested.

In early August, the closer it gets to noon, the more the sunlight becomes dazzling, the air is hot and stuffy, sitting inside the house makes you sweat uncomfortably. Covered tightly in a heat-resistant outfit, Ms. Duong Thi Tuyet is still busy working in her garden of more than 2,000 dragon fruit trees that are blooming and bearing fruit. A few kilometers away, her husband and a group of workers are busy clearing the undergrowth on the top of a towering hill, taking care of the hill of raw materials that is closing its canopy.

Born in 1989, at the age of 20, Dao girl Duong Thi Tuyet in Xuan Thuy commune (now Xuan Vien commune) married Muong boy Dinh Van Thanh, and became a daughter-in-law in Dong Thinh commune. Born into a farming family, accustomed to working hard in the fields and gardens since childhood, seeing her husband's vast land still abandoned for many years, with only a few bare eucalyptus trees, Ms. Tuyet felt so regretful that she was stunned.

Sympathizing with his wife, since his youth, Mr. Thanh had nurtured the ambition to get rich on his homeland's land, so he registered for the exam, studied veterinary medicine, worked locally, and continued to study at the University of Agriculture , self-studying to equip himself with the necessary technical capital and experience in farming and animal husbandry.

The 2.7-hectare fish pond not only helps create landscapes, regulate the air, but also brings a stable source of income from traditional commercial fish varieties.

“If husband and wife are in harmony, the East Sea can be drained”, the couple discussed, made a specific plan, and then started to renovate the mixed garden, testing suitable plant and animal varieties. Until now, whenever Thanh and Tuyet are mentioned, people in the area still praise and admire their diligence and hard work. From the time the rooster crows until dark, she is almost always present on the hill, in the garden.

When Mr. Thanh was still a veterinary officer in the commune, as soon as he finished work at the office and returned home, he rolled up his sleeves and worked hard. With knowledge, experience, and a desire to get rich, he and his wife experimented with many economic models and were pioneers in the commune in raising breeding bulls, monitor lizards, bamboo rats, wild pigs, etc.

Although the income is superior to traditional livestock and methods, the couple is still not satisfied due to unstable efficiency, unstable consumption market, not really suitable for soil conditions and not yet fully exploiting the potential and advantages of the family's garden land. Deciding to focus on fruit trees, after many times of studying, in 2014, Tuyet and her husband went to the Seedling Center, Hanoi Agricultural Academy 1 to buy a batch of red-fleshed dragon fruit seedlings to plant experimentally on the family's garden land.

With suitable soil and proper care, the dragon fruit trees grew well and brought a bumper crop to the family right from the first crop. People told each other, many people came to learn about care techniques and bought seedlings from her house to plant. The income from seedlings and ripe red-fleshed dragon fruit has increased day by day, helping her family have capital to reinvest in expanding the scale of the garden. Up to now, her family has had more than 2,000 dragon fruit pillars, harvesting 4 crops a year, with an average yield of 70kg/pillar. With an average selling price of 20,000 VND/kg, each year, the red-fleshed dragon fruit alone has brought her family a stable income of billions of VND. Her fruit garden has also begun to stabilize with each separate area with indigenous varieties of plants with high economic efficiency such as 200 longan trees, 300 custard-apple trees, 50 sour and black canarium trees, etc.

Not spreading out, Ms. Lieu focuses on raising a flock of capons to serve the people's need for chickens for festivals, especially during the traditional Tet holiday. Every year, she sells 700-800 kg of capons at a selling price of about 200,000 VND/kg. Along with that is a 2.7-hectare fish pond with traditional commercial fish varieties for regular harvest and nearly 5 hectares of forestry land for growing acacia... The comprehensive farm economic model has helped Ms. Lieu's family have a prosperous life, being honored as a typical good farmer in production and business at the provincial level.

To further improve the efficiency of farming and livestock farming activities, especially to increase the value of red-fleshed dragon fruit, in 2020, Ms. Lieu mobilized dragon fruit growing families in the commune to establish Tan Phat General Agricultural Cooperative with 14 members, of which she is the Director. With more than 6,000 pillars, the dragon fruit output of Dong Thinh commune reaches about 1,600 tons per year. Beautiful appearance, guaranteed quality, as soon as the dragon fruit is ripe, traders come to buy it right away. Recognized as a 3-star OCOP product since the end of 2023, red-fleshed dragon fruit has increasingly affirmed its position and role as a crop that helps Dong Thinh people escape poverty and develop a sustainable family economy.

Newly built spacious house on the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Dinh Van Thanh - Duong Thi Tuyet.

Mr. Dinh Cong Van, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee, Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Dong Thinh commune affirmed: "In recent years, the movement of farmers competing in good production and business in the commune has spread more and more strongly, going into depth with many effective economic models, providing stable income. In particular, the family of Mr. and Mrs. Dinh Van Thanh - Duong Thi Tuyet is a typical example of the will and aspiration to become rich on their homeland with diligence, hard work, a spirit of learning, creative thinking, daring to think and dare to do.

In the coming time, the Farmers' Association will continue to focus on propaganda and mobilizing people to promote the emulation movement of good production and business with models suitable to actual conditions, maximizing the potential and strengths available in the locality. The Association always joins hands to contribute and actively support members in terms of scientific and technical knowledge, capital, product introduction and promotion...

Dong Thinh is changing. A prosperous life has been and is present in more and more households in the mountainous areas. The barren land has been and is blooming from the hands and minds of the hard-working, diligent people, who are determined to get rich on their homeland's land.

Cam Ninh

Source: https://baophutho.vn/suc-tre-khai-pha-dat-can-no-hoa-237467.htm