The aspiration to make delicious rice of Excellent Farmers of Vietnam 2022

​More than 30 years of working in agricultural production, Mr. TRAN QUANG, Director of Xuan Tien Agricultural Service Trading Cooperative (Xuan Phu Commune, Xuan Loc District) is famous for organic rice cultivation, especially with the local ST24 rice product line. Mr. Quang was honored to be voted by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union as one of the 100 excellent Vietnamese farmers in 2022.

Mr. Tran Quang next to a large sample field planted ST 24

Wanting consumers to use good products"

* Sir, Xuan Tien Cooperative is considered as one of the outstanding collective economic units not only of Xuan Loc but also of Dong Nai. How did your journey of agricultural production and cooperative development begin?
Around 1995, many people in the West went to Dong Nai to bring rice threshers to serve the needs of local people, I applied to work and learn a job. At that time, I saw that the profession of threshing rice brought high income. The question why I don't find capital, invest to buy machinery to serve the local people, and generate high income regularly. Therefore, I tried to borrow and buy a machine to do rice threshing. As a pioneer, so many jobs, from which the machine "lays" the machine, the machine "lays" money, buys the land with money, the economy gradually goes up, life gets better.
Having land, I accumulated plots, exchanged land for land, exchanged fields for fields, creating fields close to each other with a large area. Later, many people also followed this idea and gradually created large fields and parcels of land in the area.
* But that's just enriching yourself, what about the people around, sir?
It's no use preaching to a hungry man, only when the economy is gradually getting better, I think we have to change our thinking to develop. I went from house to house to mobilize many other farmers to join forces to grow rice or corn together to create a large number of products, easy to sell, and less price pressured. Thanks to me being able to say and do it, more and more people followed.
But just such an association has certain limitations, especially in terms of legal status. Struggling until 2007, when the provincial leaders at that time visited the locality and knew our model, they directed the local agencies, departments and branches to guide us to establish the cooperative.
With local support, but establishing a cooperative is not easy because people are used to farming, and when they hear about cooperatives, they are afraid because they went through a "dark" time with the old model of the subsidy period. After thinking for a long time, I found a way to form a union of Xuan Tien High Productivity Clubs, gather 3 clubs together. That is the premise for strong development in the future.
* When will you start growing ST 24 rice, a world-class delicious rice brand supplying to the local market?
- Following the momentum, from the club of high productivity and poverty reduction, in 2014 I would like to establish Xuan Tien Agricultural Service Trading Cooperative. This is also the time when the Law on Cooperatives 2012 took effect, creating an effect to build a new type of cooperative with the people. After being established for about 2 years, we were assigned to deploy a large field project specializing in growing rice and corn in Xuan Phu commune with a scale of 150ha.
I always want to find special varieties for specialized cultivation in large fields, creating a stable source of income for farmers. When I learned about Dr. Ho Quang Cua's delicious rice variety, I went back to Soc Trang to learn from my experience and then bought 200 kg of ST24 to pilot in my family's field. The yield was higher than expected, in addition to growing on my family's land, I also encouraged the cooperative members to plant together, and at the same time cooperated with people in Cam My, Dinh Quan, and Long Khanh districts to offtake products for them.

For large production, better policies to support cooperatives are needed

 * According to you, farming in general, how to achieve higher efficiency?
- There is no other way to change production thinking, learn, find new ways of doing things, good models or suitable for you. Like our cooperative, it is not enough just to grow rice and corn normally, but to produce by mechanization and application of science and technology to improve competitiveness. With our capacity, we are ready to coordinate with cooperatives, cooperative groups ... to grow rice in some other localities to expand the area of mechanization application, increase production to meet large orders. .
* In general, the cooperative economy is still facing many difficulties. What solutions are needed to develop the State?
- In fact, the cooperative economy has not yet developed as expected. The State should have mechanisms to support preferential loans as well as other supporting policies such as support for infrastructure development, policies to support land allocation and land lease; capital support, like when facing difficulties, natural disasters, epidemics... But most of the policies have not been implemented in practice.
* What is the solution for Xuan Tien Agricultural Service Trading Cooperative?, sir?
We want to produce big and have also mobilized capital to build a new rice milling and processing plant, and the power line has also been invested by the cooperative. The area where the rice mill is located is taken out of the residential area, right in the rice growing area, but despite many petitions, the relevant authorities have not yet allowed the low voltage 3-phase power line. Currently, the rice mill is still located in a residential area.
* Thank you Sir!