A cooperative to rely on

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The following conversation that QTCA had with a female farmer is exemplary: 

One of the households we visited is Mrs. Nguyen Thi Loan's family. When we came, she was busy solving consequences of the flood which had damaged a lot of farming products. She invited us to drink water and talked with us. She said: "we  mainly live from agricultural production, but the climate here makes it difficult for us. Luckily we learned how to grow crops in the modern way, before we used the traditional way, which was less efficient and productive."

From our view and her saying, we saw that loss after harvesting is a big deal for farmers in Quang Tri. When she was asked about the supporting activities from the project, she said "we are a farming family, our main income depends on agricultural production, so the technical support in farming is very meaningful to us" and she continued "it has changed our awareness,  improved rice production and intensification capacity for households like us. Before, with the traditional way of farming, we ploughed the soil with buffalo's power, planting rice by hand and working hard to make enough food for our family; since the project, many positive changes has come to my family and other farmers”. Some examples she mentions: "I had the chance to take part in training courses on planting and husbandry techniques organised by QTCA. We now cultivate the soil by machine which is provided by the cooperative, we plant rice seeds using a row seeder, etc. These tools released farmers, especially women from hardworking, therefore the rice productivity and quality has been increased and the income for my family now is higher and more sustainable than before, we even have some small money to save."

We continued our conversation and asked her where they sell the rice, after they stored the rice for their own consumption. She said "before, traders came to each family to buy or we brought it directly to market to sell. But now, the cooperative has established a service group that buys the rice for a good price. Besides, the cooperative has invested in milling machines, polishing machines, rice drying machines and started to make business on farming products. Thank to these services, farmers just focus on the production of agricultural products, the cooperative is responsible for linking with market and selling the products."

She hopes that farmers and the cooperative continue  to upgrade and upscale in terms of capacity, making farming products business plan and taking part in market chain to create the added value for agricultural products.