Along with plum and banana products, mango products of Yen Chau district, Son La province,
has been exported to European and Chinese markets.

This place was once known as the largest corn granary in the country... To solve the problem of ineffective corn acreage, encroachment and erosion of forest land, Son La has successfully carried out the task of restructuring the agricultural sector from a correct policy of shifting to making fruit trees the main crop of the locality, contributing to turning Son La agriculture into a spearhead economic sector.

Since the 90s of the last century, along with the strong development of corn areas on sloping land and forestry land, fruit trees have also begun to appear according to the development orientation of the new economic model of Son La province. However, at this time, low-yield corn areas, encroaching on forest land, are still strongly developed, maintained by people in all communes and villages in districts and cities...

By 2015, Son La’s fruit tree area had reached 23,600 hectares. In those years, due to limited scientific and technological achievements, most of the fruit trees were old varieties with very low productivity and quality. By the end of 2015, many households began to cut down fruit trees to return to growing corn, cassava, etc.

The effectiveness of a correct policy

Comrade Hoang Van Chat, former Secretary of the Son La Provincial Party Committee, term 2015-2020, said: Before the 14th Son La Provincial Party Congress, many meetings were held to summarize and evaluate models and tasks of socio-economic development in the period 2010-2015, in which Son La's potential and outstanding advantages were pointed out; at the same time, frankly acknowledged the difficulties, unfinished business, and bottlenecks that hindered development, making Son La still a poor province.

Faced with that situation, the provincial leadership has reached a high consensus that innovation is needed to find a suitable direction to help the Northwest mountainous region transform. Accordingly, the Resolution of the Son La Provincial Party Congress for the 2015-2020 term sets out seven key programs, including the program for developing high-tech agriculture in the production and processing of agricultural, forestry and fishery products, associated with geographical indications and product branding.

From that orientation, on November 30, 2015, the Provincial Party Standing Committee issued Conclusion No. 12 on a number of policies on growing fruit trees on sloping land, with the goal of strongly converting the area of ​​corn, potatoes, and cassava to growing fruit trees, and at the same time identifying this as a key task of the entire political system from the province to the grassroots level, requiring focused leadership, direction, dissemination, and timely and synchronous implementation.

Based on Conclusion No. 12, the People's Council of Son La province issued a resolution to support 200,000 VND for each household that transplants eyes to renovate mixed gardens. Although it is only a modest number, within two years, more than 90,000 households have received support of more than 18 billion VND.

Along with that, in 2015, Son La also piloted the use of the provincial budget to support 70% of the drip irrigation models combined with soluble fertilizers. With such help and initial conditions for the people, the province has created a driving force to stimulate demand for ethnic minorities to actively change crops.

As soon as the policy of developing fruit trees on sloping land was established, Son La determined that it was necessary to start establishing agricultural cooperatives with the aim of gathering production forces and accumulating land on a large scale to build concentrated production areas, instead of developing small-scale households. Because reality has shown that the model of implementation in a fragmented form will be difficult to achieve uniform quality and will hinder the formation of a stable product supply area to the market.

H'Mong ethnic people in Co Ma commune, Thuan Chau district harvest Queen pineapples on sloping land.

Therefore, the province has issued mechanisms and policies to encourage and mobilize people to participate in building cooperative alliances. To date, Son La has more than 300 fruit growing cooperatives, 11 science and technology enterprises operating in the agricultural sector, and more than 500 agricultural processing and primary processing facilities. Building a large cooperative force has created a close chain of links between enterprises, cooperatives and farmers.

Comrade Nguyen Thanh Cong, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, said: The Government, central ministries, branches, the Politburo, and the Secretariat recognized that Son La province has made breakthroughs in agricultural development, especially high-tech agriculture and fruit tree development. Because from these models, establishments have produced agriculture according to VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards, attracting many delegations to study and research...

Breakthrough in agriculture

By shifting to fruit trees as the main crop of the locality, Son La has effectively carried out the task of restructuring the agricultural sector. Success comes not only from having the right policies and choosing suitable crops, but also from investing and calculating strategic steps to turn Son La agriculture into a spearhead economic sector.

Comrade Lo Minh Hung, Standing Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, shared: In the past 20 years, Son La has cooperated well with research institutes, contributing to bringing fruit tree varieties for trial planting in the province, ensuring adaptation to soil conditions. From bringing tree varieties for trial, from building models, up to now, Son La has affirmed that it can develop fruit trees on sloping land.

For example, in Mai Son district, within nearly 10 years (from 2015 to 2024), the area of ​​fruit trees has increased from 1,500 hectares to 11,500 hectares, with the main crops being longan, mango, custard apple, passion fruit, and citrus. The district's production structure has been adjusted to promote the advantages of each region, each commune, and town, linked to market demand, and adapting to climate change.

Comrade Nguyen Viet Cuong, Secretary of the District Party Committee, said: The province's resolution on converting ineffective crops to fruit trees on sloping land has won the hearts of the people because of its practicality and high economic efficiency. This is the legitimate desire of the people to get rich and currently, the people are very active in responding to the movement of crop conversion.

Up to now, fruit trees have brought bumper crops every year to Mai Son district, with an average output of more than 90,000 tons/year. Production efficiency has continuously increased over the years and the income value per hectare of cultivated land in Mai Son district has reached an average of nearly 88 million VND.

In Moc Chau district, there are currently 101 agricultural cooperatives established, of which 40 are operating along the value chain. The total charter capital of the cooperatives is over VND169 billion, with 1,045 members, providing jobs for over 1,200 regular workers and over 1,500 seasonal workers.

Agricultural cooperatives in the area have contributed to expanding the district's strong fruit trees, increasing the fruit tree area to more than 10,700 hectares, with an output of more than 61,000 tons in 2023; the production value per hectare of agricultural land in Moc Chau increases every year.

Comrade Truong Hoa Bac, Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee, said: In recent years, to effectively implement the policy of growing fruit trees on sloping land, the district has always proactively coordinated with departments and branches to connect with businesses, traders to purchase, consume, export, link markets and through that, form economic linkage contracts.

In addition to consolidating and improving traditional markets, the district focuses on the Chinese market for fresh fruit products, while developing potential markets and countries that have signed free trade agreements with Vietnam such as Japan, Korea, etc.

Not only Mai Son and Moc Chau districts, Son La province has also formed large-scale concentrated fruit tree production areas in Song Ma, Yen Chau, Muong La, Thuan Chau, Bac Yen and Phu Yen districts. Up to now, the whole province has more than 82,000 hectares of fruit trees, of which the harvested area is more than 63,200 hectares, with an output of about 378,530 tons.

There were times when Son La's fruit growing areas were affected by prolonged heat and drought, and in some places, hail and natural disasters. However, thanks to the application of scientific and technical advances, although the output of some types of fruit decreased, the appearance and quality still met the standards of domestic and export partners.

There are many models with high income from 200 million VND to 400 million VND/ha, especially custard apple area with income of more than 350 million VND/ha; strawberry 420 million VND/ha. Most of the fresh fruit is purchased by enterprises and cooperatives to supply to supermarket systems, clean fruit stores in provinces and cities across the country and for export.

Currently, Son La is maintaining 280 safe agricultural and aquatic food supply chains, 294 export growing area codes, 145 facilities applying agricultural production processes meeting VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards; and has 560 factories and agricultural product processing facilities.

Son La has built fruit tree production areas at three levels: National key products; provincial key products; local specialty products according to the OCOP program, integrated into national and provincial industry development plans; moving towards organizing the issuance of growing area codes, creating recognition for high-quality fruits on the map of Vietnamese agricultural products...

After 5 years of efforts, from 2020 until now, Son La has changed dramatically from a locality with agricultural producers who only sold cassava and corn, maintaining its position as the largest fruit tree granary in the northern region, ranking 2nd nationwide, and is considered an "agricultural economic phenomenon".

The spirit of determination, daring to think, daring to do, combined with the province's methodical and correct planning and approach, has created a memorable turning point from a local policy that previously faced many difficulties.

According to: People's Newspaper