Cooperative "star"

The Vietnam Cooperative Alliance has just held a ceremony to honor 100 cooperatives that won the 2024 Cooperative Star Award. Dong Thanh Agricultural Service Cooperative (abbreviated as Dong Thanh Cooperative) in Dong Ha City is the only unit in Quang Tri Province to be honored with this award.

Mr. Pham Van Quan (middle) representing Dong Thanh Cooperative received the 2024 Cooperative Star Award at the honoring ceremony - Photo: NVCC

Typical cooperative

The cooperative that won the 2024 Cooperative Star Award "CoopStar Awards" was evaluated based on criteria on production and business results, building a sustainable value supply chain towards green consumption, applying science and technology... Dong Thanh Cooperative is a unit that fully and comprehensively meets the above criteria.

Dong Thanh Cooperative was established in 1981. In 2007, the Dong Ha City People's Committee selected it to build a typical advanced cooperative. According to the assessment of the Provincial Cooperative Union, this is a cooperative with a ward-wide scale, comprehensive operations, multi-industry, and seedlings. Infrastructure is invested in and built to ensure effective production and business. Dong Thanh Cooperative currently has 11 services (directing production processes, irrigation, plant protection, supplying fertilizers, seedlings, internal credit, building small-scale irrigation, afforestation, agricultural extension, transferring scientific and technical advances, harvesting, and land preparation).

Of which, there are 4 services (seedlings, agricultural extension, transfer of scientific and technical advances, plant protection, production process guidance) that are not profitable to support members and the community. In 2023, Dong Thanh Cooperative achieved revenue of over 2.85 billion VND, profit of nearly 588 million VND.

Some outstanding activities of Dong Thanh Cooperative - Photo: ML

To manage and organize 570 members to produce on an annual cultivated land area of ​​nearly 424 hectares (320 hectares of rice/2 crops, 95 hectares, 7.55 hectares of aquaculture, 122 hectares of forestry) and to carry out 11 services in an orderly and effective manner, the Board of Directors of Dong Thanh Cooperative has established production teams and professional teams to serve the cooperative's service stages.

Currently, the cooperative has a pumping station operation team (4 people), an irrigation team (18 people), an agricultural extension team (12 people), a plant protection team (3 people), a construction team (5 people), a land preparation service team (26 people), and a harvest service team (6 people). "The cooperative regulates activities through the teams to ensure strict management, the right people, the right job. The workers of the teams are assigned specific tasks so they are proactive in production and business, ensuring professionalism," said Mr. Pham Van Quan, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director of Dong Thanh Cooperative.

Rejuvenate the team

One of the important factors that contribute to innovation and improve the operational efficiency of Dong Thanh Cooperative is the rejuvenation of the leadership and management team of the Cooperative. With their youth and basic training, they are sharp and dynamic in managing and operating production and business activities according to the new cooperative model.

For example, Mr. Pham Van Quan (born in 1989), is one of the three young cadres of the cooperative. He is also one of the people who grew up from the province's cooperative cadre training policy after receiving partial financial support to study 4 years at Hue University of Economics. "Coming from a farming family, after graduating, I went to the ward to work as an agricultural extension officer. It was not until 2015 that I started working for the cooperative, so I understand the area as well as the residents, and have knowledge of the field I am in charge of, so it is convenient for me to work," Mr. Quan confided.

Previously, the cooperative's residents were used to traditional production methods, so many people were hesitant when applying new scientific and technological advances. Understanding this mentality, the cooperative's board members divided the area (the ward had 11 neighborhoods, after the merger, there were only 5 neighborhoods left) but still assigned staff in charge of the old area to facilitate meetings with residents to propagate in small groups, suitable for the characteristics and production practices of each region, so it was easier to create consensus.

In service provision, the cooperative attracts members to use the service in the direction of improving quality, putting the interests of members first. For example, with the fertilizer supply service, to compete with the market, the cooperative connects to get products directly from Binh Dien Fertilizer Joint Stock Company to ensure both quality and the lowest price. The Board of Directors also agrees to sell fertilizer to members at the original price that the cooperative imports from the enterprise's production warehouse if the member pays immediately after purchasing. In case the member owes, it will be at the market price (the repayment period is within 6 months and is calculated with preferential interest rates).

Forming specialized production areas

According to Mr. Cap Kim Thanh, Chairman of the Provincial Cooperative Union, Dong Thanh Cooperative is a unit that has achieved many important results in agricultural production, initially forming a production area suitable for growing conditions for each type of seedlings, creating a commodity production area to meet market demand. Thereby solving employment, creating conditions to promote household economic development; actively building and developing welfare infrastructure works, contributing to hunger eradication and poverty reduction in the locality.

According to the structure of the fields, among the 100 typical cooperatives that won the Cooperative Star Award this time, there are 60 agricultural cooperatives, 28 non-agricultural cooperatives and 12 people's credit funds. The award is organized to honor cooperative models of production and business with humanity, for the progress of society. At the same time, it honors the will of self-reliance, self-reliance, hard work, creativity, and efforts to overcome difficulties of the cooperative community for the development of the collective economy. The honoring ceremony helps to strongly spread the typical cooperative model, arousing the aspirations of cooperatives in the development journey of the homeland and the country in the integration period.

One of the highlights of Dong Thanh Cooperative is that it has taken advantage of the support of the city and local project programs to invest in building infrastructure for production (land reclamation, construction of electricity systems, wells, water tanks, sprinkler irrigation systems) and opened technical training classes to guide members in producing vegetables and fruits in the direction of food hygiene and safety.

From 3 hectares of pilot concentrated safe vegetable cultivation, the cooperative now has 25 hectares specializing in safe vegetable production, of which 5 hectares are grown according to VietGAP standards with 150 member households participating in production. “The pilot clean vegetable production model has brought economic efficiency many times higher than traditional production, while creating jobs for workers and increasing income for members. Therefore, members of the cooperative are motivated to participate. Up to now, the cooperative's specialized vegetable growing areas have applied sprinkler irrigation technology, so they can grow off-season vegetables, bringing in an average income of over 500 million VND/ha/year. Some households that are diligent in applying both science and technology and rotating crops have even higher incomes,” Mr. Quan informed.

In 2016, through information channels, the cooperative learned about some new machines that are very convenient for soil preparation in vegetable production, so they contacted the supplier to hold a workshop to demonstrate them in local fields.

After this workshop, many people invested in buying land preparation machines for vegetable production, thereby reducing manual labor, increasing the rotation coefficient of a crop cycle, thereby increasing income. In parallel with the development of vegetable and fruit production, the cooperative also creates conditions and encourages members to open some more agricultural jobs suitable to the natural conditions and labor resources of each household.

Currently, the cooperative has 26 households specializing in bean sprout production with an average daily output of about 1.2 tons of commercial bean sprouts; 36 households growing various types of mushrooms with a total output of 25 - 27 tons/year, creating a significant additional source of income for households.

Besides production and business activities, the cooperative also actively participates in activities to support members and the community.

Every year, Dong Thanh Cooperative allocates 50 million VND from the “Production Development Fund” to support members in investing in upgrading and improving crop varieties; and supports members in accessing capital from the “Development Support Fund” of the Provincial Cooperative Union to purchase machinery and equipment to mechanize production. Thanks to that, the Cooperative currently has 24 mini plows, 3 Kubota plows, and 2 combine harvesters.

Implementing the program of concreting intra-field traffic, over the years, nearly 19 km of intra-field roads have been concretized with a total investment of 5,795 billion VND, of which the Cooperative supported 1.5 billion VND.

Mai Lam

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/ngoi-sao-hop-tac-xa-184981.htm