Quickly remove difficulties and disburse capital for medicinal plant development projects in the Western region

Project to promote the potential of the Western region

The people of Thai Son 1 village, Mon Son commune, Con Cuong district have a tradition of making wine from the yeast of 36 types of herbs collected from the forest. Ms. Ha Thi Tinh in Thai Son 1 village said that to get the amount of medicinal herbs to ferment the leaves, she had to go deep into the forest to be able to collect enough quantity and variety. Among them, there are many medicinal plants that are increasingly scarce such as cardamom, licorice, ginger, wild galangal, and ginseng...

People of Mon Son commune, Con Cuong district go into the forest to collect medicinal plants. Photo: Hoai Thu

“For many years, the source of medicinal plants taken from the forest has helped my family have jobs and income from fermenting leaves. I hope that the locality, authorities and sectors will help people preserve and grow precious plants to create long-term and sustainable livelihoods for the people… Otherwise, the source of natural medicinal plants will be exhausted over time if exploited too much,” Ms. Tinh confided.

In fact, if localities and people preserve and propagate precious medicinal plants, they will create income, sustainable jobs, and "live" with the forest. For example, Yen Hoa commune, Tuong Duong district, has built a model of planting purple velvet anise trees under the forest canopy since 2021. Up to now, 15 people have mastered the techniques of planting and caring for purple velvet anise trees, with a yield of 8.5 tons of fresh leaves/ha. Purple velvet anise leaves are purchased at a price of 20,000 - 30,000 VND/kg of fresh leaves, 180,000 - 250,000 VND/kg of dry leaves, each hectare will bring a profit of over 40 million VND/harvest. Each year, it can be harvested 2 - 3 times.

The whole district of Tuong Duong has about more than 222,000 hectares of forest, with the diversity of medicinal plant resources, the development of medicinal plants under the forest canopy is one of the local orientations. Similarly, in other localities in the West, the potential for medicinal plants is very large, especially Ky Son with many endemic species such as puxailaileng ginseng, seven-leaf one-flower ginseng, red polygonum multiflorum, yellow star, red star, sì to... In this district, only the bo bo tree has more than 1,000 hectares, which is a medicinal plant in the list of secondary forest products that are not allowed to be exploited, although this tree brings tens of millions of dong in annual income to households. If bo bo tree is planned into the medicinal plant growing and processing area, it will be one of many trees to alleviate poverty for local people.

Leaders of the Department of Science and Technology visited a medicinal herb garden of an enterprise in Con Cuong district. Photo: Hoai Thu

Concerns about economic development from medicinal plants in the West have begun to be raised when the Central Government has deployed public investment disbursement for 3 National Target Programs (NTPs) on New Rural Development; Sustainable Poverty Reduction for the 2021-2025 period and Socio-economic Development for Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas for the 2021-2030 period from 2022.

In Nghe An, there is the Project "Investment in precious medicinal herb growing areas" for the period 2021 - 2025, under Sub-project 2, Project 3 of the National Target Program on socio-economic development of ethnic minority areas.

The implementation of this project will help promote the great potential of exploiting medicinal resources for economic development, as well as preserving biodiversity in the Western region. The total cost of the project for the entire phase is 229 billion VND, of which the state budget is 68 billion VND, the loan from the Social Policy Bank is 96 billion VND, and other mobilized capital is 65 billion VND.

Up to now, Sub-project 2 under Project 3 of the National Target Program on Socio-Economic Development of Ethnic Minority Areas has been issued by the Provincial People's Council with a resolution allocating VND 28,733 billion in investment capital in Resolution No. 45/NQ-HDND dated October 22, 2022 for the period 2021-2025.

It can be seen that this is a positive movement, bringing great hope to people in the Western districts in economic development associated with planting, processing and preserving medicinal plants that are available locally.

The National Assembly delegation and Nghe An Provincial People's Committee surveyed the medicinal plant nursery model in Yen Hoa commune, Tuong Duong district. Photo courtesy of MH

However, as of July 31, 2023, this project has only stopped at capital allocation, with disbursement progress reaching 0% due to problems with criteria for area scale and funding for each locality.

In 2018, in order to promote the strengths of medicinal herbs and build Nghe An province into a medicinal herb growing and processing area with industrial scale and high technology, Nghe An Provincial People's Committee approved the overall development plan of medicinal herbs in Nghe An province to 2025, with a vision to 2030 (Decision No. 1187/QD-UBND dated April 3, 2018).

Planning forest areas with naturally growing medicinal plants in 3 ecological regions: high mountains, medium mountains, lowlands and plains to sustainably exploit 17 species or groups of species with the potential to create medicinal plant sources. Strive to have the concentrated medicinal plant growing area of ​​Nghe An to be 885 hectares by 2025, 60% of the area and output meeting GACP-WHO standards. By 2030, increase the growing area to 950 hectares, 100% of the area and output meeting GACP-WHO, meeting 100% of the demand for medicinal plants in the province.

Recognize shortcomings, promptly disburse funds to implement projects

According to Resolution No. 45/NQ-HDND dated October 12, 2022, Ky Son district was allocated 6,643 billion VND, Tuong Duong 6,642 billion VND, Con Cuong 4,403 billion VND, Que Phong 6,642 billion VND, Quy Chau 4,403 billion VND.

However, according to the feedback from the localities, apart from Ky Son district, the remaining districts do not have enough area to implement the project, so no money has been disbursed yet. Specifically, the project stipulates that the locality must have enough area allocated for growing medicinal herbs of 210 hectares or more, without requiring contiguous areas.

Regarding the conditions in his locality, such as in Con Cuong district, Mr. Luong Viet Tung - Head of the Ethnic Affairs Department of the district People's Committee said that Con Cuong was allocated more than 4 billion VND in investment capital for the medicinal plant planting project, but Con Cuong does not have enough 210 hectares to implement. And even if there is enough area of ​​210 hectares, the capital allocated more than 4 billion VND for the period 2021 - 2025 cannot be implemented. Therefore, the district is studying and proposing to return the allocated capital.

Meanwhile, "for Ky Son district, a locality that is qualified to implement, the allocation of capital of more than 6 billion VND is very limited and difficult to implement. Accordingly, in order to have a basis to implement Sub-project 2, Project 3 of the National Target Program on socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in the period of 2021 - 2025, on April 24, 2023, Ky Son district issued Document No. 498 proposing to adjust the capital plan to implement the project of investing in the precious medicinal plant growing area to the Provincial People's Committee and related departments and branches. Ky Son proposed to focus on investing in the medicinal plant growing area in Ky Son, not spreading it to other localities" - Mr. Nguyen Huu Minh - Chairman of Ky Son District People's Committee said.

After receiving the proposal from the People's Committee of Ky Son district, the People's Committee of Nghe An province sent a document to the Government's Ethnic Committee proposing to select Ky Son district alone to implement the project.

Seven-leaf, one-flower ginseng at the Muong Long Center for Conservation and Development of Medicinal Herbs (Ky Son). Photo: Thanh Duy

Previously, the Department of Traditional Medicine and Pharmacy Management and the People's Committee of Ky Son district also conducted a survey and assessment. On December 20, 2022, the Department of Traditional Medicine and Pharmacy Management requested the Nghe An Department of Health to advise the Provincial People's Committee to invest and provide concentrated support for the precious medicinal herb project area in one district, Ky Son, to avoid small-scale and fragmented investment.

Mr. Pham Van Hoa - Deputy Head of the Ethnic Affairs Department of the People's Committee of Ky Son district expressed that Ky Son district hopes that the Provincial People's Committee will continue to pay attention to directing the Department of Health, the Department of Planning and Investment and the Provincial Ethnic Affairs Committee to review and promptly remove difficulties for the district through consulting on adjusting the investment capital plan to support the locality in building a precious medicinal plant growing area, so that the project will soon be disbursed with public investment capital, not to delay progress, and promote the economic potential and strengths of the locality.

On July 31, 2023, the Party Committee of the Provincial People's Committee issued Resolution No. 418/NQ-BCSĐ on promoting the allocation and disbursement of public investment capital, 3 National Target Programs and the Socio-Economic Recovery and Development Program in Nghe An province for the period 2023 - 2025. The Resolution clearly states the goal of successfully implementing the medium-term public investment plan for the period 2021-2025. In particular, striving for the annual disbursement rate of public investment capital to reach 95-100% of the assigned plan; Disburse 100% of capital sources under the Socio-Economic Recovery and Development Program in 2023. At the same time, implement the key tasks and solutions mentioned above, emphasizing that Party committees, Party organizations, and authorities at all levels focus on leading and directing the drastic, timely, and effective implementation of the Resolutions and directions of the Central and the province on promoting the allocation and disbursement of public investment capital, 3 National Target Programs, and the Socio-Economic Recovery and Development Program.

Source: https://baonghean.vn/som-thao-go-kho-khan-giai-ngan-nguon-von-du-an-phat-trien-duoc-lieu-vung-mien-tay-post274089.html