The central province of Binh Dinh plans to build an additional 250 large-scale fields in 2015 covering more than 10,000 hectares, said Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Phan Trong Ho.

The large-scale field is a centralised production model that utilises the coordination among farmers, businesses, scientists, and State agencies to facilitate the application of technology in cultivation, thus improving the value of agricultural products and farmers’ income.

For 2015, Binh Dinh will zone 10,000 hectares of 230 fields for growing rice while the rest 20 fields totaling 1,000 hectares will be covered by food crops such as maize, cassava, and peanut trees, he said.

Binh Dinh has called on companies that supply seedlings and production materials and buy farm produce to cooperate with agricultural cooperatives and farmers. It has also encouraged businesses to provide loans and asked scientists to advise farmers on cultivation techniques.

The province has run technique training courses for local farmers and converted ineffective rice fields into food crops areas, the official added.

In 2014, it built 233 large-scale fields with a total area of more than 9,700 hectares and 58,000 households participating in. Such a model generated over 7.3 tonnes of rice per hectare each crop and brought about 23.6 million VND (1,123 USD) per hectare in profit, some 0.5 tonnes and 3.7 million VND higher than normal models, respectively.-VNA