Farmers in southern Trà Vinh Province are lending their land for free to poor farmers as a way of helping families escape poverty.(Source:VNA)HCM City (VNA) - Farmers in southern TraVinh province are lending their land for free to poor farmers as a way ofhelping families escape poverty.
Duong Phac Ra Day in the province’s DuyenHai district, for example, earned a profit of 15 million VND (600 USD) from hisharvest of bird’s-eye chili crop on a 2,000 sq.m of land which was lent to himby Thach Tai, a farmer in Duyen Hai’s Ngu Lac commune.
Day is one of many farmers in the MekongDelta province who have borrowed land from fellow farmers in recent years. As aresult, many poor farmers have been able to escape poverty.
“I appreciate the help of my neighbour. Itencouraged my family to strive for a better life,” Day said.
Before receiving the land, Day had workedas a daily hired labourer, struggling to earn enough for his family.
In Tra Vinh, more than 1,000 farminghouseholds have lent a total of 600ha of farmland to nearly 1,400 poor farmers,helping many households escape poverty, according to the province’s EthnicAffairs Committee.
The province has more than 23,000 poorhouseholds, accounting for 8.4 percent of the total households. It targetsreducing the poverty rate by 2-2.5 percent a year.
Farmers who lend land are classified byauthorities as either near-poor or fairly well-off.
Tai of Ngu Lac commune, who is a near-poorfarmer and has 6,000 sq.m of farmland, said his rice field often lackedirrigation water in the dry season, so the yield of rice was not high.
With guidance from local agricultureofficials, Tai switched to one rice crop and one bird’s-eye chili crop a yearbeginning in 2014. Since then, he has had a stable income.
Knowing Day’s family difficulties, Tai lastyear decided to lend Day 2,000 sq.m of his farmland to plant bird’s-eye chiliin the dry season.
“I was happy to see that his family couldearn more income,” he said, adding that he would continue to lend his land toDay to grow the chili variety.
Thach Thi Hong Nghia, who has 4,000sq.m offarmland in Ngu Lac commune, has lent 2,000 sq.m to poor neighbouring farmerssince 2013.
Ngu Lac, one of the poorest communes in TraVinh, has 4,200 households with a total of 18,000 people. Of the households, 64percent are Khmer.
In the 2015-17 period, the number of poorfamilies fell by 580. Many of them had borrowed land from other farmers.
Farmers with available land lend their landto poor farmers to grow crops in the dry season or year round.
Duong Van Lieu, Secretary of the Ngu La CommuneParty Committee, said about 100 farming households were lending a total of 30haof land to poor farmers.-VNA
VNA
