Tra Vinh farmers lend farmland for free to poor

HCM City (VNA) - Farmers in southern Tra Vinh province are lending their land for free to poor farmers as a way of helping families escape poverty.

Duong Phac Ra Day in the province’s Duyen Hai district, for example, earned a profit of 15 million VND (600 USD) from his harvest of bird’s-eye chili crop on a 2,000 sq.m of land which was lent to him by Thach Tai, a farmer in Duyen Hai’s Ngu Lac commune.

Day is one of many farmers in the Mekong Delta province who have borrowed land from fellow farmers in recent years. As a result, many poor farmers have been able to escape poverty.

“I appreciate the help of my neighbour. It encouraged my family to strive for a better life,” Day said.

Before receiving the land, Day had worked as a daily hired labourer, struggling to earn enough for his family.

In Tra Vinh, more than 1,000 farming households have lent a total of 600ha of farmland to nearly 1,400 poor farmers, helping many households escape poverty, according to the province’s Ethnic Affairs Committee.

The province has more than 23,000 poor households, accounting for 8.4 percent of the total households. It targets reducing the poverty rate by 2-2.5 percent a year.

Farmers who lend land are classified by authorities as either near-poor or fairly well-off.

Tai of Ngu Lac commune, who is a near-poor farmer and has 6,000 sq.m of farmland, said his rice field often lacked irrigation water in the dry season, so the yield of rice was not high.

With guidance from local agriculture officials, Tai switched to one rice crop and one bird’s-eye chili crop a year beginning in 2014. Since then, he has had a stable income.

Knowing Day’s family difficulties, Tai last year decided to lend Day 2,000 sq.m of his farmland to plant bird’s-eye chili in the dry season.

“I was happy to see that his family could earn more income,” he said, adding that he would continue to lend his land to Day to grow the chili variety.

Thach Thi Hong Nghia, who has 4,000sq.m of farmland in Ngu Lac commune, has lent 2,000 sq.m to poor neighbouring farmers since 2013.

Ngu Lac, one of the poorest communes in Tra Vinh, has 4,200 households with a total of 18,000 people. Of the households, 64 percent are Khmer.

In the 2015-17 period, the number of poor families fell by 580. Many of them had borrowed land from other farmers.   

Farmers with available land lend their land to poor farmers to grow crops in the dry season or year round.

Duong Van Lieu, Secretary of the Ngu La Commune Party Committee, said about 100 farming households were lending a total of 30ha of land to poor farmers.-VNA