Di An city to improve the quality of urban agriculture

With the aim of make more efficient use of land resources, improve production values and incomes of farmers, Di An city is encouraging the development of urban agriculture, high-tech agriculture. The success of these models is creating an important premise for agricultural sector of Di An City to further expand various models of urban and high-tech agriculture in the area. 

The transition from rural agriculture to urban agriculture in Di An city has been receiving good responses from a large number of farmers and citizens. In photo: A model of greenhouse melon in Tan Dong Hiep ward, Di An city.

"Green" accomplishments

In mid-April, the weather was quite hot, but the atmosphere at hi-tech vegetable garden of Nguyen Ngoc Trong, Tan Binh ward, Di An city was very cool. That is the system of net houses, air conditioners, suitable lighting... As one of high-tech production models of Di An City, Mr. Nguyen's vegetable garden is small but earns good benefits, very suitable for suburban agricultural production, encouraged by the city government. Mr. Nguyen invested in agricultural products with high economic value in order to speed up the restructuring of crops and animals such as:  His family also helps other farmers in the ward with seedlings, planting, care techniques, guidance for product harvesting…

Dang Van Nam, President of Farmers Union of Di An City, said that thanks to the application of high-tech farming methods, the entire production process of organic vegetables does not use drugs and chemical fertilizers, reducing labor force, limiting adverse effects of weather, gaining high productivity, and quality assurance, thus be favored by consumers. Up to now, the whole city has more than 2,750 good production and business households with incomes from several hundred million to billions of VND / year.

One good examples of urban agriculture is Tan Phuoc mushroom farm of Nguyen Hong Phuoc's family. Mr. Nguyen said that after a training on abalone mushroom growing model organized by Farmers' Association of Di An City, he found that this model brings high economic efficiency, low cost, and is suitable with the conditions of his family. Thus he boldly set up a farm, shelves, and planted 1,000 bags of embryos worth 50 million VND borrowed from the City Social Policy Bank. Fortunately, the first batch of embryos yielded a good return; after subtracting all expenses he earned 10 million VND. From this initial success, he bought more, opened 2 more farms and planted over 8,000 bags of embryos.

Currently, to expand production scale, he hired more young people in his neighborhood, created jobs for many workers with an income of 3.5 - 5 million VND / person / month. From growing and caring for mushrooms manually, thanks to training courses, Mr. Nguyen improved growing mushrooms by a cool house and automatic irrigation system, so the productivity and quality of mushrooms increased. Average income per day is 1,000,000 VND.

Towards sustainable development

According to Dang Van Hong, Chairman of Di An City's Ornamental Plants Association, in recent years, agricultural production structure in Di An city has shifted  to urban and high-tech agriculture. The majority of farmers have actively transformed the structure of crops and animals, set up more urban agricultural models in many forms, applied new scientific and technological advances to bring high economic efficiency.

In fact, from the movement of farmers doing good business in Di An city in recent years, there have been more and more models of sustainable development, providing stable income from several hundreds millions to billions of VND / year.  Through this movement, the City Farmers Union at all levels supported and helped farmers developing 6 farms of growing crops, animal husbandry, and 16 home-based economic models. These farms and models are developed in a diverse way  and on large scales, linking many households, forming a large sample field, favorable for the application of scientific, technical and mechanical advances in production, harvest, process, creating stable raw material areas, bringing sustainable development and high stable income.

In the urban development process, some efficient urban agricultural models of the city are Planting orchids then cutting branches, ornamental plants, high-tech melon growing according to VietGAP standards, mushrooms, greenhouse vegetables, culturing cordyceps, growing eel without mud, crickets... The movement's quality and efficiency have been continuously improved; many households earn stable incomes. The movement has helped farmers to actively adapt to new conditions, shift crop and animal structures, appropriate career development, efficient use of capital and labor, especially accelerate the application of new science and technology into agricultural production. Especially, a number of advanced agricultural models have brought about an obvious effect, are good examples for the city to expand in 2021 and following years.

Dang Van Nam, Chairman of Farmers Union of Di An City, said that due to the reduction of agricultural land, the restructuring of crops and animals to suit urban environment is a very important and necessary direction. In the past years, the good results in the transition from rural to urban agriculture, high-tech agriculture in the area of Di An city have been receiving support from majority farmer members and all people classes. However, in addition to the common difficulties caused by natural disasters and epidemics, the application of advanced technologies is also facing internal challenges, such as infrastructure, technology, land fund... On the other hand, the consuming market for agricultural industrial products is still limited and unstable, not to mention shortcomings in research, technology transfer and limited human resources...

“In order to facilitate the city's agricultural sustainable development, in the coming time, Farmers Union at all levels in the city will continue to promote the movement of farmers striving for good production and business, to expand effective and sustainable farming and husbandry models; focus on mobilizing resources, such as cooperating with banks and farmer support funds at all levels to create favorable conditions for farmers to borrow loans, carry out industrial promotion, agricultural extension, training, and transfer of science and technology; to set up effective demonstration models for farmers to apply into farming and husbandry; to strengthen cooperation and association with businesses, helping farmer's members to expand production scale, diversify crops and animals and build collective economic models, cooperation and association in production and business, consumption of agricultural products, food... to turn towards the sustainable development of urban agriculture”, Mr. Dang added.