Endowed with good soil, favourable sub-climate areas, and effective cultivation conditions, the agricultural sector of Cao Bang province has made breakthroughs in technical transfer, crop and livestock quality improvement and changes in farmers’ awareness and cultivating practices. Many famous agricultural products have gained popularity on the market like Oolong tea, Dong Khe pears, and Mong – Cao Bang beef.
Cao Bang province is endowed with good potential and favourable conditions for developing effective and sustainable agriculture. Criss-crossed by high mountains, Cao Bang has unique sub-climate zones – a good condition for specific agricultural development. The province has a natural area of 672,642 ha, including 94,735 ha of agricultural land (14 percent) and 90,091 ha of annual crop land (with 20,000 ha at an altitude of 800-1,200 metres, affected by subtropical climate), 534,483 ha of forest land (including 234,000 ha of commercial forests). Peanuts are grown in cool places from August to December with a high productivity. Currently, Cao Bang farmers are supplying peanuts to Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces.
Based on its local available potential and advantages, the provincial government and particularly the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has introduced effective guidelines and policies for agricultural development. The province regularly reviews its socioeconomic development plans in general and agricultural development plans in particular to better suit practice. Based on its development plans, the province has applied policies to encourage all economic sectors to invest in agricultural production development. So far, the province has set up some commercial agricultural development areas for particular crops and livestock. For example, sugarcane is planted on 4,266 ha to harvest 252,326.80 tonnes a year, mainly focusing in Phuc Hoa, Quang Uyen, Thach An and Ha Lang districts. The production value is VND50 million per hectare a year. Bamboo, grown on 3,258.7 ha in Nguyen Binh and Bao Lac districts, reaches annual harvest of over 1.5 million units. Anise, planted on 5,000 ha in Thach An, Tra Linh and Bao Lac districts, has an annual output of 2,300 tonnes. The agricultural sector places a special focus on strengthening agricultural extension and technology transfer, enhancing the quality of estimations, pest and disease prevention for plants and livestock.
In addition, the province has actively invited and attracted businesses in and outside the province to invest in agriculture as well as agricultural processing like sugar refining, cassava starch processing and animal feed processing.
With the efforts of the province, in spite of being affected by global economic slowdown, the agricultural and forestry production value of Cao Bang province in 2014 still grew 4.84 percent over 2013. The food output reached 255,000 tonnes in the year, thus exceeding the Resolution of the 17th General Assembly. Key central programmes of the Provincial Party Committee on agricultural and forestry production have been effectively deployed by the province of Cao Bang. Especially, the stability of the market prices of agricultural commodities has contributed significantly to the province’s overall growth. The province also has achieved high growth in livestock industry and aquaculture thanks to good local potential and advantages.
In the coming time, to uphold continued effective and sustainable development of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, the Cao Bang Provincial People’s Committee defines that the province will make every effort to ensure food security, develop commercial agricultural production, accelerate agricultural restructuring towards industrialisation and modernisation, and invest in centralised production zones with reasonable structures of crops and livestock to tap local comparative advantages.
Minh Xuan
Đăng ký: VietNam News