Aiming to build a green, clean, and organic agriculture, many farmers in the province have boldly changed their thinking and found new directions in production development.

Trần Văn Sơn, Mường Phăng commune, is one of the pioneers with the vermiculture model. Realizing the increasing demand for organic agricultural products, about three years ago, Sơn decided to invest in building a vermiculture system right on his family’s land. Utilizing available livestock waste from farming activities, he collects and composts it as food for the worms. Thanks to the natural digestion process, earthworms create organic fertilizer with high nutritional content, porosity, and safety for crops. This source of organic fertilizer is further processed, packaged, and supplied to the market by Sơn. Not only bringing stable income, the model also contributes to treating livestock waste, reducing environmental pollution, and creating a closed biological cycle.

Trần Văn Sơn said: “I hope this will be a model to increase production, develop the economy, and also hope to promote the earthworm brand to the people. The goal is to optimize costs so that farmers have high-quality fertilizer sources at the cheapest price, bringing the highest economic efficiency.”

Replacing manual labor, Hoàng Văn Thương, C2 Yên Trường village, Thanh Yên commune, proactively learned techniques and boldly invested in machines to till soil and weed for his family’s 2ha of fruit trees. Mechanization helps significantly reduce labor hiring costs while improving productivity and garden care quality. Not stopping there, Thương also boldly changed his way of thinking and doing by choosing organic farming directions to ensure food safety and protect the soil environment. On the same area, he applies the model of intercropping pear-hybrid jujubes with strawberries to maximize nutrition and space, increase revenue, and limit risks in production. The boldness of Hoàng Văn Thương shows that when farmers know how to apply science and technology, transform farming models, and reasonably exploit land resources, economic efficiency will increase. This is also a direction being encouraged by many localities to build a modern, sustainable agriculture.

Hoàng Văn Thương shared: “When the fruit is about to ripen, I will wrap it and set traps to chase away insects; for weeding, I use a grass cutter; for watering plants, I use an automatic irrigation system. Any fruit trees that are not the right variety will be grafted again so that the orchard has higher productivity.”

Clearly aware of the key role of production thinking in rural economic development, recently the Farmers’ Association of Điện Biên province has implemented many solutions to help people shift from traditional methods to more modern and effective production models. The focus is on propagating and mobilizing farmers to maximize local natural advantages and boldly apply science and technology to production. The Association has promoted the application of mechanization in agricultural production stages, helping reduce labor effort, lower costs, and improve productivity. At the same time, farmers are encouraged to transform crop and livestock structures suitable for market needs; develop livestock farming towards commodity orientation, ensuring biosafety and increasing economic value per unit of land area. Thanks to correct orientations and the change in people’s thinking, the whole province has now formed over 500 good production and business models in agricultural and combined agro-forestry fields. These models not only help many households rise to become wealthy but also contribute positively to poverty reduction, bringing the provincial poor household rate down to over 21%.

Trần Qúy Hùng, Chairman of the provincial Farmers’ Association, stated: “Association levels have coordinated to open many training classes and organize for members to visit and learn economic development experiences from effective farming and livestock models inside and outside the province. Thereby, helping members gain more knowledge to return and apply suitable economic models locally.”

Changing thinking, using new, modern, and safe farming methods in production, many farmers have raised incomes, improved lives, and risen to become wealthy; contributing to promoting local economic development and sustainable poverty reduction. Especially perfecting the income criterion - one of the difficult criteria of the National Target Program on New-style Rural Construction.