Mr. Le Tien Loi, Chairman of the provincial Cooperative Union, said: The studying and following of Uncle Ho’s ideology, morality and style in the collective economy and cooperatives in the province were shown in many practical jobs. Specifically, cooperatives have promoted their role as input suppliers for production of new varieties, fertilizers, agricultural materials, scientific and technical knowledge; a number of agricultural cooperatives changed the perception of farmers in concentrated, large-scale commodity production, meeting market demands; and some created regular jobs for over 9,000 people with incomes from the regional minimum wage or higher.
A member of Bich Thao Coffee Cooperative operates a coffee machine. (Photo: baosonla.org.vn)
Since 2019, the provincial Cooperative Union has organized a campaign to mobilize officials and employees of agencies and cooperatives and people’s credit funds to contribute nearly 50 million VND for building the “Cooperative with Uncle Ho” project in Kim Lien commune, Nam Dan district, Nghe An province.
Studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style was concretized by innovative and creative ways in production methods associated with value chains. Bich Thao Coffee Cooperative joined with 11 member households to promote the application of science and technology into production, improve the quality of coffee products, and apply the coffee production process in accordance with VietGAP and UTZ standards.
Mr. Nguyen Van Thao, Director of Bich Thao Coffee, said that the cooperative is growing more than 60 hectares of THA1 coffee variety and has harvested the first year; linked with over 1,000 households with coffee growing area according to VietGAP process to purchase and process. It is accelerating the construction and completion of Bich Thao Son La specialty coffee processing factory, with a capacity of 30 tons of kernels per day. The project has a total investment of over 15 billion VND.
Son La now has 714 cooperatives with more than 34,000 members. The cooperatives have average revenue of 1.5 billion VND and average profit 150 million VND and the average income of employee is over 4 million VND per month.
The province has 83 OCOP products; including 52 products of 38 cooperatives and cooperative groups. The result shows that the benefits of participating in cooperatives are higher than those of individual production activities. The idea was inherited and creatively developed by Uncle Ho in the conditions of practice of the country./.