Bac Ninh (VNA) – Many farmer households in thenorthern province of Bac Ninh have benefited from soft loans to develop theirproduction and increase income thanks to the support from the provincial Fund for Farmer Support.

The family of Nguyen Van Dinh in Long Chau commune, YenPhong district is among households accessing capital from the fund andsuccessfully improve their economic production.

Already having land and labourers, but Dinh’s family did not have capital for production. In 2019, after receiving a loanof 100 million VND (4,273 USD) from the fund, the family invested in raising ducks andgoats as well as fish.

Currently, each year, Dinh’s family sells 10,000 ducks and300 goats, earning billions of VND.

Dinh said that although the loan was not too big, it was ofgreat help to his family at that time, enabling him to buy equipment for hisduck and goat farm. So far, Dinh has paid off the loan and contributed to thefund with a hope to help other farmers gain access to capital for expanding theirproduction, thus escaping from poverty.

A safe vegetable cooperative in Lien Ap hamlet,Viet Doan commune of Tien Du district is also a successful model in making effective use of the capital provided by the Bac Ninh Fund for Farmer Support.

Director of the cooperative Nguyen Van Hiep said that thecooperative was established in 2018 with 134 member households and a totalnearly 40 hectares of farming land. At that time, most members of thecooperative lived on vegetable farming and did not have capital for expanding production.

Thanks to the help of the provincial Farmers' Union, thecooperative received a loan of over 1 billion VND (42,730 USD) from the Fund for Farmer Support, which it used topurchase equipment and machinery to expand VietGAP vegetable growing andlivestock raising activities. At present, the cooperative's revenues from safe agricultural production hit 6-7 billion VND (about 300,000 USD) peryear.

Tran Dang Sam, President of the provincial Farmers’ Union affirmed that the Fundfor Farmer Support has made great contributions to promoting household economicdevelopment, minimising usury in rural areas.

Sam said that as of the end of June 2022, more than 1,600households had borrowed money from the fund, with a total value of more than112 billion VND (4.78 million USD).

The capital has been used effectively, helping develop manyeconomic models with high economic efficiency.

In order to bring the fund closer to local farmers, in the timeto come, the Bac Ninh Farmers’ Union will popularise support policies forfarmers, while choosing feasible projects to receive loans from the fund.

With an aim to further enhance the efficiency of the fund,last year, the People’s Committee of Bac Ninh approved aproject to renovate, improve the effectiveness and promote the development ofthe fund in the 2021-2030 period.

The project aims to increase farmers’ access to soft loansfrom the fund to develop household economic activities and strengthen theapplication of science and technology into their production, contributing to theimplementation of the new-style rural area building programme.

Under the project, in the 2021-2025 period, Bac Ninh willensure that the provincial budget will allocate at least 10 billion VND (427,304USD) to the fund per year, and at least 15 billion VND (640,998 USD) per year inthe 2026-2030 period.

The fund will provide loans in short and middle terms. Short-termloans have a maturity of up to 12 months, while middle-term loans will have a maturity from over 12 months to 36 months. A household can borrow up to 100 millionVND (4,273 million VND) at maximum, while a projects involving a group ofhousehold can borrow up to 2 billion VND (85,466 USD)./.