Currently, the labor force in the agricultural sector is declining in many places as the majority of young people from rural areas settle in industrial areas of big cities. Therefore, the cost of hiring labor for agricultural production increases. Meeting the demand for agricultural labor and reducing production costs is an increasingly difficult problem for many places today.
Mr. Hong’s sugar cane field adopts a suitable planting method to enable synchronous mechanization from planting to sugar cane care. Picture: Hoang son.
In addition to the production towards high technology to solve the labor problem, in the sugar cane growing area of Quang Son Township, Ninh Son District (Ninh Thuan), many farmers have been doing their own research and learning how to improve their sugar cane processing machinery, thereby reducing the pressure to hire workers is reduced.
The sugar cane cultivation area in Quang Son township currently has a total area of about 823 hectares. Farmers here used mechanization from planting to caring for the cane (ploughing, fertilizing, spraying, etc.). Using machines has reduced costs by 33-47% compared to hiring labour.
To plant 1 ha of sugarcane, it takes about 30 workers if one worker is hired (the cost varies from VND 200,000 to VND 300,000/labour depending on the area). of 1.5 million VND/ha. So the total cost will be between 7.5-10.5 million VND/ha. However, with mechanical sowing, the costs are only about 5 to 5.5 million VND/ha instead of 2.5 to 5 million VND/ha.
Mr. Nguyen Hong’s household in Quang Son Township has more than 20 years of sugar cane cultivation experience and has been using mechanization in sugar cane cultivation and care for more than 10 years. On an area of 5 ha, Mr. Hong grows sugar cane in double rows, with two double rows having a distance of 1.5 to 1.6 m and a distance of 0.4 m between each row. The distance between two double rows is 1.5-1.6m just to allow a small plow to be used in the middle of the row for plowing and plowing in for sugar cane.
Thanks to storing the cane leaves after harvesting, Mr. Hong was able to reduce fertilizer costs significantly and the cane grew very well.
Mr. Hong said that using the machine has greatly reduced the cost of cultivating sugar cane because he took the initiative in plowing and took care of it regardless of the labor force. In a year, just focus on spending 1-2 months in the rainy season and do other things the rest of the time. Although sugar cane cultivation has not brought high income compared to other crops, the mechanization of production has reduced input costs and thereby increased profits compared to previous manual production. They also have more free time for other work to generate additional income.
With the current method of growing sugar cane in Quang Son Township, farmers burn sugar cane leaves after each harvest, which wastes a large amount of organic matter for the sugar cane fields. In addition, after burning sugar cane leaves, the soil becomes harder and weeds grow stronger, increasing the cost of fertilizers and herbicides.
Mr. Nguyen Hong specifically leaves sugar cane leaves after harvest to supplement organic sources, keep the soil moist, make it porous and reduce herbicide costs. When plowing and fertilizing sugarcane, sugarcane leaves are buried in the soil to aid in rapid decomposition, creating a source of organic fertilizer for the soil.
Currently, sugarcane farmers in Ninh Thuan often have a habit of burning sugarcane leaves after harvesting, which both pollutes the environment, degrades the soil and wastes organic resources.
From applying a mechanized model to producing and reusing sugar cane leaves after harvest, Mr. Hong reduces the amount of fertilizer by 20-25% every year compared to traditional farm households.
The model of mechanization and using post-harvest leaves as a source of organic fertilizer in sugarcane production has helped reduce labor costs, reduce fertilizer costs and higher profits of 7.2 to 9.8 compared to the traditional model Method to achieve million VND/ha. This farming model is recommended and applied in the sugar cane growing area in Ninh Son district and throughout Ninh Thuan province.