It’s early in the morning. A thin blanket of fog still covers on mountains and forest in Nam Xe Commune, Van Ban District, in northern province of Lao Cai. The first rays of sunlight beam through the fog blanket, creating magic lights.

Murmuring a song, Trieu Thi Mui, 24, of Red Dao ethnic minority group, walks on the edge of a pond towards nearby mountain, where her family has been planting bamboo.

She passes by bushes of wild tiny violet and white flowers. Some flowers stick on her embroidered skirt pleats.

She starts her daily routine by clearing wild grass from the bamboo field. Looking at new strong bamboo sprouts coming out from dam soft soil, Muismiles to herself.

Her family has planted this bamboo planting field for over a year now together with 300 households in the district in the framework of the Gender Responsive Equitable Agriculture and Tourism (GREAT Program) in Lao Cai and Son La Province, which is funded by the Australian Government.

The bamboo generation she planted ten years before offers annual crop of some hundred kilogrammes. The newly-planted bamboo field on some area of 1 ha will be matured enough for harvesting in the next two years.

“Joining the GREAT-supported project, we have got trained of bamboo planting techniques,” Mui said. “We plant bamboo sprouts further from one another so that each sprout has enough space to receive more sunlight to grow faster. Before the project, we just did farming according to our experience without any scientific techniques. Hence, the bamboo grew slower.”

Mui said due to the pandemic, the price of bamboo drops against the same period in the previous years. This year, her family sells bamboo shoot at VND 10,000-11,000 per kg instead of VND15,000-25,000 per kg as usual.

Besides planting bamboo, her family grows also rice on the edge of the forest and cinnamon trees deep inside the forest. Each month, her family gets some VND20 million income, which is enough to cover all daily expenses of the couple and a son aged 3.

“We now have quite steady income,” Mủi added. “I feel happy. The project also organises many meetings themed on gender equality, which are informative and interesting. My husband had shared much housework with me. After the meetings, he even helped me more in all tasks. We are happier than before.”

Mui said she has never seen women’s role in the village better cared like it is now than ever before.
“Local women join all meetings together with men and be self-confident to make speeches,” she said. “Women are now more active in social works than in the past.”

According to Pham Ngoc Oanh, deputy director of Hoang Lien Van Ban Nature Preservation Zone Management, by October 2019, before the project, total are of planting bamboo in two communes of Nam Xay and Nam Xe was nearly 65 ha gathering 143 households working on.

The board has consulted local authorities to approve the project to plant bamboo in 373ha of forest land, in which 150ha is for newly-planted bamboo while maintaining the previously grown area of 65 ha between 2019-2021.

“Bamboo can be planted between bigger trees, which offer shade and help keep moisture better,” Oanh said. “Thanks to the technique, besides economic value, the bamboo helps protect soil and avoid landslides in rainy season. Locals can also plant bamboo together with medicinal herbs in order to cover barren lands and hills to enhance the efficiency in using land.”

He said: “The GREAT Program has received approval and support from local authorities aiming at duel targets of improving life of locals and reduce human’s impacts on natural forest area.”

With GREAT’s support, the board has organised field trips for locals to successful models of enterprises buying bamboo shoot to further process in Van Chan District of Yen Bai Province and Kim Boi Agro-Forestry Company in Hoa Binh Province. Among 20 people joining the trips, 11 were ethnic minority women.

The soil condition in Lào Cai and Yên Bái is suitable for planting this kind of bamboo. Expanding the area of growing bamboo is a priority in development plan of Lào Cai Province in general and Văn Bàn Disict in particular. In 2020, Văn Bàn District planted more 118ha of bamboo at the total cost of over VND3 billion.

Oanh also said in 2019, the total productivity of bamboo got from 315 households in two communes of Nam Xay and Nam Xe was 240 tonnes of fresh bamboo shoot while that of 2020 was 360 tonnes.
The locality will soon pack the fresh bamboo shoot material to complete the product to sell at various supermarkets in Lao Cai and Hanoi cities./.