(VOVworld) – Village elder Ho Thanh Binh in Lao Bao town, Quang Tri province, started to develop the economy after he retired just because he wanted to help people in Ka Tang village to escape poverty. Lan Anh reports:

The 85-year-old village elder has been helping Ka Tang villagers escape poverty over the last 20 years. He said: “I persuaded other villagers to follow what I did. We grow rice and banana. Some households remain poor but hunger no longer exists.”

Binh and his family have worked ceaselessly to transform wild into farm land. They chose an area, which was believed by the Van Kieu to bring bad luck, to develop a farm to grow fruit trees and breed fish. Binh said they did that to prove the thinking of the Van Kieu is outdated: “The Van Kieu say this land is hot and makes people sick. I know that this is a backward belief because the land is fertile. People began to follow my example after the saw that nothing happened to my family.”

Now that Binh family had the land for farming, he decided to grow cassava, banana and acacia on a hill in the back of his house. On a larger area he grows rice and fruit trees and raises livestock, fish, and trionychid turtles. Thanks to the experiences Binh accumulated from technology transfer courses, his farm has been giving good harvests. Binh said: “My first harvest of trionychid turtles earned me 60,000 USD. The second batch fetched me 40,000 USD because many turtles contracted a disease. I now raise trionychid turtles for breeding only, not on a large scale, because I’m old and I have to hire people to work for me. I also raise pike fish, carps, and anabas. I earn as much as 5,000 USD a year.”    

With his experience and no-interest loans Binh has been helping other villagers to develop the economy as a way to escape poverty. Ho Van Kha, Binh’s neighbor, said: “I followed Binh’s example to grow cassava and banana. Our living conditions have improved significantly.”