Making tools for catching mud crabs in Cà Mau Province’s Trần Văn Thời District. The job of making tools has helped improve the incomes of many rural people. – VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Nhung

CÀ MAU — The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Cà Mau targets a 0.3 percentage point reduction in the poverty rate this year, according to its Fatherland Front Committee.

Phan Mộng Thành, deputy chairman of the committee, said poor households would be carefully identified together with socio-political and religious organisations, and specific measures would be taken to help every poor and near-poor household escape poverty.

The measures include helping them carry out small trade, breed animals or grow crops, he said.  

The number of poor households had reduced from 9.94 per cent in 2016 to 2.25 per cent at the end of 2019, but they still number more than 10,900. 

To help the poor household escape poverty sustainably, the Fatherland Front Committee plans to mobilise resources from society through the Fund for the Poor and the Social Welfare Fund for welfare policies.

Each grassroots level branch of all socio-political and other organisations will help one poor or near-poor household escape poverty, or help prevent a newly escaped one fall back into poverty.

Last year more than 3,000 households escaped poverty, exceeding the target set by the People’s Committee by 11 per cent.

Of the 3,000, 2,400 were assisted by the Fatherland Front Committee and other organisations.

Thành said to achieve this, the families were helped with production or business and obtaining soft loans for the purpose.

The Fatherland Front Committee has mobilised more than VNĐ71 billion (US$3 million) for the fund and used it to build 84 rural bridges, build or repair 1,941 houses belonging to the poor, drill 92 wells, give 26,000 gifts and donate nearly 130 tonnes of rice, and provide health checks and medicines for 12,000 poor people since the beginning

The province’s Fund for Supporting Farmers has provided loans worth more than 42 billion ($1.8 million) to 4,600 farmers, helping many escape poverty.

Trần Thị Quyết, deputy chairwoman of the province Farmers Association, said before the implementation of the projects, many farmers faced difficulties such as lack of resources and access to advanced techniques.

But after the projects began many have achieved excellent results and become model farmers.

The participating farmers have co-operated among themselves and with companies, she said.

Their products include blood cockle, rice straw mushroom, clean vegetables, and shrimp farmed using two – stage method with advanced techniques.

The Fund for Supporting Farmers has provided soft loans worth a total of VNĐ300 million ($13,000) to 15 farmers in Phú Tân District’s Việt Thắng Commune for a project to breed blood cockle.

Through the Fund for Supporting Farmers, the province has established 230 co-operative groups, 17 co-operatives and 519 occupation groups. 

Around 77 per cent of the province’s population lives in rural areas and 56.7 per cent of its workforce is in agriculture, according to the local Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. — VNS