"Khoan ho" in Vinh Phuc agriculture in the period 1966-1968

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF HNUE Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 105-113 "KHOAN HO" IN VINH PHUC AGRICULTURE IN THE PERIOD 1966-1968 Vu Thi Hoa Hanoi Nationnal University of Education E-mail: haanh17vn@gmail.com Abstract. In the course of the formation and development of the agricul- tural cooperative economic system in Vietnam, many improvements were made, consolidation occurred and innovations took place. "Khoan ho" (the three contracts to the households) in Vinh Phuc is thought to be a first step in the management improvement process to improve the agricultural economy by improving cooperative agricultural management in the country. Although it was unsanctioned in the 1960s, "khoan ho" in Vinh Phuc left a legacy of precious lessons that could be applied to agricultural management reformation many years later in the time of reform. Keyworld: "Khoan ho", agricultural cooperatives, assignment of house- holds. 1. Introduction The agricultural cooperatives of North Vietnam during the time period of 1958-1975 made a significant contribution towards bringing about national liberation and reunification. Cooperatives during this period were not merely producing the country’s agricultural products, they also influenced all aspects of the economy, politics, culture, society and the military and were a strong base for the country. The cooperatives propped up the country and provided human and material resources to meet the requirements of those fighting on the front lines. But, during this time of development, cooperatives faced many difficulties and were unable to develop in a sustainable manner due to poor management. From the beginning the manner in which cooperatives were managed was unsound. The Party and the State soon advocated ways to improve management of the cooperatives and the assignment of households in Vinh Phuc from 1966 to 1968 was one example of this. 2. Content 2.1. The introduction of household assignment In 1958, a cooperative economy was established in North Vietnam. The agri- cultural cooperative model that was used during this period was based on that of the 105 Vu Thi Hoa agricultural collectives of other socialist countries. However, the techniques, man- agement ability and materials available to cooperative leaders were few and so the collectives were not economically successful. As a result, many co-operatives went bankrupt and thousand of people lost their jobs and homes. In February 1963, he Party Central Committee Politburo issued a resolution that was to improve the management and the technology used throughout the south. The campaign to improve the management and introduce technical innova- tions that was launched by the Party in 1963 continued for five consecutive seasons in Vinh Phuc. One reason that a bumper crop was seen in Vinh Phuc was the im- provement of management when the ‘three contracts’ were expanded. In 1964, about 80% of the cooperatives in Vinh Phuc adopted the ‘three contracts’ [1]. Up until 1969, in northern midland area, 70% of the cooperatives were implementing the ‘three contracts’ regime in their production. However, management continued to be irrational. Under the ‘three contracts’ system, payments were made only for the last product and that payment was made only to teams, not households or individuals. As a result, workers did not care about the quantity of their work. In additon, be- cause it was a requirement that there be teams of workers, people had to wait until enough people got together before they could even begin to work. Due to this difficulty, when cooperatives in the north were to follow the ‘three contracts’ policy, they actually operated outside of the Party policies on cooperative management improvement. This is something that was done by households and all cooperative members. In Tien Lang and An Lao districts in Hai Phong province, individual households began contracting with several industries to provide plants and flowers in 1962. Comrade Truong Chinh, at the conference in Vinh Phuc Province on 6/11/1968 said, "The worst problem regarding cooperative management is the ‘Three contracts for households’ or or the ‘contract’ system used in cooperatives in many provinces. This is a mistake that is occurring in Vinh Phu and other provinces" [2]. In Vinh Phuc, this form of contract was first imposed in 1963 and Vinh Phuc newspapers reported on it from 1963 to 1965. Examples are the articles Van Quan through improvement of cooperative management (Vinh Phuc news- paper -1/1/1963), Many cooperatives in Da Phuc to contract households to raise cattle. (Vinh Phuc newspaper - 8/5/1963), Extension of feeding livestock to make achievements celebrating the province’s upcoming meeting (Vinh Phuc newspaper - 5/9/1964) and Tu Ky agricultural cooperative applies peanut intensive cultivation (Vinh Phuc newspaper - 27/2/1965). Thus, before in 1966 in Vinh Phuc, many co- operatives were contracting households for long-term production to raise livestock or crops other than rice. This was the Vinh Phuc Provincial Party Committee’s ‘household contract’ policy from 1966-1968 and was a new management mechanism of agricultural cooperatives in the North. 106 "Khoan ho" in Vinh Phuc agriculture in the period 1966-1968 The Vinh Phuc Provincial Committee’s Exectutive Board adopted Resolution 68-NQ/TU on 10/09/1966 which led to the public implementation of household con- tracting. This was done in part because of the U.S. imperialist push for war in Viet- nam along with the ‘local war’. Fierce fighting took place in both North and South Vietnam which required an increasing amount of human and material resources and this led to a lack of human resources which affected agricultural production in Vinh Phuc province. After a good harvest for five consecutive years prior to 1966, agricul- tural production in Vinh Phuc province decreased. The Provincial Party Committee issued Report No. 61 on 28/03/1967 evaluating the situation thusly: "The area planted and the harvest sizes of some crops have been below the targets set and this is especially true for rice with the rice harvest falling by 37,000 tons" [3]. In Report 61, the Provincial Party Committee stated that agricultural production fell in Vinh Phuc because of natural disaters, an overambitious attempt to expand production scale, internal cooperative changes which were too rapid and bad management of agricultural cooperatives. However, the main reason for the decline of agriculture in Vinh Phuc in 1966 was the labor problem. Resolution 68-NQ/TU also stated, "In recent years, especially in 1965 and the six months of 1966, a large number of young and strong rural laborers were drafted into the army in order to meet the growing need. The harvest size was falling faster and over a larger area due to the military need for manpower. From 1964 to 1965 the number of people in the work force who were 18-25 years old fell by 3%. Every year a large number of young workers (most of them male) were drafted while the need for production, building and fighting in the area was much greater". In another document, this issue was also raised in the province. Comparing 1965 with 1960, the proportion of laborers in agriculture decreased. In 1960, 53.3% of the population was laborers while in 1965 that had fallen to 46.92% [4]. To fight the destructive war, Vinh Phuc also had to build a strong local mili- tia. In 1965, 8.9% of Vinh Puuc’s population was in the militia while by 1968 it had grown to 13%. Vinh Phuc had established a local company of soldiers and a company of engineers, built battlefield air defenses and an aircraft repair field. In addition, people in Vinh Phuc build tunnels, trenches, trails and battlefield air de- fense infrastructure, and formed ambulance teams, fire fighting teams, information teams, transport teams, direct fighting teams and more. While healthy, young men were being withdrawn from the rural areas, the need for work in these rural areas increased very much. Regarding agricultural production, the Party and the State promoted the intense and comprehensive expansion of rice, secondary crops, vegetables, industrial crops, livestock, construction materials and technical education. This, of course, required more people. A serious labor shortage occurred. Comrade Kim Ngoc wrote, "Now, every- where in the countryside, the issue of labor is at the forefront and it is an expanding 107 Vu Thi Hoa problem" [5]. To solve the labor shortage problem provincial authorities reevaluated of the labor situation throughout the province. In August 1965, the province investi- gated 12 cooperatives in the different parts of the province. They found that in late 1965 the number of people of laborer age in rural Vinh Phuc was 41.4% of the pop- ulation with women accounting for 57%. Labors from 16 to 30 years old accounted for one third of those employed in the province (of which two thirds were women). Labors who were 18 to 35 years old accounted for 40%. Laborers from 36 to 45 years old accounted for 22%. In addition, the number of people who were above and below the laborer age who were likely to work accounted for 6% of the population and were in fact 20% of the workers. Upon further analysis of the labor situation in Vinh Phuc, the Provincial Party Committee realized that it was still able to exploit labor resources in the province. Specifically, it could increase the number of days that loborers could work in a cooperative in one month. On average, the number of working days in one years was 202.6 days. In addition, most laborers did not work 8 hours in a day and labor productivity was low. False reports of work times and long breaks were common. For all of these reasons labor productivity was very low in the province. Each farm worker needed to grow food products that could feed 3.9 people. However, a worker could produce only 10 kgs of rice, 20 kgs of potatoes, 2 kgs of peanuts, and 1 kg of tobacco per day. Another document shows a deeper analysis of the working capacity of women and people who were not of laborer age. Illness in women of childbearing age or who had to feed children accounted for two thirds of the lost time. They worked in cooperatives for 88.23% of their allocated work time.The percentage of laborers who were below working age at cooperatives was 46.35%, twice the number of working age males. There were more women above the working age than men but fewer women worked because they were at home looking after their families [4]. From the analysis the following conclusion was drawn: The problem was a lack of organization, poor use of employees involved in production and low labor productivity. After carrying out research and discussion, the Vinh Phu Province Party Committee Board adopted "On issues of the present agricultural labor man- agement in cooperatives", 68-NQ/TU dated 09/10/1966 which permited contracting households in agricultural cooperatives. 2.2. Process of household contracting To improve labor productivity Resolution 68-NQ/TU set out two directions and common tasks. Task one was: It necessary to create conditions for full and good mobilization and use of the available working capacity. Secondly: To take measures to increase labor productivity in agriculture while ensuring the political tasks of production and fighting. From these two basic orientations, the resolutions set out guidelines for labor 108 "Khoan ho" in Vinh Phuc agriculture in the period 1966-1968 management in cooperatives, levels and branches that would for two years be com- prehensive business, improving agricultural tools and paying for group, laborers and households. These measures were to boost labor productivity and the utilization of labor. These measures were related to each other and supported each other. Of the six measures above, the first and second measures are the most im- portant because, as the resolution points out: "Contract with households, groups, labors, individual households is to increase productivity and so contracts should be widely applied. When implementing the three contracts, for groups, for individual laborers and for each household, with each stage of cultivation, it will stimulate positivity and raise sharply the labor productivity of each person, each group and the collective cooperative, and this will eliminate the dependence, reliance, laziness and arbitrariness that exists today". The plan to guide laborers, households, and groups of agricultural cooperatives of the Vinh Phuc Department of Agriculture of 15/04/1967 more clearly showed the desired effect of contracts with laborers and households such as increasing labor productivity and encouraging self-consciousness in laborers. After adopting Resolution 68, Vinh Phuc made some new contracts in the Thon Thuong cooperative in Tuan Chinh Commune, Vinh Tuong District, and co- operatives in Dai Dong and Dong Xuan in Xuan Hoa Commune, Lap Thach District [2]. In these pilot projects, the new way of doing and assignment of Resolution 68 was implemented. However, as was expected, the new contracting regime faced many obstacles. Resolution 68 was difficult to put into practice for many reasons. First, it was contrary to the Party line and principles of socialist management. Second, people do not like to take risks and the labor norms, job grade arrangement and data storage were all something new. It was felt that an outside professional should be brought in to take the risk. The third reason was that many people who did not participate in production enjoyed the benefits of the previous system. Many people who were lazy depended on the few who were not. This can be seen clearly in the paper, "Making norms - a challenging ideological struggle" (Vinh Phuc newspaper - 25/10/1968). To promote the new contract system, the Vinh Phuc Department of Agricul- ture launched two guidelines: Plan 116-BHTX-SX/nng dated 14/04/1967 and Plan 52-S on "Forming contracts with laborers, households and groups of agricultural cooperatives” of 15/04/1967. The result was that by March 10/1967, 76% of production teams had signed contracts for their labor. But, in cooperatives, the new contract regime was only partially implemented, mostly with secondary crops, vegetables, industrial crops and livestock. When Comrade Truong Chinh spoke on 11/06/1968 at the Vinh Phu Province conference, he stated a number of issues regarding contracting households: Dong Xuan cooperative in Xuan Hoa Commune, Lap Thach District divided 109 Vu Thi Hoa contracted fields to households but not the entire harvest. For example, each house- hold had been contracted to work three poles (approximate 1.080 m2) to do the soil preparation and transplanting. In 1967 in Thon Thuong cooperative, Tuan Chinh commune, Vinh Tuong district, after the plowing was done, the planting of rice seedlings, taking care of fields, weeding, fertilizing and water movement was all con- tracted out to laborers. In fact this was like contracting the work to households. In Yen Lo Cooperative, Dao Duc commune, there were 381 households. In the main harvest, 300 hectares (1 hectare is 36.000 m2) were planted in rice seedlings for which 153 hectares were contracted to 232 households, accounting for 51% of the land and 60.9% of households. Cooperative 3 in Dai Dong commune, Vinh Tuong district, had 198 households and the total cultivation area of 284 hectares. The cooperative contracted households grow the entire industrial crop production on 37 hectares and four poles, account- ing for 14% of the cooperative’s total cultivation area. The number of households contracted was 193, which was 96% of the households. On average, each household worked 1 pole and 14 metres (1 metre is 0.4 m). The Tan Lap cooperative in Lap Thach district contracted 5 metres to employees for sweet potato cultivation. The whole commune had 423 households and 2.161 people. Each household was assigned 5 metres. It turned out that the whole area contracted out was about 72 ‘northern hectares’. Kim Thanh Cooperative members borrowed land from the cooperative to cul- tivate for their own use. If one took into account the living land and other farmland, they worked nearly 20% of the total area of the cooperative. Regarding livestock, the Yen Lu Cooperative in Binh Xuyen district had con- tracted some household members to raise livestock and others to form production teams that worked off the cooperative. The cooperative contracted to have 353 an- imals raised by 471 people, 79% the cooperative members. Regarding tools, the Van Quan Cooperative in Yen Lang District bought 126 vehicles provided 28 to production teams and sold the other 98 to cooperative mem- bers (77.8%) [8]. From a review in Hoc Tap Magazine (Learning) written by Kim Ngoc, we also have the following information: Some mountainous cooperatives grew only rice and hilly land some special trees while the larger areas of land were contracted to cooperative members on the basis of ‘contract products to households’. For example, Lap Thach District contracted out 2816 hectares to 7314 households, 55 hectares of that to 739 households who were to dig ponds, 89 hectares to 467 households for expansion of residential buildings, 110 hectares to 261 households for crops and 306 hectares to 1470 households for pig production. In all, there were 3376 hectares of land of which 2816 hectares (54%) were to be used for productive purposes. This shows that contracting for productivity was the preferred form of contract. On the 110 "Khoan ho" in Vinh Phuc agriculture in the period 1966-1968 assignment of tools, they were assigned only once. There were 21.034 push carts in the province. By 1969 they had been resold or delivered by a superior then 11.456 (54.46%) were resold to members of cooperatives. Of the province’s 36.257 grass rakers, cooperative members were assigned 9739 (26.86%) [6]. In 1967 and 1968, Resolution 68 of the Provincial Party Committee was seen to allow different forms of contracting: long-term contract, contracting out to house- holds various stages of work, contracting output to households, contracting land to households for secondary crop cultivation, lending land for secondary crop cul- tivation after a rice harvest and contracting household to raise livestock. Besides contracting with households, cooperatives delivered or sold tools to their members. Therefore, agricultural cooperatives gave over a part of their production materials to households. Such an action is contrary to the principles of socialist management. According to the principles of socialist management, cooperative household members should not be contracted to do any manner of work. Production teams depended on the free time they would have in their normal working days which they would then use to do the work which they had contracted, sometime for 5-10 day periods. Cooperatives did not assign crop land, fields, cattle or productivity tools to house- hold members. In this period, the collectivization of land and capital goods was still being called a priority. As a result of the contracts formed with households, agricultural production was bolstered in Vinh Phuc province. At the conference of the Vinh Phu Province on 6/01/1968, Comrade Truong Chinh At summarized the achievements of Vinh Phuc in 1967. Specifically, in 1965, there were in Vinh Phuc 131 cooperatives (9.4% of cooperatives) growing 5 tons of paddy rice per hectare in two harvests. In 1967, there were 248 cooperatives (21.4%) and the number of cooperatives growing 5 tons / ha was twice that of 1965. In 1967, Vinh Phuc collected 99.5% of it’s capital through the sale of grain, but other farm products were successful as well. For example, vegetab