(BGO) – When I sat on the wagon, Hanh pressed the button to control it up the hill. Just three minutes later, we presented on the top of the lychee hill without any sweat. It was the experience about the wagon invented by Tran Duc Hanh (born in 1968) in Thai Hoa village, Phuc Hoa commune, Tan Yen district (Bac Giang province) with the name “Wagon system supports lychee transportation, production and harvest”.
Hanh was born in the mountainous village with years growing lychees on high hill. He was Chairman of the communal People’s Committee and Fatherland Front Committee so he deeply understood the hardship of farmers.
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Hanh controls the wagon to care for the lychee orchard. |
Hanh said he used to pay more than 50 million VND (over 2,100 USD) per year to hire labours to cultivate and harvest 1.5 ha of lychee. Particularly, it was hard to hire workers on harvest season because transporting lychee down hill was so difficult.
Amid the fact, he travelled to Lang Son province to learn the way to make roller to transport farm produce. After trying to realize the idea, he found it only had low capacity. In late 2019, Hanh decided to create wagon system.
It consisted of three major parts, namely rail (two parallel zinc tubes), motor (one phase power motor of 200V, 3kW) attached on transport rack (car), transport rack and cable, one end fixed at the concrete pillar on top of the hill.
To move up, the operator only needs to press and hold the button, the motor drives and cable rolls to pull the rack to the expected destination with velocity of 60 meters per minute. It costs about 40 million VND to make a wagon system with 150m rail which can be used in 15 years.
“The wagon can load about 500 – 700 kg of fruit per ship, helping save dozen of millions VND to hire workers per season and protect the fruits also,” said Hanh.
Chairman of Tan Yen district Farmers’ Association Nguyen Van Than shared: “The wagon system is simply designed and easily operated to help farmers reduce work force in caring and harvesting the crop. Phuc Hoa has 600ha of early ripening lychee, mostly grown in hill and slope area so this is a optimum solution to ease the hardship of lychee growers”.
With the solution, Hanh won Second prize at the third Farming Technical Invention Contest in 2021 launched by the provincial Farmers’ Association. Some households in Phuc Hoa commune, Cao Thuong town (Tan Yen district) and Lang Giang district have followed his model.
