Located at the foot of Ba Den Mountain, the custard apple garden of Mr. Ha Chi Mang (Thanh Tan Commune, Tay Ninh City) and other members of Thanh Tan Custard Apple Cooperative inherits a rare amount of ancient alluvium, combined with a mild climate, so the yield and deliciousness of the custard apple here is hard to compete with anywhere else.
Choose VietGAP direction
Taking us around his garden of more than 10 hectares, Mr. Ha Chi Mang proudly boasted that all the custard apples here are produced cleanly, meeting all VietGAP standards, as evidenced by the fact that the products have been brought into the supermarket system and stores.
Going back in time, Mr. Mang said that he left Binh Dinh to start a career in Tay Ninh, initially working as a civil servant in the province, specializing in accounting. Later, he realized the value of custard apple trees, so in 2000, he decided to convert part of his family's rubber land to grow this famous specialty tree of Ba Den land. "There is a special thing in the Ba Den mountain area, because the temperature difference between day and night as well as between the seasons of the year is quite stable, it is very favorable for the development of custard apple trees" - Mr. Mang concluded.
When he got involved in farming, in 2005, Mr. Mang quit his government job to focus on developing the custard apple cooperative. When it was first established, the cooperative had only 7 members, with an area of about 4 hectares. The cooperative had a charter capital of 210 million VND; Mr. Mang contributed nearly half. According to Mr. Mang, Tay Ninh's custard apples have a unique flavor, quite different from other growing regions; however, there was a time when many people did not know how to grow them, so they overused pesticides, causing consumers, including local people, to turn their backs on custard apples for a while. "At that time, GAP agricultural standards were not yet popular, and farmers did not follow a specific process when growing custard apples. Only by establishing a cooperative could people be able to grow clean custard apples," Mr. Mang said.
Thinking is doing, Mr. Mang invited officials from the agricultural extension center and experienced people in the field, including original farmers, to write a process for growing custard apples, then moved to a clean growing process, in order to limit the abuse of pesticides as before. However, the cost of clean production is also higher than the traditional method; Mr. Mang cited that in the past, when the custard apples were almost ripe, people often sprayed pesticides to prevent fruit flies from attacking, but since applying clean production, he and some people used foam nets to cover the inside, then used additional nylon nets to cover the outside, so these costs, along with processing and transportation costs, were higher than the method of not covering the fruit.
In return, thanks to the method of making clean custard apples, the reputation of the cooperative's products is known to everyone. The cooperative's products are brought to the supermarket system and stores. "Grade 1 products in the supermarket cost about 40,000-55,000 VND/kg" - Mr. Mang excitedly said.
Soursop garden of Thanh Tan Cooperative, produced according to VietGAP standards
Mr. Ha Chi Mang, Chairman of Thanh Tan Soursop Agricultural Cooperative, one of 63 cooperatives voted by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Farmers' Union as exemplary nationwide in 2023
Help farmers increase profits
Tay Ninh is currently the province with the largest custard apple growing area in the country, more than 5,400 hectares, with custard apple output available almost year-round, accounting for about 40% of the country's custard apple market.
According to Mr. Mang, we have to think long-term for custard apples, because the disadvantage of this fruit is that it changes sugar content very quickly, about 2 days after harvest it starts to ripen, if it cannot be used in time it must be discarded, if not stored in suitable cold conditions. This is also the reason why Mr. Mang and his colleagues lost nearly 300 million VND after only one year of establishing the cooperative. "At this time, I had to take my wife to the bank to mortgage our assets to borrow capital to redevelop the cooperative" - Mr. Mang recalled.
Mr. Ha Chi Mang confided that in 18 years as Director of the Cooperative, he wanted to give up everything 5 times "to be healthy, because the path we took was too difficult, but thinking about the initial enthusiasm, thinking about the encouragement of family and members and thinking about the great losses I had made, I had to make it "to the end" - Mr. Mang expressed...
With the perseverance of this leader, Thanh Tan custard apple cooperative has now grown to 32 members, with a total area of nearly 30 hectares, of which 25 hectares have been certified by VietGAP. Mr. Mang believes that in order for custard apples to have a chance to serve the domestic market as well as export, the fruit must be ripened slowly, the slower the better.
In addition to the stable supply of standard fresh fruit under contracts, non-standard products can be processed. Closing the custard apple value chain in Tay Ninh is the optimal way to help custard apple farmers increase profits. "That is also the reason why we always cherish the dream of a custard apple processing factory; because currently, the path of custard apple is still unstable, depending on the purchasing power of the market, so clean custard apple growers still do not have any profit" - Mr. Mang expressed.
Looking forward to the processing plant being put into operation soon
The good news for Mr. Mang and Thanh Tan Cooperative is that in 2019, the project of the factory for preliminary processing, slow ripening and processing of fermented drinks in cans of the Cooperative was implemented under the public investment project. The project was allocated an investment capital of more than 10.5 billion VND by the central government. Tay Ninh Province assigned Tay Ninh City People's Committee as the investor, with an expected processing capacity of 2-5 tons of raw materials/day, equivalent to an area of 150-200 hectares, the factory will solve the output for a large amount of custard apples of the Cooperative and growers in the project area. "When the factory comes into operation, it will certainly end the situation of custard apples being sold at low prices due to not being able to be preserved for a long time, improving farmers' income" - Mr. Mang expected.
Currently, the project has only completed the factory, but the equipment has not been implemented yet, so the factory cannot operate yet. "We really hope that the relevant agencies, especially the People's Committee of Tay Ninh City, will support the factory to soon come into operation, so that the specialty tree of custard apple can develop sustainably, and farmers can get rich right in their homeland" - Mr. Mang hopes.
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