“Support farmers, don't take their jobs”

Nguyen Thi Le Na, Founder of EcoNations: “Support farmers, don't take their jobs”

Applying technology, Nguyen Thi Le Na and the EcoNations team created a "shortcut" connecting farmers with consumers and supporting them in management, sales... Thanks to that, farmers can focus on their strength of farming.

Nguyen Thi Le Na, Founder of EcoNations

Agricultural model in the 4.0 era

Uncle Bay (real name Bui Chon) sat in the middle of the mango garden, his face shining with happiness. For the first time, he learned about the model of selling mangoes before the trees even bloomed. More importantly, the price was clearly determined, so farmers like him could focus on production without worrying about finding an outlet when the fruit was ripe.

“These guys are really good, so my 7 Chon mango has a famous brand,” shared the man who owns an 8-hectare farm in Ninh Hung commune, Ninh Hoa town (Khanh Hoa).

The "people" that Uncle Bay is talking about are the staff of EcoNations, an agricultural technology start-up run by Founder Nguyen Thi Le Na.

Inspired by the model “My Mango Tree” in Dong Thap province, the EcoNations team cooperated with Mr. Bay and brought the model to Khanh Hoa. Accordingly, each customer “invests” from 500,000 VND to more than 700,000 VND to own a large, healthy mango tree, grown according to natural standards in the 7 Chon mango garden. Each mango tree is identified by a small sign, attached with a QR code and a message from the buyer.

When the mango season comes, customers can visit the garden to harvest, or the EcoNations team and Mr. Bay will harvest and send all the mangoes on the tree to the customer's home. The gardener commits that a mango tree will produce a minimum yield of 20 - 25 kg. If there is a shortage, the garden will compensate customers with mangoes from the reserve trees.

It is very difficult to ask farmers to cultivate well, manage well, sell well, do good marketing… With EcoNations, farmers only need to cultivate well according to ecological processes, we will support them for the rest. Let's keep farmers happy in their fields.

- Founder Nguyen Thi Le Na

“In the Mango Tree model, farmers like Uncle Bay can feel secure in production, because they have both initial capital and no need to worry about output. Customers can use safe products, know the origin and have a new experience,” Ms. Le Na explained.

First put on sale in December 2023, more than 100 mango trees in Uncle Bay’s garden have found “investors”. To date, about 1,000 mango trees have been sold to customers across the South and North.

Sharing with Investment Newspaper reporters, Ms. Le Na said that her team spent nearly a year building the EcoNations application, while manually recording data on each mango tree (taking photos and videos of each tree, then gradually integrating the information into the application).

Last March, the EcoNations application was initially completed. Now, a mango garden similar to Uncle Bay's only takes about 1 week to update all data. However, information about the care and development process of each mango tree is still provided to customers manually, not integrated into the application and updated in real time. Therefore, EcoNations still has a long way to go...

“Startups are like that, it is not necessary to have a perfect product to sell. The happiness of a startup is sometimes just that even though the product is not yet complete, there are already buyers and supporters,” the founder of EcoNations shared.

In addition to “My Mango Tree”, EcoNations also implements a similar model called “My Beehive”. The beehive is placed right under the mango tree, creating a multi-product ecosystem. Bees collect nectar from mango flowers to produce honey, and at the same time pollinate the flowers to form mango fruit.

With an investment of 3 million VND, when participating in the “My Home Beehive” model, customers will own their own beehive, without having to directly bring the beehive home to raise. The project implementation team will manage, care for, update information and deliver honey to the customer’s address after harvest.

Spreading ecological agriculture model

Cooperating with mango farmers and beekeepers, the founder of EcoNations has repeatedly emphasized that this is not the main activity that the start-up is aiming for. The models “My Mango Tree” and “My Beehive” serve as pilot projects before the platform expands its operations to a series of other farms.

At that time, farmers like Uncle Bay can join the EcoNations platform, selling agricultural products even before the product is formed. Simply put, it is a form of crowdfunding, similar to many crowdfunding platforms in the technology startup world such as Kickstarter or GoFundMe.

“EcoNations is the first agricultural crowdfunding platform in Vietnam. EcoNations’ goal is to support farmers, not to grow their own food and compete with farmers,” Ms. Le Na affirmed.

Many years ago, Le Na was also a real farmer. She gave up her stable job in Hanoi to return to Nghe An to grow oranges, changing her hometown's hard life with the ecological orange model. In that model, orange trees are cultivated in a natural way, without using chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

To date, the Cam Vinh Ky Yen brand founded by her is still a strong agricultural brand in the market. The main product is fresh oranges that have appeared in major retail chains in Vietnam, while processed orange products such as essential oils, jams, etc. have reached many international markets.

But the success of Cam Vinh Ky Yen could not stop Nguyen Thi Le Na from thinking about a clean agricultural model with the power to spread. The area for growing Cam Vinh Ky Yen is only about 3 hectares, plus more than 30 hectares associated with farmers, still only a small number. But if the area for growing oranges is expanded, the Founder will have to face the problem of increasing investment, while each year, oranges are only harvested once a year.

How can more farms in Vietnam become the second, third, nth Cam Vinh Ky Yen? Le Na asked herself and found the answer thanks to courses on innovative startups. She understood that only by using the power of technology, the ecological agricultural model can spread without time or distance limitations.

Together with a number of associates, Nguyen Thi Le Na officially established EcoNations Joint Stock Company in January 2024. The platform is still in its infancy, but she is quite confident in the path she has chosen. In the second half of this year, the start-up plans to expand its cooperation with farms across the country. Similar to the 7 Chon mango garden model, these farms are instructed in ecological farming methods and call for investment capital from buyers. EcoNations acts as an intermediary, controlling the farming process and disbursing capital in batches.

Later, when the data source is large enough, EcoNations plans to expand features such as using technology to support farmers in farming and selling. In addition, customers will also be able to rate products directly on the EcoNations app, creating conditions for good farms to continue receiving investment capital in the following years.

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