The coastal strip of Hai Linh ward, Nghi Son town is all white sand. For many generations, only wild pineapple, cactus and casuarina trees have been able to overcome the scorching heat of summer and the drought of winter to grow. Yet, many new plants have sprouted, taken root and grown lushly thanks to the perseverance of a woman who is passionate about agriculture in experimenting and applying technical advances to farming.
Introducing new crops
About 500m from the spacious multi-storey house and fruit juice processing workshop of Ms. Le Thi Ngoc’s family in Hong Phong residential group, there is a production area that is greener than the surrounding areas. In a place where every step of the person is bogged down by the sea sand, there are tens of thousands of fruit trees spreading their branches and spreading shade, which have never been grown before in this sunny and windy land.
Leading the group to visit the production area, the model owner introduced the artichoke growing area with clusters of red, juicy flowers. In the dry days at the end of the year, according to the growth cycle, the leaves of the trees began to turn silvery white and fall a lot, looking at the whole, revealing an impressive red garden. It is hard to imagine that on the dry sandy soil where weeds cannot grow, there are branches full of flowers and fruits hanging down close to the ground. According to Ms. Ngoc: “After many years of trading and driving trucks in the southern provinces, I saw that the dry, sandy land of Ninh Thuan, similar to my hometown, could grow grapes, while the land in my hometown was mostly barren or only planted with casuarinas. Thinking that I had to be the first to experiment, I brought red artichoke varieties from Lam Dong to try planting. Digging holes and lining the roots with decomposed manure, watering regularly, the new variety grew strongly and bore fruit. By 2019, I decided to buy varieties to develop on a large scale”.
The family has owned Hoan Ngoc Transport Trading Service Production Company Limited, which has been operating in the North-South transportation sector for many years, which is the condition for Ms. Ngoc to make large and synchronous investments in agriculture. “In 2019, I formed a production area, dug a tarpaulin-lined pond to hold water, and pumped it into the irrigation system to each tree. Keeping the soil around the tree roots moist is a prerequisite for successful cultivation even on dry sand. Then, I maintain about 16,500 artichoke bushes every year, harvesting about 33 tons of flowers each year.”
At the same time, Ms. Ngoc introduced mulberry cultivation for fruit - a drought-resistant variety. But she heard from an acquaintance in Hung Yen that there was a Taiwanese strawberry variety that was especially sweet, had large fruits, and each tree could harvest hundreds of kilograms of fruit, so she researched and determined to import it. “During the complicated COVID-19 pandemic with many social distancing orders, I paid to buy the seeds but could not bring them back to the country. Later, I had to transport them by air at a cost of up to 100,000 VND per cutting. With thousands of new strawberry seedlings, I planted and harvested them right from the first year, twice a year.” Self-propagating the variety by cuttings, in the following years, the production area had a total of 5,500 Taiwanese strawberry plants.
Introducing the difference from traditional mulberry trees, she picked the fruit for everyone to taste. A rich sweet aftertaste, but almost no sour taste in each piece of fruit like our mulberry. In reality, Taiwanese mulberry leaves are larger than traditional mulberry, the special thing is that the fruit is as big and long as an adult's finger, growing densely from the trunk to large and small branches. Organically cultivated and fully watered, each year yields about 16.5 tons of fruit.
“I also decided to cultivate organically from the beginning to create prestige for the product. Moreover, this is land contaminated with salty ingredients, if fertilized with chemical fertilizers, it will damage the soil and kill the plants. In the first crops, I bought dozens of truckloads of decomposed manure from dairy farms, but for the past 3 years, I have raised pigs and chickens to provide fertilizer for the plants,” said Ms. Ngoc.
"The plants that Ms. Le Thi Ngoc brought back to cultivate are all new varieties in Thanh Hoa. After many times of checking and researching, up to now, the three main types of plants, dwarf coconut, Taiwanese strawberry and red artichoke, all have high productivity and unexpected efficiency. Notably, the fruits are also associated with deep processing to have products consumed in the chain. Ms. Ngoc's model can completely be built into a provincial-level scientific topic for replication." Mr. Vu Van Ha, Deputy Director Thanh Hoa Agricultural Extension Center |
From the initial success, Ms. Ngoc continued to buy and rent more garden land from local people to develop into a 5-hectare contiguous farm. At the end of 2019, the woman in her fifties continued to buy 2,000 dwarf coconut trees from Ben Tre to plant around the production area and between the new planting beds to shade the harsh sunlight. By 2024, the coconut trees had produced thousands of bunches, but she cut down almost all of them to nourish the trunk, and from 2025 they would bear fruit. By diligently testing and finding ways to apply techniques to cultivation, the newly introduced crops have now grown well, to the surprise of many people.
Not stopping there, recently, the owner of the production model has also successfully experimented with growing grapes from Ninh Thuan, brewing the first batches of wine to gain experience. Right at the entrance to the production area, she also "showed off" to us the syrup bushes full of ripe red fruits, which according to her, are the first experimental trees, and in the near future, they will be expanded to harvest the fruits to process into syrup products.
Successfully built 3 OCOP products
To create sustainable output for new products grown from her farm, Ms. Le Thi Ngoc has traveled to the Southern and Central Highlands provinces many times to import processing technology. From 2021-2022, a production workshop was built right behind the house, wine cellars, purification machines, fruit juice distillers... were gradually built and installed.
Here, Ms. Ngoc introduced a fairly systematic and modern processing area from the very beginning. Red artichoke flowers and Taiwanese strawberries were soaked into wine using a technology similar to Dalat wine. The rest were soaked in traditional wine in hundreds of earthenware jars. Machines for distilling artichoke water and bottled strawberry water continued to be purchased and technology transferred from partners. The white wine used to soak the fruit was also brewed by the owner himself to use the residue to feed chickens and pigs. Then in 2021, encouraged by the Nghi Son town and Hai Linh ward authorities, she proposed and was assessed by provincial departments to meet food hygiene and safety standards, so there were 2 products recognized as meeting provincial OCOP standards, including: Ngoc Hoan strawberry wine and Ngoc Hoan fruit juice. By 2023, the Ngoc Hoan Artichoke Flower Juice product of the production facility continued to be recognized as a 3-star OCOP product. The facility is currently producing 7 types of products, all of which are designed with labels and inspected for quality standards and regulations by provincial and central authorities.
In addition to glass bottles with many beautiful designs and models to bring to the market, the facility is also conducting trial production to register canned fruit juices, aiming to expand the market to many provinces. A production facility has successfully built 3 OCOP products, achieving ISO 22000:2018 certification, which is difficult for many district-level units to implement. But Ms. Le Thi Ngoc's production facility has done it from imported crop products that she produces and processes. All types of fruit pulp and wine pulp are transferred to the animal feed stage. By-products from crops and pig and chicken manure after being treated through a closed biogas system are all mixed as fertilizer for plants according to a closed-loop model. Right in the raw material growing area, crops such as artichokes and Taiwanese strawberries have also been certified to VietGAP standards, cultivated in an organic direction.
"The 5-hectare production area of Ms. Le Thi Ngoc is currently a typical economic model of the locality. Because this land was previously a barren sandbar. In 2004, the province had a policy of population dispersion, the locality separated some households to renovate. But they could only grow casuarinas, making it difficult to develop the economy, so the households returned one by one. Later, Ms. Ngoc boldly rented and bought them back to develop the economy. More admirable, it was a breakthrough approach, the perseverance of a person with a great passion for agriculture. Unexpectedly, the new crops generated great profits right in the barren sandbar area, and she even introduced processing technology. The Provincial Farmers' Association also provided technical support, and the locality created conditions for her to develop the model to create a spread." Mr. Bui Khac Trung, Secretary of Hai Linh Ward Party Committee |
In recent crops, Ms. Ngoc has provided free Artichoke seeds collected in the garden for people in the growing area, purchasing facilities to create a sustainable raw material area. It was thought that Artichoke only grows well in Da Lat and areas with cool climates and fertile soil, but right in the arid gardens of Nghi Son town, it is giving high economic value, igniting a new economic development direction for local people. In addition to the initial 5 hectares, Ms. Ngoc has now developed another 3 hectares of strawberries and Artichokes in the semi-mountainous commune of Phu Son in the same town. At the same time, she has cooperated to plant another 3 hectares in Yen Dinh district. Stevia is also developed by the model owner to replace sugar in processing fruit juices and canned soft drinks according to consumer tastes. With 2 year-round workers with an income of 8 million VND per month, nearly a dozen seasonal workers during raw material harvesting seasons are the initial effects of this model from production to processing.
The dry sandy land of Hai Linh has had new suitable crops to stimulate the land fund, many surrounding households have begun to benefit. The production value of the facility in the past 2 years has reached about 1.2 billion VND, not much compared to the investment capital, but initially it has shown the right direction of a woman who dares to think and dare to do. "With the total amount of money to buy land, invest in the production farm and processing factory up to more than 10 billion VND, if I buy 2 more trucks, the profit will be many times higher than doing agriculture. But for me, it is a passion, moreover, I have to create for myself and for the locality unique products with characteristics, not too much for profit" - Ms. Le Thi Ngoc confided.
Article and photos: Le Dong
Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/qua-ngot-tren-cat-bong-233565.htm
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