Luong Son district looks to sustainable organic vegetable farming

Growing vegetables under international standards without using pesticides or chemical fertilisers is a sustainable direction for farming households in Luong Son district, generating higher and more stable incomes.

Photo: Farmers in Hop Hoa commune, Luong Son district, grow organic vegetables meeting food hygiene and safety standards.

After a decade of development, Luong Son organic vegetable brand has become popular among consumers in Hoa Binh and Hanoi. With over 200 ha of land and more than 200 tonnes of fruits and vegetables each year, Luong Son has boasted the largest organic vegetable farming area in the province.

Phung Thi Lan, Chairwoman of the Farmers' Association and head of the district’s organic production group, said since late 2008, with the support of the Danish-funded Agricultural Development Denmark Asia (ADDA) project and the North of Vietnam College of Agriculture and Rural Development in Xuan Mai district, Hanoi, the district has launched an organic vegetable farming project in the communes of Hoa Son, Nhuan Trach, Hop Hoa, Thanh Lap, Cu Yen, Tan Vinh and Luong Son town with an aim of creating more livelihoods for poor women.

 After a decade, it has become an outstanding model for high-quality vegetable cultivation with little impacts on the environment. It is significant to the district’s agricultural restructuring scheme, thus raising incomes for local farmers, establishing a specialised farming area for production in value chain, and supplying safe farm products to the market.

 In order to produce standard organic fruits and vegetables, Luong Son farmers must take a three-month technical training course and be granted certificates of organic vegetable farming. As many as 1,750 farmers were trained and received such certificates from 2008 to June 2018.

 Unlike conventional vegetable growing, land for organic vegetable farming is zoned off and prevented from external contamination via tests and buffer zones.

 The total area of organic vegetable cultivation in Luong Son has expanded to over 22ha, nearly 12ha of which meet international standards. About 16 tonnes of safe and quality organic fruits and vegetables are supplied to the market each month. Most of Luong Son organic fruits and vegetables will be sold to shops and supermarkets in Hanoi via VinaGap, Trang An and Tam Dat companies, bringing 3.4 billion VND in revenue per year.