Pomelo billionaire in Trai Ca barren

The previous bare hills and lands in Trai Ca village, Dong Lac commune, Yen The district (Bac Giang province) is now replaced by green pomelo orchards laden with fruits. Nguyen Thi Hoai Anh, who is known as the best pomelo grower in this region, has greatly contributed to form the big concentrated production area. 

Hoai Anh arranges the pomelo in the containers to deliver to customers.

Billions VND valued orchard

We met Nguyen Thi Hoai Anh on a late autumn day with pretty cold weather when the pomelo is on its season. Smiling to welcome the guests, Anh shared: “I do not have much experience but try to study a little bit everywhere so I have this achievement”.

The over 3 hectare orchard on the hill was designed as terrace shape to grow about 1,500 pomelo trees. The path was all concreted thus the truck can move easily to gather the fruits on harvest season or transport the fertilizers in the caring period. Each tree was equipped with the water pipe on the stump, the water will spray all over the orchard with a simple valve turning.

This year, some households in the commune suffered a poor crop of green skin pomelo but Anh’s trees are still laden with fruits, some trees bear nearly 200 fruits. Her orchards have green skin pomelo, sour pink pomelo and mostly red pomelo.

Since September, family of Hoai Anh has sold over 10,000 sour pomelos. This year, she estimates to harvest about 60,000 fruits of all kinds. Last year, she earned total revenue of over 1 billion VND (over 40,000 USD) from this fruit.

Pomelo billionaire, Trai Ca barren, Bac Giang province, Yen The district, Nguyen Thi Hoai Anh, green pomelo orchards, big concentrated production area

Hoai Anh actively persuades the local farmers to follow her without any hesitation; regularly updates the techniques and experiences from many places to apply into the actual orchard then instruct others to follow, helping establish a big concentrated pomelo cultivation area. She is the pioneer person to renovate the agriculture thinking for expansion

Nguyen Van Dong, Head of the Division of Agriculture and Rural Development in Yen The district.

The products are consumed and yet to meet the demand of the tradesmen and residents in the province and other localities of Hanoi, Thai Nguyen ...

Surprisingly, the owner of this big pomelo orchard was not originated from a farmer family because her parents worked at a university in Hanoi. Though Anh was born in Huong Vy commune (Yen The district), she grew up in Hanoi since early childhood.

After getting married at her early twenties, she started selling fruits. She spent years earning a living by this career. In 2014, she quited it and bought the land in Dong Lac commune to grow the pomelo.

Introduce the pomelo to retail system

After investing 3 billion VND (129,100 USD) in building the surrounding wall and levelling the hill into the contour lines to grow the trees, she believed that she will succeed. As the result, the pomelo orchard brought her the first harvest and benefit of more than 400 million VND (over 17,200 USD) in 2017.

Thinking about getting rich not only for herself but also the neighbour, she visited each house in the village to persuade them to grow the same trees. Additionally, she advanced her money to buy the seedlings, fertilizers; thoroughly instructed them the pomelo cultivation technique and consumed all the products.

The pomelo orchard’s path is concreted that eases the caring and harvesting periods.

Because the local farmers used to grow the lychee and acacia wood, they did not believed in the success of pomelo cultivation. However, it was Hoai Anh’s enthusiasm and sincerity that persuaded every one to follow. Now, every household in this region grows the red pomelo with total area of more than ten hectares.

Early this year, family of Nguyen Thi Hoai Anh was bestowed a Certificate of Merit by the Chairman of the People’s Committee for good production and business.

She has bought another hill of 2.7 hectares to expand the pomelo growing area. In the upcoming time, she will further enhance the product quality of her family and local farmers so as to introduce the fruits to the retail systems.