Tan Trieu pomelo: itinerary of building a brand name for international integration

* Itinerary of building a brand name for international integration

Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Information Tran Chien Thang visited the pavilion of Tan Trieu- Bien Hoa pomelo wine

For long, known to people as Bien Hoa pomelo, Tan Trieu pomelo has been quite popular domestically and internationally. Every year, on the occasion of Lunar New Year, Tan Trieu pomelo emerges, appearing in great numbers in the market, and many people manage to buy a pair of Tan Trieu pomelos to display on salvers of five fruits on Tet holiday.

Tan Trieu pomelos diversify in many genera, each with its characteristic taste such as knob-shaped sweet pomelos have big sweet yellow sections and good shape, and thus are usually chosen to display during three-day Tet holiday, orange-tasted sweet pomelos, freshly sweet pomelos of big size, guava-tasted pomelos of small size; moreover, there are different kinds of pomelos like Siamese pomelos, sour pomelos, Van Lady pomelos, summer pomelos, dragon pomelos and so on.

Aware early of the values of these unique and precious products, Dongnai provincial Party Committee has had guidelines of establishing Bien Hoa Pomelo Village in Tan Trieu, Tan Binh Commune, Vinh Cuu District, and entrusted Dongnai Department of Science and Technology with missions of coordinating with other departments and branches to study the impacts of biotechnology and technical science to help Vinh Cuu keep guava-tasted pomelo and specialty pomelo varieties of Tan Trieu region, and at the same time of researching, building and registering the exclusive trademark of “Bien Hoa Pomelo” in order to make the products officially approach the market and target at exports. In order to deploy these tasks, the Department of Science and Technology with other industries and Vinh Cuu District People’s Committee have had activities with a view to increasing the role, prestige and status of this specialty pomelo such as successfully carrying out the project of “Research and select promising pomelo varieties and intensive farming to enhance the effects of Bien Hoa - Dong Nai pomelo orchard”; setting up rooms for tissue cultivation and transplant and providing Vinh Cuu District with 5,000 pomelo trees of good seeds and without any disease; choosing orange-leaved and few-pipped sweet pomelo variety, re-vigorating guava-tasted pomelo variety and building a model for technical progress application of pomelo intensive farming, and associating with garden ecotourism in the pomelo region of Bien Hoa - Dong Nai; training technology to pomelo planting households and so forth. Via those activities, many pomelo orchards are newly grown with good seeds together with advanced cultivation techniques and the quality of pomelos in the district area is being increased.

A Tan Trieu pomelo farmer (Vinh Cuu District)

In addition, the Department has built and is completing a website at http://www.vacr-vinhcuu.com.vn for Tan Trieu pomelo. In order to provide information of science and technology favourably, timely and effectively, the Department of Science and Technology supported to launch an science and technology  information giving point at the end of 2004 in Tan Binh commune whose area of pomelo plantation accounts for the most area in Vinh Cuu district. At this point, farmers can learn to understand films, processes, techniques of cultivation, modern agricultural and rural models, introduce the commune activities via its website and can simultaneously access to study information of science and technology through Internet. Those are activities that create advantageous premise in many aspects to target at the registration of building a collective goods trademark in October 2004. And up to November 27, 2006, the Bureau of Intelligence Proprietary issued the Certificate of registered goods trademark to Vinh Cuu district Society of Farmers- Representative units for the team including 554 pomelo planting households of 5 communes in the area of Vinh Cuu district.

* Tan Trieu pomelo: potential of the integration

Vinh Cuu district has an area of 700ha for planting pomelos, mainly gathering in Tan Binh commune and the rest grown in communes along the banks of the Dongnai. According to the plan of Vinh Cuu pomelo region development: to 2010, the area of pomelo increases to 1,000 ha gathering in 6 communes including Tan Binh (450 ha), Binh Loi (200 ha), Thien Tan (100 ha), Tan An (70 ha) and Tri An (30 ha).

Tan Trieu - Bien Hoa pomelo took part in APEC Fair

Mr. Nguyen Phan Bien - Chairman of Peasants’ Society and Chairman of Vinh Cuu district Society of Farmers said that to popularize Tan Trieu pomelo products, the Peasants’ Society and Vinh Cuu District Society of Farmers organized 6 introductory fairs including Early Spring Fair 2006, Agricultural Fair in Long Thanh, Agricultural Fair organized by the Central Society in Phu Tho, Ben Tre Agricultural Fair, APEC Fair and Dong Thap Trade Fair. The most special was APEC Fair in which the Societies invested on outstandingly introducing the products of pomelo and pomelo wine. The Societies fully prepared logos and labels of specialty Tan Trieu - Bien Hoa pomelos to stick on pomelos, displayed many posters to introduce images of pomelo trees and fruits and made video clips to popularize the image of country and people of Vinh Cuu district. Among those, strong images of pomelo farmers, pomelo wine processing and Tan Trieu pomelo ecotourism village as a bright point made an impression and attracted the internal and external customers. After the trade popularization had brought encouraging results, the buying power of pomelos in the district quickly increased. From 2 households making pomelo wine for sale locally, till now there has been 12 households investing from VND 10 million to about VND 80 million. Many farmer households registered with the Society and suggested the Society train pomelo wine-making and specialty pomelo cultivation. Some pomelo businesses drew up petition to join in the Peasants’ Society and the Society of Farmers in order to do business with pomelo products with the trademark of specialty Tan Trieu - Bien Hoa pomelos.

Mr. Bien added that in the forthcoming time, specialty Tan Trieu - Bien Hoa pomelos will have groups of new products including types of medicine from pomelo pips, slightly acrid-tasted pomelo, pomelo sections, cosmetics from pomelo flower flavour and the like. Pomelo products are not only sold into the market but also served for ecotourism of the province. Therefore, together with economic development, the Societies mobilize farmers to build green-clean-nice orchards in combination with growing fruit-trees- the strength of the region and cultivating some specialty saplings. For the purpose of develop tourism potential, the province also has a direction of connecting Tan Trieu pomelo village tours and other places like Erected Rock Stream natural ecotourism site, Tri An hydroelectric power plant, D-Base tunnel, Chau Ro ethnic village and so on.

However, to farmers and peasants as well as those who manufacture, process and do business with pomelo products, entering the integration into the regional and international economy nowadays is both an opportunity and a challenge. This requires Tan Trieu specialty pomelo development associated with the learning and understanding of the regulations on international integration, associated with the acquirement and application of science and technology.

(Translated by THKC)