Following organic farming

​With the desire to make clean products to enhance health of consumers, the family of Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen and Mr. Tran Van Tuan (hamlet 6, Thanh Son commune, Dinh Quan district) are taking firm steps on thier entrepreneurial journey. Many farmers at Thanh Son commune are also working with Ms. Yen and her husband to implement the organic farming model of forest gardens.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen and her husband (right) introduce soybean powder and tiliacora triandra powder to leaders of the province and Department of Science and Technology.

Returning home to find land for growing and farming

Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen shared that she previously worked as an information technology lecturer, teaching at some colleges and vocational schools in Bien Hoa city. The lives in the city were stable, but Ms. Yen and her husband wanted to turn to animal husbandry. Therefore, after a period of research, in 2013, Ms. Yen's family moved from Bien Hoa city to Thanh Son commune, Dinh Quan district to live and fulfill the desire to live in harmony with nature.

“We have found and bought 3 hectares of land at hamlet 6, Thanh Son commune, which has not been affected much by humans to build a livestock farm. But livestock production was not favorable, so both husband and wife switched to gardening. In September 2021, our first start-up product was born with the name of five-element bean powder," said Ms. Yen.

To create high-quality products, Ms. Yen orders the input of fresh beans from local women. However, because people used to have a habit of spraying pesticides and using chemical fertilizers for plants, Ms. Yen began to help farmers to change the process of planting and taking care of bean trees in an organic way.

Going through many stages, from harvesting beans to soaking, selecting beans, roasting, grinding..., the five-element bean powder product born. However, due to limited funding, most of the stages in the production of five-element bean powder still done manually by Ms. Yen's family at the present. In order to further improve productivity and product quality, Ms. Yen plans to invest in purchasing machinery to serve the bean selection process - the most timeconsuming stage.

Product of five-element bean powder produced by Ms. Yen's family

Clean production

After the success of the five-element bean powder, at the end of the past April, Ms. Yen launched Lamoi Pro tiliacora triandra powder. Although the product has just been “released", it had been sold out due to the number of loyal customers ordering the product in large quantities.

Mr. Tuan said that, in order to produce tiliacora triandra powder with the desired quality, his family carried out a closed loop process with an organic forest garden model.

According to Mr. Tuan, the most important stage in the production of tiliacora triandra powder is soil improvement. In the past, his garden was planted with tangerines by local people, using chemical fertilizers for the trees and spraying pesticides caused the soil callous. For the past 10 years, Mr. Tuan has not sprayed pesticides, herbicides or applied chemical fertilizers on the garden, but planted grass, planted trees and then trimmed the landscape creating organic fertilizer for the garden, sometimes added goat manure. Thanks to that, the soil in the garden of Mr. Tuan's family is now porous and has many beneficial microorganisms.

Mr. Tuan also accessed internet to learn about tiliacora triandra seedling. Finally, he chose to buy tiliacora triandra tubers in Binh Phuoc for nursery and intercropping with some other crops.

Making trusses for the straight climbing tiliacora triandra also takes lots of time. Because the garden of tiliacora triandra is not sprayed with chemicals and fertilizers, there are still worms but not many. Five months after taking care, Ms. Yen and her husband begin to harvest tiliacora triandra leaves and every 20 to 30 days they harvest one time of leaves, the later times have more than the previous times.

Ms. Yen confided that compared to the garden of tiliacora triandra cultivated by chemical methods, the yield of her family is only 1/3 of the tiliacora triandra garden. However, the difference is that the quality and yield of jelly from her family's tiliacora triandra garden are much higher. Specifically, 1 kilogram of fresh tiliacora triandra leaves cultivated by chemical methods can only make 20 liters of jelly, and 1 kilogram of tiliacora triandra leaves of Ms. Yen's family gives from 30 to 35 liters of jelly.

In addition to making tiliacora triandra jelly, tiliacora triandra powder also has many other uses such as: for beauty masks, drinking directly with red sugar to supplement energy, supporting people with diabetes, high blood pressure...

“Because it is a clean product, the output for tiliacora triandra powder is quite stable. Customers buy mainly through online channels. There were hot sunny times like in the past days, the family did not have enough goods to sell. Many Spas in the area also ordered tiliacora triandra for masks for guests" Ms. Yen confided.

According to Ms. Yen, not the newly born of tiliacora triandra product has been well received and achieved the current success. The idea of planting and producing tiliacora triandra product was cherished by the couple from 7 to 8 years ago. Ms. Yen and her husband also tried growing tiliacora triandra but due to many problems such as hiring too many workers or family circumstance did not allow caused the start-up of her family not as desired.

Talking about the difficulties in starting the business, Ms. Yen confided that both husband and wife firstly were quite afraid, afraid that the start-up would not be successful, financial difficulties. But later, when both husband and wife were united, the difficulties solved in turn.

According to Ms. Yen, to be able to stand firmly in the market, product quality must be a top priority. Only when the quality is guaranteed, will customers have confidence in themselves, trust, buy and repurchase, introduce to more potential customers.

In order to keep product quality stable over time, Ms. Yen often has to check product quality. At the same time, supervise farmers' planting and care processes, propagandize and explain to farmers to understand the benefits of organic agricultural production, specific contracts, and product output for farmers with high price so that they can take care of the plants with peace of mind. Currently, Ms. Yen family's monthly income from tiliacora triandra is about 30 million VND.