Dong Nai rapidly increases organic agricultural area

​(News Portal – Dong Nai) - Accordingly, in the 2024 Lunar New Year market, consumers interested in healthy products have more options in buying safe food for both use and as meaningful gifts for relatives and friends. 

Wild hybrid boars are raised organically at Doc Mo Farm Cooperative (Gia Tan 3 commune, Thong Nhat district). 

Wide range of products
To encourage replication of this model, the Resolution of the 11th Provincial Party Congress, term 2020-2025, identifies the development of organic agriculture as one of the four breakthrough tasks of the province. Since then, the field of organic production in the province has continuously grown rapidly. Specifically, in 2021, the entire province only had 3.5 hectares of crops certified as organic, but now the area has increased to more than 27 hectares. In addition, there are currently 2.2 hectares of pepper in Cam My district area that have been evaluated and are waiting for certification according to European organic standards. The entire province has 17.8 hectares that have been converted to organic production for 3 years, and are completing the process to receive organic certification. In addition, the province is implementing 80 organic production models with a scale of about 1.5 thousand hectares. ​

Tam Minh Quang Production, Trade and Service Cooperative (Tan An commune, Vinh Cuu district) invests in a farm of about 35 hectares producing according to organic standards. Of these, 15 hectares of the cooperative's crops have just been certified organic in 2023, including pomelo, watermelon, guava, and papaya with an output of hundreds of tons/year. In addition to these products, the cooperative also provides the market with many other products grown according to organic standards such as rice, straw mushrooms, vegetables, bananas, apples, durian... In addition, the cooperative also invests in a number of organic vegetable and fruit farms in a number of other provinces and cities, forming large-scale clean raw material areas for deep processing. The main products the cooperative provides to the market for Tet this year include pomelo, watermelon, papaya, and guava.

Doc Mo Farm Cooperative (Gia Tan 3 commune, Thong Nhat district) presides over an area of about 16 hectares, although currently it only has certified organic vegetable products, but other products such as fruits, spices, Livestock such as chickens, ducks, wild boar... that the cooperative supplies to the market are all produced according to organic standards.

More gift options for Tet
Because organic food is in the high-end segment and quite picky about buyers, cooperatives and farms making organic products often have to build a separate consumption community. Some farms invest in deep processing to both diversify products and take advantage of organic vegetables, fruits, and livestock products to create high-value processed products.

Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Bich Huyen, representative of Tam Minh Quang Production, Trade and Service Cooperative, shared that in addition to selling fresh products, the farm also invested in machinery systems from cold storage, dryers, and crushers to preserve and make various deeply processed products from clean agricultural products. For Lunar New Year 2024, the cooperative will make gift baskets including product lines such as: purple rice tea, dried bananas, banana candy and cookies made from banana flour, vegetarian dumplings from purple rice flour, from banana flour …These gift baskets are suitable for families to buy for comsumption and as Tet gifts.

Mr. Hoang Cong Phuoc, Director of Doc Mo Farm Cooperative, said that the cooperative provided organic products including all kinds of meat, vegetables, fruits... weekly. The prices of organic products do not fluctuate during Tet, but the cooperative also has a "January fresh food package" program including greens, root vegetables, and fruit vegetables; fresh meat includes chickens, white pigs, wild-bred pigs, duck, goat... The cooperative is implementing incentive programs such as: when purchasing a fresh food cart, customers receive a 10% discount on processed products. The cooperative also has a promotion program with a 30% discount on product prices and more gifts for customers to come to the farm to experience.

According to Mr. Phuoc, the cooperative also invests in machinery and technology to make products processed from organic ingredients such as sausages, frozen duck breasts, black bean sprout tea, roasted rice, herbal tea, candies made from fruits, fermented ginger juice, herbal shampoo... Processed products bring much higher value than selling fresh food. Specifically, currently for 1 processed duck, the cooperative can earn sells millions of VND: freeze-dried duck breast sells for 600 thousand VND, duck leg made from French pate sells for 400 thousand VND...

Investing in organic agriculture comes from market demand. Mr. Phan Dinh Thang, owner of An Nhien Farm in Gia Tan 3 commune, Thong Nhat district, said: "I have a store selling clean food in the city of Thu Duc that provides hundreds of safe food products, including organic food. In recent years, consumers have increasingly favored organic food and accepted to buy organic vegetables at prices twice as high as the average market price. From the growing market demand for organic food, I invest in organic farming and livestock farming in the direction from farm to table. In the future, the farm will make more processed products according to customers' requests."