High-tech agriculture helps to change farmers’ lives

A hundred billion VND 4.0 orchid garden

As one of the few pioneering enterprises to develop hi-tech agricultural production in Hai Phong, Chau Giang Company officially embarked on the project of planting high quality melon from 2015, followed by the Gerbera and orchid project.

From just more than 1ha of orchids in the first year, up to now, Mr. Trinh has built a net house with a total area of ​​5ha (growing flowers and orchids) equipped with irrigation drops, Israeli automatic spray irrigation, central irrigation control, mechanization and automation. All seeds are imported despite their expensive costs because of its profitability.

“In planting orchids, it is most important to control light and shade, modern technology and automation are essential to avoid external factors such as wind, dust, and sunlight. The Israeli net house helps protect the orchids, filter radiation rays to avoid leaf or petal burning, keeping the orchid's natural color ", said Mr. Trinh.

“When I started planting orchids, the most difficult thing was to apply technology. All seeds and technology are imported from abroad, 1-hectare costs us about VND 32-35 billion. However, with the support of the city government, along with the efforts, we have overcome the difficulties. Currently in our garden, there are nearly 1 million trees worth more than 100 billion VND, ” Mr. Trinh shared.

Opportunity for farmers to change lives

Having been successful in the field of footwear export, but Mr. Trinh is a man who loves land and agriculture. The dream of rich and clean villages with modern agricultural production has always motivated him to address the issue of more and more people in his homeland abandon their fields.

Mr. Trinh confided: “Working in industry or in agriculture both create wealth for the society. As you have seen here, we do farming in a very clean and scientific way, with very high income. I think this is an opportunity for farmers to change their lives, not just enough to live on. People should reconsider their decision to leave their current land and turn to hi-tech agriculture”.

Given the initial successful steps, Mr. Trinh believed that the current market demand is still very high, Vietnam can only supply from 20-30% of the market demand. Therefore, if supported by the government, departments, and branches, focusing on planting orchids will bring farmers a lot of benefits.

"If we do traditional agriculture, 1 ha can only give as much as VND 300-500 million benefit, but planting orchids can bring us billions of VND each year", Mr. Trinh affirmed.

“However, we need support from the Government regarding policies on land and capital. In the development of high-tech agriculture, it is necessary to plan which zones to do hi-tech agriculture, which zones are for traditional agriculture.”

Recently, this enterprise has been granted a project of more than VND 4 billion by the Ministry of Science and Technology for tissue culture and commercial plant development.  

Concerning this issue, Mr. Tran Minh Tien, Deputy Head of Agriculture Department of Thuy Nguyen District said: “Implementing the Resolution 13 &14 of the People's Council of Hai Phong City, Chau Giang Company embarked on implementation high-tech orchid growing model at large scale, applying automatic technology from greenhouse systems, sensor systems, cooling systems and replenishing moisture and light... It is possible to expand this model to other enterprises”.