Dong Thap enjoys boom in agrotourism

The Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap is emerging as an agrotourism destination with its increasing adoption of advanced farming models to breed fish and grow rice, tropical fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Ngo Quang Tuyen, deputy director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said the province had huge potential for agrotourism, which has already grown sharply in recent years.

Many owners of orchards and flower gardens and lotus fields offer tourism services, resulting in diversifying the province’s tourism products, Tuyen said.

Agrotourism and community-based tourism enable sustainable economic development, he said.

In recent years the province has increasingly adopted advanced farming models to grow flowers and ornamental plants in greenhouses, grow mango to Vietnamese and global good agricultural practice standards, grow rice to clean product standards and breed tra fish to quality standards such as VietGAP and global GAP, according to the province's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The largest tra fish producer in the delta, Dong Thap has 2,450 hectares of ponds which yield more than 470,000 tonnes a year.

The province also tops in area under mango with around 9,300 hectares, and produces more than 100,000 tonnes a year.

As the country’s third largest rice producer, it has 520,000 hectares under the grain and produces 3.3 million tonnes of paddy a year.

Sa Dec flower village in the province’s Tan Quy Dong Ward grows more than 2,000 varieties of flowers on an area of 520ha.

The flower village welcomed more than one million visitors last year, including 40,000 foreigners.

Thap Muoi lotus fields, a popular agrotourism site, gets more than 10,000 visitors a month, mostly from HCM City.

Mango and longan orchards at Tan Thuan Dong tourist village in Cao Lanh Town received more than 3,000 foreign tourists and 25,000 local visitors in the last two years.

Eight mandarin orange orchards in Lai Vung District received 75,000 tourists in the last three years, earning VND24 billion (US$1.03 million) by providing them various services.

The Ecology Farming Corporation (Ecofarm) has invested in a hi-tech farm in Thanh Binh District with a 30,000-sq.m greenhouse for growing melon and several varieties of flowers. The farm has also invested in agrotourism.

Nguyen Hong Quang, its chairman, said at the farm tourists get first-hand experience of farming work and taste fresh fruits and other agricultural produce besides delicious local foods.

VNS