A proper change

Until now, total area of urban agriculture in Binh Duong is at 171.7ha, 78.7ha of which are for ornamental tree, 16.2ha for orchid, 3.8ha for mushroom and 73ha for safe vegetable.

In addition, Binh Duong has had 433 households involving in animal breeding with over 247,000 animals of crocodile, ornamental fish, tortoise and many more. The plentiful appearance of these models shows that Binh Duong farmers have learnt about interests of urban agriculture.

Huynh Van Khai, owner of Khai Yen bud vegetable workshop in Chanh Nghia ward, Thu Dau Mot city, said “Facing with shrink of agricultural land area, I have chosen model of growing bud vegetable, bringing a very high economic efficiency”. According to Khai, urban agricultural production is not difficult but it requires application of new technology into production. Thanks to excelling technical requirements, Khai’s bud vegetable model has brought him more than VND500mil per year in profit and placed jobs for 5 laborers.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Thich in Phu Hoa ward has focused on planting orchid. Thich has possessed more than 7,000 orchids on an area of about 2,500sqm. He has harvested only one third of his orchid garden with about VND7mil per week. “In the past, I involved in breeding chicken but owing to epidemics I changed to plant orchid. If there are thorough training courses, orchid growers will enjoy high profit”, Thich said.

Improving shortcomings

Most of urban agricultural models have been separated, owing to shortage of planning. This causes shortcomings in trademark building and product consumption.

Work on technical transfer for agricultural promotion models remains limited, bringing low efficiency. Sources, especially capital, technological and technical science and human resources remain weak.

As for farmers, many households have built effective models but they still need output for their products. Nguyen Huu Thien, head of Uyen Hung township safe vegetable team in Tan Uyen district said “My team now has 21 members growing about 10ha of safe vegetable. Thanks to new technical application into production, members have enjoyed a capacity increase of 30-40% from early years. However, output has become difficult and our products have suffered instable prices”.

Therefore, local farmers are in dire need of assistance on consumption market as well as product marketing for the sake of stability for products.

Reported by C.Son – Translated by A.C