When visiting Ba Be district in Bac Kan province these days, people can’t help admiring the garden full of fuzzy squashes. These squashes look like herds of piglets swinging on the truss and radiate fragrant aroma.
This is a specialty in a program called “One commune, One product (OCOP)” of the locality, which contributes to change the rural appearance of the poor mountainous district of Ba Be and significantly improves the lives of farmers.
This fragrant squash variety has outstanding advantages of its short growth time (from 70 to 75 days). This plant grows and develops strongly while its branches are neat, and flowers after 40 - 45 days of planting.
The fruit is glossy green, evenly elongated and the average size is from 1,5 - 4 kilograms. This variety is called fragrant squash as all stems, leaves and flowers are fragrant.
When being cooked, this squash is very chewy, mellow and match the taste of customers. In addition, this plant is easy to grow and take care, which is suitable for the characteristics of the mountainous community.
The community doesn’t have much access to science and technology as well as this crop is easy to preserve and suitable for transportation. On average, each hectare can produce from 50 to 70 tons, which is equivalent to about 280 million VND.
In addition to raw fruit product, Ba Be farmers also create different products from this squash to enhance the value of this agricultural product, such as dried squash, squash jam, diced squash for stir-frying or baby weaning food. Growing fragrant squash has shown a clear economic effect.
These are the praiseworthy achievements of the OCOP program with crops that are considered an auxiliary crop in agricultural production.
With the achieved successes, the brand of Bac Kan fragrant squash promises to become a famous product that can be exported to foreign markets, bringing long-term and sustainable economic resources for people in the mountainous district of Bac Kan province./.
