Owner Nguyen Thanh Tuyen in her herbal field in Bac Son Commune, Soc Son District. (Photo: hanoimoi.com.vn) Hanoi (VNA) - Net houses covera vast hillside in Phuc Xuan hamlet of Soc Son district wherethousands of plants are being grown. Each plant is marked with its name and anumber.
Nguyen Thanh Tuyen, owner of the field, fertilises golden camellia plants grownthere. She has spent several years preserving and developing the rare herbalspecies.
The 5ha field is divided into different zones on which 60 herbal plants arebeing preserved and five others developed. The golden camellia dominate,covering 4ha.
Golden camellia is a precious herbal plant. Boiling the flowers and leaves inwater and drinking it is believed to help adjust body fat and blood sugar, aswell as detoxifying livers and kidneys.
But since the golden camellias were discovered in the forests of Vietnam’s northernmountainous areas, they have been overexploited due to their health benefits,and as a result have gotten rarer.
“People hunted it down to sell to Chinese traders,” Tuyen said. “They went intothe forests, cut down the trees and sold the seedlings.
“The plant would have become extinct if it weren’t preserved properly, so Itravelled to many places to search, purchase them and bring the seedlings backhere for breeding,” she said.
Her efforts paid off as there are currently 12,000 golden camellia plants of 22types growing in her field.
Apart from golden camellias, Tuyen is preserving dozens of other herbalspecies, such as ardisia silvestris that is believed to cureabdominal pain and stomach diseases, and Japanese honeysuckle that helps reducebody heat, detoxify and prevent allergies.
“There are some 196 types of herbal tea around the world. I’ve got 22 of the 26types that are grown in Vietnam,” Tuyen said.
The field is a source of safe herbal material for pharmaceutical companies, asource of sustainable income for growers and an example of environmentalprotection. All the plants are grown using organic methods.
“Organic fertilisers are more expensive than inorganic ones, but they havebetter quality and are safe for both producers and consumers,” Tuyen said.
She processed some of the plants into domestic and export products such asherbal tea, oil, hot herbal packs and herbal cosmetics. Based on the teadrinking habit of Asians, Tuyen learned to combine the plants with tea andproduced eight types of herbal tea.
At first Tuyen struggled with growing the herbal field since the traditionalfarming techniques did not comply with the safe production process. Traditionalfarmers wanted quick crops, were impatient and always worried about findingoutlets for their products.
However, her passion and determination to preserve and develop herbal plantscharmed local residents and persuaded them to collaborate. From the original5ha herbal field in Bac Son commune, Tuyen developed two other herbal zones inthe Xuan Giang commune (5ha) and Trung Gia commune (3ha), increasing the totalarea of her herbal production to 13ha.
To date, all three of her production zones have been certified as having asustainable, organic pharmaceutical production model that meets the criteria ofsafe soil, safe water sources and safe fertilisers certified by the VietnameseGood Agriculture Practice (VietGAP).
In Bac Son commune, she rents lands and hires local farmers to take care of theplants, while in Xuan Giang commune she collaborates with local cooperatives,she said.
On the other hand, farmers in the Trung Gia commune collaborate with oneanother to help grow her plants, she added.
Trinh Hong Phong, a farmer who rents Tuyen 5ha of his land, said that hisfamily’s livelihood has improved greatly in the last year since the rental feeis a dozen times higher than his sales from growing tea and cassava in previousyears.
His family members also earn 5 million VND per month from guarding and takingcare of the herbal plants, he said.
Hoang Chi Dung, chief of the district’s economic division, said that thecollaboration model in which enterprises contribute capital and productiontechnology while farmers contribute land and labour is highly efficient.
For example, the golden camellias only yield crops every five to six years, butfarmers can grow other herbal flowers, generating billions of dong inrevenue per ha per year, he said.
Growing herbal plants is a new direction for enterprises and farmers to expandcultivation areas and improve their lives, he added.-VNA
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