Fed up with the stock market crash season
In recent years, many agricultural products in the Mekong Delta, especially fruits, have often fallen into a situation of crops falling. The fact that supply output exceeds demand during the main crop is one of the reasons for this unfortunate situation.
As a resident of Tan Loc Islet (Tan Loc Ward, Can Tho City), Mr. Nguyen Phu Tia could not help but get bored with the scene of plums (roi) - a popular fruit tree in the locality, continuously falling in price and being unstable in output.
Mr. Tia recounted that when plums were newly developed on Tan Loc islet, the income that this fruit brought to farmers was quite attractive. However, the area has expanded, the output has increased sharply, the price of An Phuoc plums has decreased, at times only 3,000 - 4,000 VND/kg. Farmers are no longer interested in harvesting because they have lost money on labor.
Originally a farmer, Mr. Nguyen Tan Dau (Giong Rieng commune, An Giang province) understands the hardships of farmers, especially when agricultural product prices are unstable and output is at a standstill.
According to Mr. Dau, his homegrown gardens and neighboring gardens growing soursop mainly sell fresh fruit. However, during the peak season, traders only choose to buy beautiful fruits, leaving behind a lot, not only causing growers to lose income but also causing great waste.
Turning agricultural products into OCOP products
With the desire to find an output for the plums of his family and the people in the area, Mr. Nguyen Phu Tia decided to explore, research and create Sau Tia plum wine product. Not stopping there, Mr. Tia is also particularly interested in building a brand for the product. Up to now, his plum has twice met 4-star OCOP standards and is widely available at Can Tho International Airport and many large supermarkets.
Mr. Tia confided: "From purchasing, processing, and creating finished wine to packaging and meeting OCOP 4 standards is a whole process. All of this comes from the desire to help farmers escape the recession. What is necessary now is to have a systematic distribution network to expand the consumption market, not only in the provinces and cities of the Mekong Delta but also to the Central and Northern regions.
Similarly, after researching and knowing that soursop has many health benefits, Mr. Nguyen Tan Dau came up with the idea of processing tea. In 2020, with a 3,000 m2 garden and growing 300 soursop trees of his family, Mr. Dau began experimenting with tea production. With the advice of the Commune Farmers' Association and friends, he has gradually completed the process, from the stage of selecting ingredients, processing to drying and packaging. After many tests, the soursop tea product Quinoa 2 Dau was born and quickly accepted by consumers.
The product is sold through a system of dealers, supermarket chains inside and outside the province and e-commerce platforms and is certified to meet 3-star OCOP standards. Currently, each month, Mr. Dau's facility supplies the market with about 100 kg of soursop tea, with a selling price of VND500,000/kg, bringing a profit of more than VND30 million.
In the near future, he plans to replicate the model, supporting households with vacant land to participate in growing soursop, developing a sustainable production chain, contributing to increasing the value of agricultural products.
