Tempting: The flower gardens in Da Lat City attract locals and tourists alike.

As more farmers turn from traditional crops to flowers, they are finding a global market for their products and more money in the bank. Khanh Chi reports.

Like many farmers, an annual income of VND100 million (US$6,305) was previously unthinkable for Bui Van Loi of Da Lat City in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) province of Lam Dong. But the burgeoning flower industry has turned around the lives of many farmers who have replaced low yield rice crops with flowers.

“I had farmed vegetables and flowers before, but I started to focus on flowers 20 years ago. Now I earn about VND100 million annually,” Loi said.

Owner of the 6,000sq.m (0.6ha) Muoi Loi Garden on Le Hong Phong Street, Loi has succeeded in hybridising the well-known Hanoian Nhat Tan peach flower with the Da Lat breed, and is planning to do the same with Da Lat and Japanese peach flowers, and five other countries’ peach breeds.

Da Lat remains a hub of flower growers, along with Ha Noi and Sa Pa in the north with their more temperate climates. In the central highland-located city, 10 companies and 3,000 households specialise in growing flowers for both domestic and export markets.

With the implementation of advanced technology, growers in the area have mastered many difficult, high yield species, and the growing area has spread throughout the country, including HCM City, Tien Giang and Vung Tau in the south, and Thanh Hoa, Thai Binh, Hai Phong and Vinh Phuc in the north.

Ha Noi’s reputed traditional flower villages Ngoc Ha and Nhat Tan have been overshadowed by Tay Tuu Village in Tu Liem District, while capital authorities plan to increase the village’s growing area by 100ha to 500ha this year.

After three years of experimenting with 10ha of roses for export to China, farmers in Thai Binh Province’s Hung Ha District this year to date doubled their growing area.

According to local farmers, each hectare of flowers brings in about VND160 million ($10,000) during the first year, after which revenue only increases.

“If exports go well, farmers can enjoy stable sales and high earnings,” said Pham Duy Quy, director of the Viet Nam Institute of Agricultural Genetics.

Nevertheless, Quy recommended that proper farming techniques should not be ignored, particularly in developing flower varieties, as well as catering, preserving and wrapping.

Attainable goals

Quy is optimistic about the country’s flower export target. “Viet Nam’s flower varieties, including imported ones, are very diverse. With more than 1,000ha of land for growing, half is set aside for export,” said Quy.

Quy said Da Lat would become the biggest exporter. Currently, enterprises such as Hasfarm and some Viet Nam-Taiwan joint ventures provide most of the flowers to overseas markets.

Hasfarm, regarded as the country’s biggest flower producer, has had much success in advanced technology application. The firm boasts a non-stop production chain from hybridising, growing, tending and cutting to preserving and wrapping for export – mostly to Japan, Australia, Singapore, the Middle East and Taiwan.

“Including joint ventures’ exports, Viet Nam’s export value has already reached US$40 million, leaving the aim of $60 million by 2010 attainable,” Quy said.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) aims to export one billion flowers by 2010. The export items are mostly daisies, lilies, orchids, roses and gerbera daisies.

According to Quy, the traditional importers are China, Japan and Europe.

To some extent, Quy admitted, the flower export industry in Viet Nam remained spontaneous. Enterprises export small volumes by themselves and thus find unexpected price fluctuations. “It would be good to establish an association to connect all the small firms in the industry, but the State would need to support it,” Quy said. “Of course I don’t think the State needs to financially support such an association – rather I think it should offer incentives through tax and policy.”

In the near future, MARD will invest more in technology application centres for vegetable and flower cultivation. In the past, under approval from the central Government and MARD, Quy’s institute has co-ordinated with associated sectors in Viet Nam and foreign organisations in Thailand, Holland, Japan and France to study flower varieties.

Foundations

For the past 10 years, the Institute of Agricultural Genetics has hybridised and developed many flower varieties to serve the export sector including roses, daisies, gladiolus, carnations, lilies and orchids, and has established two experimental farms in Sa Pa Town (Lao Cai Province) and Tam Dao Town (Vinh Phuc Province), each of about 2ha.

“We have singled out the 16 best varieties through our experimenting, and these are approved by MARD’s scientific council as standards,” Quy said. “The local farmers will take these varieties to grow by themselves on a larger scale.”

Many private enterprises in Sa Pa Town, some of which are 10ha, grow rose varieties that stem from Dutch and French strains for export to China during the summer because the Chinese market is short of roses during the period, according to Quy.

Regarding the rare varieties of flower, Quy said his institute had hybridised millions of lily roots, which were being grown in experimental farms to see if they could successfully grow in Viet Nam.

“The lily originates in cold areas. In the blossoming period, they can live well below zero, so Sa Pa’s climate, where it sometimes snows in the winter, is very favourable,” Quy said.

If the experimental farms were successful, Quy believed, the growers could lower production costs, because they wouldn’t have to import lily roots.

Lily has been imported, mostly from Holland, in many varieties such as Socbon, Siberia, Casablanca and Acapunco.

Quy said lily flowers mostly served the domestic demand, which was quite high, but when the supply of lily roots became available in-country, lily flowers would sell on export markets. Vietnamese enterprises, he added, needed to pay Dutch counterparts royalties if they buy the lily roots to hybridise, but it wasn’t that big of a problem.

“If farmers follow instructions closely when they grow lilies, they can make profit of between VND25 million ($1,570) and VND40 million ($2,520) per hectare within four months – much higher than growing rice,” Quy said.

The growers need to plant more than 7,000 lily roots on each hectare, requiring investment capital of around VND100 million ($6,30), in addition to funds for the tending process and the greenhouse. Therefore, if they fail to make the lilies blossom on national holidays and other festivals such as Tet (Lunar New Year), they will only break even or possibly lose money, according to Quy.

The to-do list

Market observers reported Viet Nam’s flower industry still had a long road ahead to meet high demands and singled out a few remaining hurdles.

First, the country’s varieties are diverse, but most are prevalent in China and Thailand, where flowers are grown on a large scale and processed with advanced facilities, while Viet Nam’s are not up to par to provide competition. Second, if customers need large volume orders, local export firms must collect from several gardens, which can lead to inconsistent quality issues.

In addition, not all growers successfully have applied technology to cultivation methods.

From a different angle, Quy believes that these emerging enterprises will become the key foundation in pushing the flower industry forward.

“The application of advanced facilities in flower production remains limited, but it will be the young entrepreneurs who will change the situation for the better,” he said.

“They are equipped with professional knowledge and are financially capable.”

Quy singled out the Xuan Thuy Company in the northern Bac Ninh Province’s Tu Son District as an example, which has succeeded in growing lilies.

“I accompanied a delegation from the provincial science department to Kunming in 2003 to learn about their flower cultivation and processing,” said Nguyen Thi Thu of Xuan Thuy. “Previously, I had no idea how to grow flowers. After that trip, I took to the business.”

Thu has cultivated madonna lilies on 1.5ha, which she plans to double next year as she looks for markets abroad.

“Currently, my flowers are just sufficient for the domestic market, mostly in Ha Noi, so I need to expand my growing area,” Thu said. — VNS

Source: vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn

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