Song Ma is one of the districts with the largest fruit growing areas in Son La province. In particular, with nearly 7,600 hectares of longan trees, this locality has become the largest longan orchard in the province. Investing in fruit tree development not only helps people escape poverty, but also helps many households become rich right on their homeland.
From growing longan, many households have escaped poverty.
"Small longan fruit is often not sold at a good price. With the government's support to build a drying oven, we can peel and dry it and sell it for a higher price. My family earns more than 100 million VND per year," said Ms. Lanh Thi Ne.
Mr. Ca Van Hoan, Secretary and Head of Me Bon village, said that the village has 225 households and more than 990 people, mainly Thai ethnic people. Implementing the province and district's fruit tree development policy, in recent years, people have gradually converted ineffective corn and cassava areas to grow fruit trees with higher value.
Thanks to the application of science and technology and the creation of new varieties, the Song Ma longan season now lasts 6 - 7 months.
To date, the total area of fruit trees in the village is 110 hectares, mostly longan and mango. Thanks to the income from fruit trees, the poverty rate in the village has decreased sharply, with 25 poor households remaining by the end of 2023, but it is expected that 13 households will escape poverty by the end of this year; families with an income of hundreds of millions of dong per year are not uncommon.
"Now people are doing well in business, most of their houses are spacious. In this village, people do not have to sell land to build houses like some other places, but they have income from growing fruit trees," Mr. Ca Van Hoan added.
Not only popular in the domestic market, Song Ma longan is also exported to many countries around the world.
Bao Minh Agricultural Service Cooperative in C5 village, Chieng Khoong commune, Song Ma district has 14 members, with a total fruit tree area of nearly 60 hectares.
Mr. Le Danh Phuc, Deputy Director of the Cooperative, said that with the goal of further improving the productivity, quality and value of longan products, in recent years, he and the members of the Cooperative have actively studied and researched to create new varieties. Thus, from the grass longan varieties (local longan) that have existed for many years, the Cooperative now has new varieties such as Mien Thiet longan, early ripening longan T6... bringing higher economic value.
"In general, we need to constantly learn and find the best standard varieties. At first, growing Mien longan was already valuable, but Mien longan cannot be spread out over a period of time, so people here gradually switched to T6 or Anh Vang varieties, which are sweet and can be grown off-season. In the past, the longan season only lasted 1 month, but now it lasts 6-7 months, bringing high income and making it less difficult for people," said Mr. Phuc.
Mr. Le Danh Phuc and technical staff take care of his family's early-ripening longan garden.
According to statistics in the whole Song Ma district, the total area of fruit trees is currently 10,967 hectares; of which longan alone is nearly 7,600 hectares. As of mid-November, the total fruit output of the district has consumed approximately 50,000 tons; this number is lower than last year due to the impact of drought. However, the prices of fruits remain stable, some fruits such as early ripening longan have higher prices than last year, so it does not affect the income of growers much.
Ms. Cam Thi Ngoc Yen, Vice Chairman of Song Ma District People's Committee, said that in recent times, in addition to mobilizing people in communes to actively produce off-season longan, inter-season longan, grafted mango, etc., the district has also focused on implementing quality management systems such as VietGAP and GlobalGAP to improve product standards, meeting the strict requirements of domestic and international markets. Therefore, the district's fruit products are not only consumed at wholesale markets and some domestic supermarkets, but also exported to markets in the EU, UK, USA, Germany, China, New Zealand, etc.
Dried longan will have higher value than whole longan.
Ms. Cam Thi Ngoc Yen affirmed that in the coming time, Song Ma district will promote and mobilize people to develop fruit trees applying high technology in production. In particular, it will continue to combine capital sources to support the implementation of facilities for purchasing, processing and packaging agricultural products in the area. Along with that, it will focus on directing the implementation of production, processing and consumption plans to meet the participation in trade promotion and product promotion of the district.
Mango is one of two types of trees that are abundant in Song Ma, and is also an export item.
Last year, Song Ma reduced the number of poor households by about 10%; this year, the locality continues to strive to reduce it strongly, bringing the district's poverty rate down to about 7.6% - this figure is very low compared to other mountainous localities. The good news is that after the end of the fruit season, especially after each longan season, this border district has thousands of households escaping poverty, hundreds of households becoming billionaires.
Tuyet Lan, Thu Thuy/vov-northwest