Thanks to growing longan, many families have escaped poverty.

"Small longan fruits usually don't fetch a good price. With government support to build drying ovens, we can peel and dry them, and then sell them at a higher price. My family, for example, earns over 100 million dong in profit each year," said Ms. Lanh Thi Ne.

According to Mr. Ca Van Hoan, Secretary and Head of Me Bon village, the village has 225 households and over 990 inhabitants, mainly of the Thai ethnic group. Following the province and district's policy of developing fruit trees, in recent years, the villagers have gradually converted less productive corn and cassava fields to planting higher-value fruit trees.

Thanks to the application of science and technology and the breeding of new varieties, the longan season in Song Ma now lasts up to 6-7 months.

To date, the total area of ​​fruit trees in the village has reached 110 hectares, mostly longan and mango. Thanks to income from fruit trees, the poverty rate in the village has decreased significantly. By the end of 2023, there were only 25 poor households, 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 the villagers are doing well financially, and most of their houses are spacious. In this particular village, the villagers don't have to sell land to build houses like in some other places; instead, they earn income from growing fruit trees," Mr. Ca Van Hoan further shared.

Not only is Song Ma longan popular in the domestic market, but it is also exported to many countries around the world.

The Bao Minh Agricultural Service Cooperative in C5 village, Chieng Khoong commune, Song Ma district has 14 members, with a total area of ​​nearly 60 hectares of fruit trees.

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 cooperative members have actively learned and researched to breed new varieties. Thus, from the longan varieties (local longan) that have existed for many years, the cooperative now has new varieties such as Mien Thiet longan, early-ripening T6 longan, etc., bringing higher economic value.

"Generally, we need to constantly learn and find the best standard varieties. Initially, the Mien longan variety was already valuable, but Mien longan can't be grown in staggered seasons, so people here gradually switched to the T6 or Anh Vang varieties, which are sweet and can be grown out of season. In the past, the longan season only lasted one month, but now it extends to 6-7 months, providing higher income and making things less difficult for the people," Mr. Phuc said.

Mr. Le Danh Phuc and technical staff are taking care of his family's early-ripening longan orchard.

Statistics for Song Ma district show that the total area of ​​fruit trees is currently 10,967 hectares; of which longan alone accounts for nearly 7,600 hectares. As of mid-November, the total fruit production consumed in the district was approximately 50,000 tons; this figure is lower than last year due to the impact of drought. However, the prices of various fruits remain stable, and some fruits, such as early-ripening longan, have higher prices than last year, so the income of growers has not been significantly affected.

According to Ms. Cam Thi Ngoc Yen, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Song Ma District, in recent times, in addition to encouraging people in the communes to actively produce off-season longan, staggered-season mangoes, grafted mangoes, etc., the district has also focused on implementing quality management systems such as VietGAP and GlobalGAP to improve product standards and meet the stringent requirements of domestic and international markets. Therefore, the district's fruit products are not only consumed at wholesale markets and some supermarkets domestically, but also exported to markets in the EU, the UK, the US, Germany, China, and New Zealand.

Dried longan (made into candied longan) will have a higher value than fresh longan.

Ms. Cam Thi Ngoc Yen affirmed that in the coming time, Song Ma district will promote and encourage people to develop fruit trees using high technology in production. In particular, it will continue to utilize and integrate various funding sources to support the implementation of projects 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 support participation in trade promotion and product advertising for the district.

Mangoes are one of the two types of fruit trees that grow abundantly in the Song Ma area, and are also an export commodity.

Last year, Song Ma district reduced the number of poor households by about 10%; this year, the locality continues to strive for a significant reduction, bringing the district's poverty rate down to about 7.6% - a very low figure compared to other mountainous localities. Encouragingly, at the end of each harvest season, especially after the longan season, thousands of families in this border district escape poverty, and hundreds become millionaires.

Tuyet Lan, Thu Thuy/vov-northwest