The man who turns sour soil into 'sweet fruit'

brother (3) — Ms. Nguyen Thi Anh (far right) introduces her agricultural economic model to youth union members.

New direction

Although she is currently working as Vice Principal of Chi Lang Nam Kindergarten, Ms. Anh (born in 1985) still dreams of being involved in the fields in a new way. As a school administrator, she always goes to work early and comes home late to complete all assigned tasks, then goes home to help her husband, taking advantage of gardening after hours and on holidays.

Visiting Ms. Anh’s garden, I saw lush green aloe vera plants planted in rows on raised beds. The aloe vera leaves were like spears reaching up to the sky, each leaf was plump and full. This is the largest aloe vera garden in the West of Hai Phong with nearly 2 hectares.

Anh and her husband have started their own business many times and encountered many difficulties. One time, a friend who had a food production facility in Bac Ninh province suggested that they grow aloe vera and would purchase all the products.

With the suggestion of a new direction, Anh and her husband learned about this plant on the internet and learned from aloe vera gardeners in Ninh Thuan about how to grow and care for it. Aloe vera is a plant that can withstand drought but cannot withstand waterlogging.

In June 2020, Anh and her husband bought 5,000 aloe vera seedlings from a gardener in Ninh Thuan province to plant on 0.5 hectares of their family garden. Initially, they had no experience, so after a short time, all of these aloe vera plants had rotten roots and were damaged by waterlogging. Having lost both money and property, Anh was even more determined to conquer this new plant.

After understanding more about the characteristics of aloe vera, Ms. Anh discussed with her husband to buy 1.6 hectares of low-lying land from people in Trieu Duong village to grow aloe vera. This area was considered the "water belly" of Thanh Mien district in the past, so rice cultivation had low productivity and was ineffective. Faced with a field flooded all year round, Ms. Anh and her husband determined to create a garden, turning this low-lying land into a land for growing aloe vera.

brother (1) — Overcoming many hardships, Anh and her husband have a billion-dollar aloe vera field.

Anh and her husband, along with the workers, scooped up soil here and raised it there, creating more than a dozen small ponds, mainly for drainage. During the days accompanying her husband on the work, there were days and nights when she rolled around with the soil to turn low-lying, sour fields into valuable fields.

Looking back many years, the low-lying land of that day has now become a vast green aloe vera garden, which makes everyone who sees it admire and enjoy it. To date, Ms. Anh and her husband have invested more than 1 billion VND in the aloe vera garden. “Thinking back to the early days of establishing the garden, sometimes I can’t believe I overcame those hardships. At that time, I just thought, if I succeed, it will not only help me but also open up a new direction for those who want to stick with their homeland,” Ms. Anh recalls.

Conquer the "miracle drug"

Unlike many plants that require constant care, aloe vera only needs to be watered, nourished, and protected from flooding. Around the garden, Anh and her husband installed an automatic irrigation system. According to Anh's experience, aloe vera cannot be grown using pesticides. Her and her husband's aloe vera garden is completely clean. "All the capital and effort are put into the aloe vera garden, if you are careless, you will end up empty-handed," Anh shared.

Chi-Anh 4 — Aloe vera can be processed into soft drinks, jellies or beauty and skin care products.

The couple’s efforts finally paid off. Each day, the aloe vera plants grew stronger, plumper, and produced more branches.

In addition to producing and selling aloe vera leaves and seedlings, Ms. Anh's family also opened a workshop for preliminary processing. After cutting, the aloe vera is cleaned, the pulp is removed, and the jelly is packaged in bags to sell to food processing enterprises in Hanoi and Bac Ninh. The aloe vera jelly of the facility is called "Vietnamese Aloe Vera Jelly". On average, each year, the revenue is about 3 billion VND, with a profit of nearly 1 billion VND. Ms. Anh's family's aloe vera production facility currently creates jobs for 15-20 idle farm workers in her hometown with an income of 4-6 million VND/person/month.

Aloe vera is not like many other plants, which must be harvested immediately on the day of the month. Aloe vera is planted for about 8 months to be harvested. However, currently, the products from Ms. Anh's family's aloe vera garden are not enough to supply processing units, so the facility also buys aloe vera from other provinces to ensure enough output.

Through years of diligent care, the seedlings of Ms. Anh's family have become a vast, immense aloe vera field, opening up a new direction for farmers who are eager to stay on the land and get rich on their own fields.

MINH NGUYEN

Source: https://baohaiphong.vn/nguoi-bien-dat-chua-thanh-qua-ngot-522242.html