Developing sustainable, multi-value tea plants

Looking back at the results of the 2021 - 2025 period

After the merger, Phu Tho province has a total tea area of about 15,000 hectares, with an output of over 183,000 tons; it is one of the top 3 localities in the country in terms of tea area and output.

Along with positive changes in the thinking and awareness of tea growers, concentrated production areas and value chain linkages have also been expanded. In the province, many large production areas have been formed, implementing linkages with an area of about 5,800 hectares. Through the application of technical advances and mechanization in tea production, it has contributed to ensuring food safety, improving productivity, quality and product value. The tea processing system has developed with an average processing output of about 60 thousand tons/year. The structure of processed tea products has shifted towards increasing the proportion of green tea and other teas (oolong, scented, matcha...). Attention has been paid to the management, branding and labeling of tea, many products have been granted the "Phu Tho Tea" certification mark. The whole province currently has 39 tea products with OCOP of 3 stars or higher, including 17 OCOP 4-star products and 2 OCOP 5-star products.

Notably, many tea regions in the province have been associated with agricultural tourism and community tourism such as Pa Co, Vo Mieu, Long Coc, Xuan Dai... Thereby, contributing to enhancing the reputation, economic value and competitiveness of tea products in the area. With increasingly improved tea production efficiency, many households have become rich from tea trees, making an important contribution to the socio-economic development and new rural construction in the locality.

Developing sustainable, multi-value tea plants

Leaders of the Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection surveyed and evaluated the development situation of concentrated tea growing areas in Long Coc commune.

In addition to the achieved results, the development of tea production still has some shortcomings and limitations: The direction of some localities has not been paid attention to; production is on a small-scale, unconnected farm scale; there are still limitations in awareness of commodity production and food safety; the connection between raw material development and processing facilities is still not tight; the proportion of tea varieties used for processing high-quality green tea is still low, the main products are black tea, raw processing, and economic efficiency is not high; the area of Shan Tuyet tea has not been given attention to conservation and reasonable exploitation, and has not become the main livelihood for ethnic minorities in the highlands; the activities of cooperatives and cooperative groups are still formal; attracting businesses to invest in developing production, preservation, processing, and consumption is still difficult...

Building the tea industry into a key industry with high added value

According to comrade Nguyen Hong Yen - Head of the Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection (Department of Agriculture and Environment), to overcome shortcomings and limitations and improve economic efficiency in production, it is necessary to have a plan to develop sustainable and multi-value tea trees.

The province strives to maintain the existing tea area, with an average fresh tea bud yield of 135 quintals/ha, and an output of 189 thousand tons. About 1,500 hectares of old, old tea varieties are replanted and replaced with new tea varieties. 90% of the tea area applies IPHM integrated plant health management; 80% of the tea area applies good, safe production processes (GlobalGAP, Rainforest Alliance, VietGAP, organic...); over 70% of the concentrated tea production area is managed, with codes for growing areas, packaging facilities, and product traceability. Increase at least 5 organizations, businesses, and cooperatives that are qualified and are granted Certificates of Right to Use the "Phu Tho Tea" certification mark. Maintain existing OCOP tea products, including 2 products certified with 5-star OCOP. Preserve areas with ancient Shan Tuyet tea populations of about 5,000 trees; Intensive cultivation of about 400 hectares of Shan Tuyet tea. Building safe tea production areas, linking production and processing; forming and developing from 5 points promoting Dat To tea culture associated with tourism development.

To turn the tea industry into a key industry with high added value, the province's orientation for production areas is to maintain a stable black tea material area of about 8,000 hectares; green tea and high-quality tea material area of about 5,500 hectares belonging to cooperatives and cooperative groups; and Shan Tuyet tea material area of about 500 hectares. Developing tea production areas in an ecological direction associated with the development of cultural tourism, agriculture, and craft villages.

In product processing, arrange tea preliminary processing points for each concentrated raw material area, ensure the progress of harvesting and preliminary processing of raw materials within the day; encourage enterprises and facilities to innovate modern processing lines and equipment, deep processing, ensuring food safety; apply quality management systems according to national and international standards; carry out certification of advanced management systems ISO, HACCP; continue to invest in technology and modern equipment to improve the quality of tea products; diversify tea products and develop products as raw materials for the food, cosmetics and medical industries.

Regarding trade, continue to support the creation, management, exploitation and development of trademarks, brands, and intellectual property for tea products; strengthen the promotion of building and registering product labels, standardizing product quality so that the province's processing enterprises can be labeled with the "National Brand of Vietnamese Tea"; register for intellectual property protection of the "Phu Tho Tea" certification mark in a number of potential foreign markets such as the US, EU, Japan, India, China, etc.

Bui Minh

Source: https://baophutho.vn/phat-trien-cay-che-ben-vung-da-gia-tri-241549.htm