Solanum procumbens growing area of Ba Thuoc Agricultural Pesticide Service Cooperative.
For nearly 2 years, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Hai's family in Truc village, Dien Lu commune has had a stable income from 5 sao of papaya for flowers and 5 sao of Solanum procumbens. Every day, his family harvests and sells to traders, earning a profit of about 250 - 300 thousand VND. This is a significant income for people in mountainous areas. From a small-scale medicinal herb production model, only 1,000m2 of Mr. Hai, up to now, the whole Dien Lu commune has about 50 households growing medicinal herbs, such as male papaya, Solanum procumbens, bear bile... and is capable of supplying the market with tons of products every day. However, when people see that the medicinal herb growing model is highly economically efficient, they only learn about production but do not focus on finding outlets for the products. Faced with that reality, in 2023, Mr. Hai and a number of households cooperated to establish Ba Thuoc Agricultural Pesticide Service Cooperative to support the consumption of medicinal products for people.
Mr. Hai said: “Up to now, the Cooperative has proactively produced 2.75 hectares of Solanum procumbens; 2.5 hectares of papaya for flowers, and developed 500 honey bee colonies. At the same time, the Cooperative has organized for local people to expand 5 hectares of Solanum procumbens through a production linkage contract with Dong Hoang Agricultural Service Cooperative (Dong Quang Ward). Production according to the linkage chain has been bringing stable income to local medicinal plant growers.”
As one of the enterprises producing and processing medicinal herbs in the province, since 2018, Hoang Thao Moc Company Limited (Hac Thanh Ward) has cooperated with a number of households in the districts of Thach Thanh and Cam Thuy (old) to grow more than 40 hectares of Solanum procumbens. At the same time, the company signed contracts with households to transfer techniques for growing and caring for medicinal herbs using organic methods to create clean raw materials for processing. In order to build a sustainable production and consumption chain of medicinal herbs, the company has invested in additional processing lines for products such as: Hoang Thao Moc tea, Solanum procumbens tea, Gymnema sylvestre tea, Gotu kola tea, ginger tea... to expand the scale of purchasing medicinal herbs for people. Thanks to the guaranteed production process, the company has successfully built Hoang Thao Moc tea products that meet the 3-star OCOP product standards in 2020 and are being distributed in many large supermarkets in provinces and cities across the country.
In fact, if in the past the area of medicinal plants was mainly concentrated in mountainous areas such as Quan Son, Quan Hoa, Muong Lat, Lang Chanh, Ba Thuoc (old) districts, in recent years, due to high efficiency in production, the area of medicinal plants is tending to develop widely in the midland and delta areas with alluvial land and low mountainous land. The total annual area of medicinal plants in Thanh Hoa is about 5,000 hectares and more than 94,000 hectares are planted under the forest canopy. The number of OCOP certified products originating from medicinal plants is not much, the consumption output is still modest, not commensurate with the potential and inherent advantages. In addition, according to statistics, in the province there are currently about 10 enterprises investing in and linking to produce medicinal plants and about 50 cooperatives organizing the production and purchasing of medicinal plants for people.
Therefore, in order to develop in a sustainable direction, in addition to maintaining and developing existing medicinal plant varieties, it is necessary to expand and search for new medicinal plant varieties that are favored by the market. Along with that, localities need to coordinate with specialized units to open training courses, transfer science and technology of medicinal plant cultivation to people. From there, change the habit of small-scale, spontaneous farming, create favorable conditions to attract businesses to consume products, produce products from medicinal plants, meet the increasing demand of the market.
Article and photos: Le Thanh
Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/phat-trien-cay-duoc-lieu-theo-huong-ben-vung-256645.htm
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