Garlic dried in the yard of Mr. Nguyen Quan’s house. Photo: Van Chuong In early May, farmers on Ly Son island spread the last batch of dried garlic before putting it in bags to officially put agricultural products on the market. The old farmer Vo Tri Thoi has a smooth black skin and compares the story of garlic with high prices and waiting times, but the price does not go up by the story of picking garlic. Mr. Thoi ran to the stall to collect a handful of garlic sprinkled to make a stir-fry sound, then smiled wryly and said: “In the days when garlic was expensive, it only took a few handfuls of garlic to sell and it was enough money for a drink together with karaoke, But now I’ve collected half of the bamboo stalls and sold them, but it doesn’t work.” The people of Ly Son island have a bit of a sense of humour, especially the people on Be Island. The story of gathering garlic to sing karaoke is just a way for this farmer to liken the story of garlic to make me laugh. Because old farmer Thoi also admitted that his life was only fun with a few glasses of wine, and going to the shop to tip the youngest brother was just a joke to make the wives startle. Because working in garlic is very hard, you have to buy sand to cover it, then take care of it, rent a water machine to water it, stay up late and get up early, it’s very hard to get to the harvest day. Every time farmers in Ly Son island harvest garlic, the whole island immediately turns into an interesting picture. Many families spread garlic on the roof of the house to the yard and leave only a small road to go. The old farmers, after several months of struggling with the green garlic fields, now continue to dry the garlic in the sun, wait for the garlic to dry, then pack it, throw it in the mezzanine indoors and wait for the price. Life on the island during the garlic season is very busy, many people run up and down to ask for the price of 70 or 65 (70,000 VND or 65,000 VND). In the past years, fresh garlic harvested was often quoted by farmers at that price. If anyone accidentally talks about selling at a low price, their relatives will respond with a funny story, instead of talking too cheap, not selling. Mr. Vo Tri Thoi, said, 336ha of garlic growing on the island every year farmers collect more than 2,000 tons of garlic. If the dried garlic is sold at 70,000 VND/kg, it will make a profit. Currently, farmers on the island are not hoarding garlic, but keeping garlic dry to wait for the price, but the current price is difficult. Farmers in the island grow garlic on volcanic soil, so Ly Son garlic has a more spicy and aromatic taste than garlic grown in the mainland. At times, garlic is sold for 170,000 VND/kg of dried garlic. The current price of dried garlic is 40,000 VND/kg. At this price, many farmers share a loss, so they decided to keep, pin their goods and wait for the price to move up. However, the number of tourists to the island has decreased deeply, so farmers wait for garlic in inland markets to increase the price to bring garlic in. But the path of garlic from the island to the mainland is not easy. Because now, farmers Ly Son go to Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan provinces to grow garlic and this item is also falling in price, farmers complain because they can’t sell it. The price of garlic in this locality has dropped to only 17,000 VND/kg of fresh garlic. Because of the price difference of garlic, farmers in Khanh Hoa moved to Quang Ngai, and the press continued to report fake Ly Son garlic. This is a blow that makes it harder for real Ly Son garlic to price up and farmers have to wait again. Ly Son garlic market usually starts to get crowded at sunrise. Farmers bring garlic to the trading market so that buyers can take the garlic by train down to the mainland. Some professional garlic buyers shared the story that bringing garlic in the island to the shore cost a lot of money, but when they met the garlic stream in the south, the garlic looks quite similar, the quality is not equal, so the quality is not as good. harder to consume. At Mr. Nguyen Quan’s house located at the end of Ly Son island district, his 5 children spread 7 tons of garlic all over the yard, around the house and on the cement corrugated iron roof. Garlic market information in Quang Ngai city and in Khanh Hoa province is always updated by farmers. Mr. Pham Tan Thanh, 61 years old, a senior garlic grower said: “If garlic is low, then you must invest in growing onions, but basically farmers still rely on garlic.”

In the early days of June, the sun was burning like fire, after a few appointments, asking for directions, we found Mr. Tran Van Hanh’s house in Chao village (Giap Son, Luc Ngan, Bac Giang) – the owner of the areas high quality lychee garden, selling at the most expensive price in Vietnam. Taking us to visit the litchi garden, which is ripening red, Mrs. Truong Thi Bay – Mr. Hanh’s wife said: “The family is about to have a big feast, my grandfather has been busy these days to invite guests, he will probably come back in the afternoon”. Stopping in the middle of a litchi garden laden with branches, Ms. Bay said: “This year my lychee crop failed due to hail during Tet, but this garden alone is very fruitful. There is about a week left to harvest, the business has already consumed all the first-class lychees in the garden.” She and her husband have been growing lychees since 1991. In the early days, they ate rice with cassava and corn porridge to gain strength to use a hoe to level the land on hills to grow litchi. At that time, people only knew how to plant and take care of them according to their own experience, which lychees could be picked and sold, and did not know the planting and fertilization techniques so that the lychee would meet the same high quality standards as now. . In the early years of growing Luc Ngan litchi, the output was not much, so the price was high. Later, the area increased, the people had more experience in planting, and the yield also increased. However, a lot of goods are easy to depreciate. In the harvest season, her husband and her husband carried heavy baskets of lychee to the market to sell, but merchants competed with each other to criticize the bad, small fruit and then deliberately forced it to sell at a cheap price, only a few thousand VND per kilogram. Even when the price is so cheap, people growing lychee here also bring lychees to the market to sell by baskets, not by weight. The basket of cloth weighs more than 1 quintal but only sold 100 thousand VND, enough money to fill up with gasoline to go home, considered a waste of effort to fertilize.
Many houses at that time were tired of selling cheap lychees and cut them down, destroying the whole garden. She and her husband tried to keep it because lychee is the main source of income, destroying the garden and not knowing how to plant another tree to replace it. “Once, my grandfather saw that the canopy of a litchi tree grew quickly, many branches and leaves created a shady space for pests to thrive. He took a knife and cut off the small branches at the top of the canopy to create light for the garden. Then, in the trunk, many new buds sprout, then flower and bear fruit. More surprising is the rate of fruiting in the branches growing from the trunk is very high. The quality of the lychee obtained is also much higher than that of the litchi from the top,” she said. Desperate, risking to change your life Seeing this, her husband proposed to renovate the family’s litchi gardens, but she was afraid of failure. The couple is quite hesitant, but if they don’t change and still do the old way, how can they escape the scene of selling cheap fabrics. So they decided to take a risk. Thirty years old farmer San Diu produces the most expensive lychee in Vietnam Thirty years old farmer San Diu produces the most expensive lychee in Vietnam
In 2011, she and her husband started the process of improving the technical process of caring, “squeezing” the litchi tree to produce fruit from the stem. Looking at the lychee garden was fined almost all of the tops, still bare with branches and roots, but her guts were sore, worried that it would damage the lychee garden, she recalled. “There was no process, at that time it was called taking risks. Just doing it and gaining experience. Initially made a garden, later increased to 2 gardens. Once you have experience, you can renovate and convert all of the family’s lychee gardens,” she said. Finally, with the technique of pruning, limiting the growth of the canopy to help light shine down the trunk, the buds that grow from the trunk after harvesting the fruit must be cut off, the second buds out to take care of the flowers. , bearing fruit and fertilizing periodically, … her husband also “squeezed” the lychee tree to bear fruit from stem to top. Accordingly, for nearly ten years, every year the lychee in her house has been harvested. The lychee fruit is of much higher quality, the design is also more beautiful. Each tree produces about 40-50kg of lychee fruit from the trunk, in addition, lychee on the top can produce 70-80kg, even there are trees up to 1.8 quintals of fruit. Importantly, her family’s lychee always sells for one-and-a-half times higher than the market price. Traders come to the house to buy, she boasted. Making high-quality goods, counting money happily After visiting the garden, Mrs. Bay took us into the villa, and that was when Mr. Hanh returned. Seeing us, he smiled and asked if everyone had tasted organic lychee to see how the quality was. Then he said: “This time the litchi is ready to eat.”
Mr. Hanh said that the litchi season in 2019 was the first year he shook hands with a business to make organic lychees. The organic farming process is much stricter than the VietGAP process. Organic fertilizers and pesticides must be on the list of permitted use. The fertilization process is divided into 3 phases. Phase 1 fertilize before the plants flower or set young fruit. Phase 2 fertilizes when the fruit is with the tip of a finger and the third phase when the fruit is in the pulp, the seeds are covered, Ms. Bay added. In addition to the detailed diary, he also installed a camera in his garden to monitor the entire process from tending to fruit picking. Products are provided with labels and QR codes so that when customers need to check, they can use smartphones to verify. As a result, last year’s lychee season, he sold 3 tons of high-quality organic lychee to the business. They canned 12 fruits and sold them for 200,000 VND/box (equivalent to 17,000 VND/fruit and 600,000 VND/kg). This is also the most expensive type of lychee in Vietnam. “The first organic lychee they bought from my family cost 90,000 VND/kg for canning, and the bag type cost 60,000 VND/kg. This price is also double the price in the market, “she said. According to her, the yield of organic lychee is not as high as that of the VietGAP method, but in return, organic lychee is easy to sell. Guests in Bac Giang and in Hanoi also rode a car up to her garden to ask to buy lychee. “Last year, the fabric sold at a high price. Picking baskets of cloth to sell enough money to measure rice for half a year. The amount of fabric may not be as good as five years ago, but the money is more collected, counting happily,” said Ms. Bay. In the last Tet holiday, there was hail that affected the flowering and fruiting rate of litchi trees. However, Hanh and his wife still believe that with 2 hectares of lychee growing area, the output of this crop is estimated at 20 tons. Enterprises also put up a deposit to cover all type 1 lychees. Regarding the income from lychee, according to Mr. Hanh, it depends on the price of each crop. But with the same area of ​​cultivation as his family is doing each year, he also earns about 800-900 million VND from this specialty fruit. In recent years, in addition to taking care of the family’s litchi garden, Mr. Hanh also teaches pruning techniques as well as care techniques so that lychee fruit can come out from the trunk to farmers inside and outside the province. Many successful people, grow and obtain lychees of the same quality as lychee in his garden.