Lesson 1: Advantages, potential and practical effectiveness
Nghe An has more than 2/3 of its area covered by mountains and hills, which is very favorable in terms of terrain and climate for tea plants to adapt and develop with outstanding quality. Accordingly, tea growers have a source of economic development and a stable life. Many households have even become well-off and rich from growing tea.
Thu Huyen - Hoai Thu• April 25, 2025
Nghe An has more than 2/3 of its area covered by mountains and hills, which is very favorable in terms of terrain and climate for tea plants to adapt and develop with outstanding quality. Accordingly, tea growers have a source of economic development and a stable life. Many households have even become well-off and rich from growing tea.
Born and raised in Thanh Thinh commune, Thanh Chuong district, a midland land of "palm forests and green tea hills", Mr. Nguyen Van Viet and his wife, Mrs. Le Thi Ly, now have many children and grandchildren, and a comfortable and prosperous life. Mr. Viet said that his whole life has been attached to the vast green tea hills. Thanks to the lush tea trees of his homeland, many generations of his family have been raised and grown up with a life that, although not yet rich, is full, and their children have been able to study properly. Mr. Nguyen Van Tho, Mr. Viet's son, is now over 40 years old and has also followed in his father's footsteps with the tea growing profession.
Early one morning in March 2025, starting to harvest the first tea crop of the year, Mr. Tho and his "comrades" happily brought machines and tools up the hill to start working. His family as well as tea-growing households in Thanh Thinh commune mostly harvest tea by machine and import directly to facilities that purchase and process fresh tea buds in the district.
This year’s spring tea crop is the first harvest. The family grows over 1.5 hectares on this hill, and another hill that is larger but farther away has about 3 hectares. Each year, they harvest about 4-5 batches, with an average yield of about 16-18 tons/ha. After deducting expenses and depending on the time, the purchase price also gives a profit of about 10-15 million VND/ha.
Mr. Nguyen Van Tho - Thanh Thinh commune (Thanh Chuong)
Farmers living on tea cultivation in Thanh Chuong district like Mr. Viet's family have had a stable life from growing tea, with enough income to cover their living expenses. In addition to households growing raw materials, the demand for purchasing and processing tea has created more jobs and new occupations for people in the local tea material areas: tea bud processing; tea bud purchasing and trading services; agricultural product transportation services; seasonal labor services for tea picking and preliminary processing at purchasing, processing and exporting facilities...
According to statistics of Thanh Chuong district, the whole district currently has about 5,000 hectares of tea and about more than 20 facilities for processing and preliminary processing of tea buds, providing jobs and income for more than 10,000 households. With the largest tea growing area in the province, it has helped the locality and households in Thanh Chuong district have a stable source of income when the average annual purchase price is maintained at about 4-4.5 thousand VND/kg of fresh tea buds. With an average yield of about 50 tons/ha, accounting for 50% of the area and 65% of the province's tea output, each year fresh tea buds of Thanh Chuong district can reach over 200,000 tons, earning over 800 billion VND.
Thanks to tea development, the lives of people along the Ho Chi Minh road such as Thanh Thuy, Thanh Mai, Hanh Lam, Thanh Duc... are increasingly better off. Tea cultivation is also one of the local orientations identified as a key economic crop and is investing heavily in developing raw material areas and processing tea, such as the product "Thanh Chuong Green Tea" of Thanh Duc Agricultural and Tea Processing Cooperative which has been recognized as an OCOP product and is famous for its green - clean - safe quality, mainly consumed domestically but has great potential for export. Also thanks to tea trees, many households in Thanh Chuong district have risen out of poverty, many households have gradually become well-off and rich.
The exchange of Thanh Chuong district leaders said that the district will orient to further develop the organic tea material area, at the same time, expand agricultural models associated with experiential tourism; making the tea material area not only a source of income for the people but also an attractive tourist destination, attracting domestic and foreign tourists to visit and experience the traditional tea production process. The synchronous development from production to processing and consumption will help tea trees not only be one of the "supports" for Thanh Chuong district's economy but also bring Nghe An province's tea products to the domestic and international markets.
In Con Cuong district, thanks to tea trees, people's economic life is increasingly prosperous. In Yen Khe commune, tea trees have become a stable source of livelihood for hundreds of households. Mr. Do Duc Dien in Trung Thanh village said that he has been attached to Yen Khe land and tea growing for more than half of his life. To maintain the income from tea trees to support his family, with more than 30 years of experience, Mr. Dien intensively increases the productivity of industrial tea trees by increasing organic fertilizers to fertilize 1 hectare of tea right on his family's hill garden.
“I take advantage of manure from livestock, combined with other by-products such as straw, rice husks, and corn stalks to compost and fertilize tea plants. After a few harvests, with savings, I invested in building a concrete road leading to the tea hill along with a system of water pipes to irrigate the roots of the plants, helping the tea withstand the dry season,” said Mr. Dien. Thanks to that, every year, a tea hill of more than 1 hectare with 4-6 harvests brings Mr. Dien 50-70 million VND.
Last year's spring tea crop was quite expensive, and with increased productivity, with 5 harvests per year, the output reached about 6 tons, which also provided a better income than raising livestock.
Mr. Nguyen Duc Dien - Yen Khe commune (Con Cuong)
According to Mr. Le Trung Loi - Vice Chairman of Yen Khe Commune People's Committee, there are currently more than 600 households growing tea in the commune, with a total area of nearly 300 hectares, with an annual average yield of 180 quintals/ha, yielding about 4.5 thousand tons/year, which is an important source of income for hundreds of households here. Along with Yen Khe Commune, the tea area of Con Cuong District now reaches more than 400 hectares. Of which, the commercial tea area is more than 330 hectares, with a yield of 150 quintals/ha; the output is about more than 5 thousand tons.
Hung Son commune, Anh Son district is also a locality with hundreds of households whose main source of income is from growing tea. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Ty - Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Hung Son commune said that the commune currently has 587 hectares of industrial tea, of which nearly 6 hectares of tea meet VietGAP standards and are in the process of producing organic tea. The tea growing area has brought about 40 billion VND to the people of Hung Son commune each year. Along with tea cultivation, the emergence of service and processing industries has helped the locality consume hundreds of tons of tea buds every day during the harvest season. From selling fresh tea materials, in Hung Son commune, there have been 3 3-star OCOP products from tea after cooperatives and business households developed fresh tea bud processing; typically: Minh Sang Tea Cooperative; Nghe An Tea Enterprise has resumed operations after equitization; Dong Lam and Quoc Thai tea processing facilities...
Mr. Tran Minh Hoan - Chairman of Hung Hon Commune People's Committee shared that thanks to tea cultivation, the lives of people in Hung Son Commune have been significantly improved. The average income per capita is among the highest in Anh Son District, with more than 56 million VND/person/year.
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Tea trees were established in Nghe An in the early 20th century, mainly in mountainous areas such as Thanh Chuong, Anh Son, Con Cuong, and Quy Chau. Fresh buds are grown and processed in Nghe An mainly to serve the processing and consumption industry in the province and the country with many different tea varieties originating from China and India. Nghe An has good tea growing areas of up to tens of hectares, stretching from Thanh Chuong district to Ky Son district.
Currently, people are growing industrial tea in Nghe An on hilly land stretching from Thanh Chuong district to Ky Son district. This land is a type of red-yellow feralit soil rich in alumina, very suitable for tea plants to grow in both productivity and quality. Gay tea is famous for its delicious aroma and reputation throughout the region thanks to being grown on this type of soil.
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The efforts in developing tea buds not only help people increase their income but also contribute significantly to the construction of new rural areas and socio-economic development in the area. The success of green tea products on poor mountainous land has opened up the direction for developing new agricultural products, promoting the OCOP Program and green production, green agriculture that the province is currently actively implementing.
Thanks to tea trees, many rural areas have clearly improved. For example, Hung Son commune (Anh Son) used to be the poorest commune in the district. Since 2010, after putting tea trees into business, people's lives have improved, many households have had good incomes, Hung Son has become a well-off commune. In 2015, Hung Son commune was the first commune in Anh Son district to be recognized as meeting the standards of a new rural commune.
With the economic potential of tea cultivation, tea trees in Nghe An have gradually become one of the main crops in mountainous districts. Along with the policy of converting crop structure, many localities have expanded tea growing areas, introduced high-yield, high-yield tea varieties to meet the increasing market demand. Manual tea processing technologies are also applied in some production facilities. Along with that, investment in science and technology to improve productivity and product quality has helped the tea processing industry become increasingly large-scale, serving domestic consumption and export needs. At the same time, many tea growing areas have also begun to cultivate clean tea, safe tea and carry out VietGAP certification, organic certification.
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In particular, since 2010, facing many challenges in export markets and low tea prices, localities and tea growers have boldly applied high technology to tea production and processing, and increasingly shifted to organic tea production models such as in Thanh Chuong, Anh Son and Ky Son districts. At the same time, support policies on science and technology, building production linkage models between farmers and enterprises have helped Nghe An tea industry improve product quality and value. Thanks to that, Nghe An tea industry has now begun to approach production according to international standards, with tea products being exported to many demanding markets such as Japan, Korea and European countries.
Currently, Nghe An province has over 8,300 hectares of tea plantations and is the province with the third largest tea growing area in the country with a fresh tea bud output of nearly 80,000 tons/year. Of the above tea acreage, 6,000 hectares are commercial tea and annually process about 10,000 tons of various types of tea, exported to international markets. Raw tea trees are grown in 5 mountainous districts: Thanh Chuong, Anh Son, Con Cuong, Ky Son, Quy Hop.
.jpg "Nông dân Nghệ An 'chạy đua' với nắng nóng kéo dài để cứu cây chè")
