New direction in organic tea production in Nghe An
Organic tea cultivation is an inevitable trend, Nghe An has implemented a pilot model. However, to expand, there needs to be more supportive policies…
Organic tea farming model
Tea trees are the main source of income for Ms. Bui Thi Tam's family in Tan Hop hamlet, Binh Son commune (Anh Son). In recent years, the unstable price of tea has further limited investment in tea trees. On the other hand, due to the previous improper cultivation of tea trees, racing for productivity and output, the abuse of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides is inevitable.
This causes the tea soil to become hard, lose its porosity and humus, so the tea plants gradually lose productivity; in addition, the quality of the tea is also affected, so the price of tea buds is not high. Starting in 2022, benefiting from the National Agricultural Extension Project, Ms. Tam's family has shifted to intensive tea cultivation according to the organic production model. Accordingly, 1.5 hectares of tea have been converted to apply organic farming.
Ms. Tam said: “By participating in the model, we are trained in technical processes, supported with materials and fertilizers, and linked to product consumption. After nearly 3 years of implementation, the biggest thing I have seen is the formation of a clean, safe, and quality production area.”
The project "Building a model of organic tea production, linking along the value chain in Nghe An in the period of 2022 - 2024" with a scale of 10 hectares with the participation of 10 households in Binh Son commune (Anh Son) from the funding source of the National Agricultural Extension Project.
After 3 years of implementation, the project has achieved encouraging results, people have followed the correct technical process of organic tea production from intensive care stages; balanced fertilization, fertilization properly, at the right time... In particular, the model supports organic microbial fertilizer combined with good pest control with biological drugs... so the entire tea area of the model grows well, is less affected by pests, the soil is loose, the buds grow evenly, the average yield is 1.5-2.5 tons/ha/batch.
Master Nguyen Van Huu - provincial agricultural extension officer, directly in charge of the organic tea project in Binh Son commune said: "Reality shows that if we follow the organic production process correctly and persistently, by the third crop, the productivity and output of organic tea is not inferior to conventionally cultivated tea. Meanwhile, in other provinces and cities, organic tea has higher value, bringing higher profits to growers. The most important thing is that tea buds are mainly exported, to increase export value, we must have clean, safe products, without chemical residues, shifting cultivation to organic production is inevitable".
Currently the whole province has over8,300hectares of tea plantations and is the province with the second largest tea growing area. 3The whole country with fresh tea buds output of nearly 80,000 tons/year.However, the area of VietGAP tea is only 48 hectares and the area of organic tea is only about 20 hectares that have been recognized. The value of tea trees is lower than that of tea growing localities in the country. If the price of tea buds in Thai Nguyen, Phu Tho, Lam Dong is up to 15,000 - 20,000 VND/kg of fresh tea buds; other provinces are 8,000 - 10,000 VND/kg, then in Nghe An, the highest price of tea buds is only 6,000 VND/kg, at times only 2,000 - 3,000 VND/kg.
To not stop at the model
Recognizing the importance of tea plants, the Provincial People's Committee issued Decision No. 4288/QD-UBND dated November 11, 2021 approving the Project "Developing key agricultural products of Nghe An province, period 2021-2025, vision to 2030"; Decision No. 3108/QD-UBND dated October 11, 2022 of the Provincial People's Committee approving the project on developing organic agriculture in Nghe An province. Accordingly, the goal is that by 2030, the area of tea applying high technology, produced according to VietGAP standards, organic standards... will reach 8,500 hectares, accounting for 70.8% of the industrial tea growing area of the whole province.
The goal is set out like that, but in reality, organic tea production is facing certain obstacles and difficulties. First of all, organic tea production requires strict requirements, the time to convert and improve the ecosystem is long, the cost of labor investment is high; Participating households have limited awareness, are concerned about changing production habits, are not familiar with how to record a logbook to trace the origin, manage and select input materials, etc., leading to some items of records not being careful, detailed, and not updating information in a timely manner in the book.
Input materials allowed for organic tea production such as biological foliar fertilizers, biological pesticides, and herbs are not yet popular on the market and are much more expensive than those of chemical origin. In particular, organic tea is high-quality tea that requires manual harvesting. Meanwhile, the market for organic tea is not large and prices are not stable...
“In fact, organic farming costs more, requires more labor, but productivity decreases by about 30% compared to traditional tea. The quality of tea is definitely better and absolutely clean, but the output for organic tea products is still the same, even worse than traditional tea because of its worse appearance,” Ms. Tam worries.
To produce organic tea without stopping at pilot models, first of all, we must promote propaganda and change the awareness and thinking of tea growers.
Second, there is a policy to support areas converting to organic tea cultivation, and at the same time, guide people to produce biological products, herbs, and organic fertilizers using agricultural by-products and locally available raw materials to save production costs.
And most importantly, it is necessary to link production in a chain, form cooperatives and organic tea production cooperatives to sign contracts with businesses to purchase tea buds for people at prices 2-3 times higher than regular tea.
Converting to organic tea production is already a difficult process, but to maintain these organic tea areas, there must be a sustainable market for new products.
Therefore, in addition to expanding the area of organic tea, it is necessary to pay attention to encouraging tea enterprises to invest in upgrading equipment and processing technology associated with developing clean and safe raw material areas; Attracting investment in factories processing high-end products from organic tea such as: bottled green tea beverages, instant green tea, essential oils extracted from green tea... In addition, building the Nghe An tea brand to increase competitiveness and export value is also very necessary.
