Bustling village of green seedlings for forests in Western Nghe An
Nursery workers in Tan Huong commune, Tan Ky district have contributed significantly to the greening of forests. As Tet approaches, this place becomes even more bustling.
Acacia nursery village
In the early days of 2025, coming to Tan Huong commune, one can clearly feel the bustling working atmosphere in the forestry nursery gardens. People line up in rows on the parent tree garden to cut branches for cuttings, then turn the pots, and take care of the seedlings... The forestry nursery gardens are green, stretching like a green carpet on both sides of Ho Chi Minh road.
Stopping by the nursery of Mr. Tran Van Tu's family in Chau Nam hamlet, 5 workers are actively taking care of each row of forestry seedlings that are in the preparation stage for sale.
Mr. Tu said: My family has been in the forestry nursery business for 8 years now; currently has about 1 hectare for year-round nursery. With the experience gained, each year the family supplies the market with 4 batches of seedlings, with a total quantity of about 1.2 million trees. During many years of switching to forestry nursery business, all family members have had regular jobs and stable income.
Leading us to the nursery area with a sprinkler irrigation system installed, Mr. Tran Van Tu boasted: 2 years ago, my family invested 20 million VND to install a sprinkler irrigation system, applying smart home software. Accordingly, watering the nursery is all done on a smartphone, no need to go to the garden like before, even when away from home, the irrigation system can be controlled to operate as desired.
“To prepare seedlings for the upcoming spring forest planting season, my family is taking care of nearly 500,000 acacia seedlings, which are F1 acacia cuttings. Acacia cuttings are popular among forest growers. In addition to growing seedlings outdoors, my family also invests in growing them in greenhouses to ensure quality, especially in winter,” said Mr. Tran Van Tu.
Not only Mr. Tu's family, in recent years, many families in Tan Huong commune have converted ineffective corn and cassava garden land into forestry nursery gardens.
Ms. Tran Thi Van in Tan Minh hamlet and her family members take care of the acacia seedling garden. She said that, realizing that many households have a stable income from the forestry seedling nursery business, 5 years ago, her family converted the entire cassava growing area to a seedling nursery. Normally, during the spring forest planting season every year, people in Tan Ky district in particular and Nghe An province in general enter the main material forest planting season, so the consumption of acacia seedlings increases sharply compared to other times of the year.
Therefore, in the days before Tet, Ms. Van's family focused on taking care of the nursery to produce the best seedlings, and after Tet, they would sell them to customers. Currently, her family is growing more than 400,000 acacia seedlings.
Talking about the forestry seedling nursery business, Tan Huong commune residents said that before 2000, there were a few households in the commune that were growing seedlings for sale. In the years after 2006, when Ho Chi Minh road was upgraded, facilitating transportation, the forestry seedling nursery business here developed strongly, with more and more households practicing the profession.
From taking care of nurseries manually, watering with hand-held hoses, now most households have invested in installing sprinkler irrigation systems, including households installing automatic irrigation systems installed on smartphones. Thanks to that, taking care of nurseries is less difficult, saving water, and bringing higher efficiency, especially in the hot summer. Therefore, Tan Huong commune has forestry seedlings for sale all year round.
Revenue over 60 billion VND/year
Tan Huong commune, along the Ho Chi Minh road with a length of 6km, was formerly a poor rural area of Tan Ky mountainous district; but since the development of forestry nursery business, the lives of hundreds of families have changed.
Mr. Le Duc Thuyen - Chairman of the Commune People's Committee proudly informed that currently the whole commune has 286 nurseries of companies and households, on an area of nearly 35 hectares, with a total capacity of 160 million seedlings/year, including acacia cuttings and acacia seeds, along with some other types of trees such as: lim, lat, xa ncu, mat, sua... Total revenue from the forestry nursery business of the people of Tan Huong commune is from 60 - 65 billion VND/year, accounting for 30% of the total production value of the commune. The average revenue per unit area from the production and trading of forestry seedlings reaches over 1.8 billion VND/year, creating jobs for 2,100 workers.
Tan Huong's forestry seedlings are mainly supplied to communes in the district, districts in the province and the central provinces from Thanh Hoa to Quang Nam, Lam Dong, Dak Lak. Of the 286 households participating in tree nursery, over 100 have become well-off and rich households, with high incomes each year.
“Previously, people mainly sowed acacia seeds, but later the commune decided to switch to sowing acacia cuttings to reduce environmental pollution. Because if acacia seeds are sown by seeds, the seedlings are often infected with fungus, so pesticides must be used to spray them; but acacia cuttings are less infected with fungus and do not use pesticides. Therefore, currently over 70% of acacia seeds are sown in the commune by cuttings,” Mr. Le Duc Thuyen added.
To ensure the quality of seedlings, every year, the People's Committee of Tan Huong commune coordinates with the forest rangers and relevant sectors to organize legal propaganda campaigns on the implementation of the Forestry Law, the Party and State's policies and guidelines to households, individuals, and organizations producing and trading forestry seedlings in the commune. Thereby, implementing the regulations on the production and trading of forestry seedlings; legal documents related to the handling of administrative violations in the forestry sector. At the same time, households sign a commitment to comply with regulations on the trading of forestry seedlings.
With more than 38,000 hectares of forestry land, Tan Ky district has identified this as a favorable condition to develop the profession of planting raw materials forests and bring practical benefits to the people. Due to the increasing demand for seedlings, not only Tan Huong commune, but also some localities along the Ho Chi Minh road such as Nghia Hanh commune have also developed the profession of nursery forestry, creating commodity products and generating income.
The forestry seedling nursery profession is to nurture green shoots for the forest, not only helping many households in Tan Ky district to escape poverty and become rich legitimately, but also contributing to the locality in doing a good job of developing forest capital and protecting the ecological environment./.
