Nghe An: Growing incense roots earns billions in Thanh Chuong
(Baonghean.vn) - On average, each year Thanh Nho commune (Thanh Chuong) plants 150-200 hectares of agarwood roots.This crop area has brought in tens of billions of dong in revenue for the locality.
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| Harvesting incense roots |
Thanh Nho is a mountainous commune of Thanh Chuong district with over 1,000 hectares of forestry land. In recent years, local people have piloted planting of Agarwood roots, bringing high economic efficiency. The family of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Tra (Hamlet 7 - Thanh Nho) plants over 1 hectare of Agarwood roots, earning over 150 million VND per year.
She said: “After harvesting, the aromatic roots will be pre-processed, the roots and tops separated before being sold. If only selling raw materials, each hectare will bring in about 100 million VND, but if processed, it can earn 140 million VND.”
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| Growing incense roots in Thanh Nho. |
At first, Thanh Nho people often planted incense roots with branches, but now some families have switched to planting with seeds; to save the effort of collecting branches and to take advantage of branches and leaves as raw materials. Incense roots are a type of plant that is easy to care for, drought-resistant, not picky about soil, and has high economic value.
Therefore, from a few pilot planting households, up to now, on average each year, Thanh Nho commune has 150-200 hectares; earning 20 billion VND from this crop. Seeing the economic efficiency that the aromatic root tree brings, Thanh Nho commune people have gradually reduced the area of acacia trees to switch to growing this type of tree.
Not only expanding the planting area, local people also invested in machinery to consume the products. Mr. Nguyen Dinh Quyet, owner of Quyet Thanh incense root processing facility, said: “Our facility both purchases and processes incense roots into finished products, and sells them to incense making facilities inside and outside the district. The cost of investing in machinery is not large, so in the coming time, my family will continue to expand the scale of the factory to meet the consumption needs of the people.”
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| People have built beautiful houses thanks to the incense root tree. |
Currently, in Thanh Nho commune, there are 2 facilities for collecting and processing raw materials. Thanks to that, local people have been proactive in consuming products, avoiding the situation of being forced to lower prices by traders; more favorable in developing production.
From the economic development model of the incense root tree in Thanh Nho commune, many neighboring communes such as Thanh Duc, Hanh Lam, Thanh Hoa have grown this crop. Considered an open direction in the economic development of people in mountainous areas, Thanh Chuong district has also planned to expand the incense root tree in other areas, especially in the hydropower resettlement area.
Growing incense roots is low cost, mainly planting, weeding once, harvesting, and processing. The total cost for 1 hectare is about 20 million VND. After harvesting, 1 hectare gives a profit of about 100 million VND. Compared to tea trees, which are a poverty-reducing crop in the area, incense roots have an income one and a half times higher.
Ha Temple