Want to get rich with ginseng - must have 'reckless blood'

(Baonghean) -Returning to Quynh Doi, I heard a group of 5 friends who are carrying out a project to plant ginseng trees mention the saying ofFormer ChairmanPeople's Committee of Nghe An provinceHo Xuan Hung said, "To do business, in addition to the necessary qualities, one also needs to be "daring".

A group of 5 people in Quynh Doi commune carried out the project of planting ginseng trees, including Mr. Ho Dinh Trung (born in 1978), Vice Principal of Quynh Tan Secondary School, and his peers including Ho Dinh Thang, Ho Sy Toan, Nguyen Ngoc Son and Ho Ngoc Khanh.

Teacher Ho Dinh Trung with 6-month-old ginseng plants.

The area chosen for the project is Cua Vuon. This is a two-rice land area of ​​the farmers in the commune. Due to the recent shortage of labor, the farming has to be rented out, and economic efficiency has somewhat decreased, so the families with land here have agreed to let Mr. Trung's group use it for 10 years; with a cost of 1.9 million VND/sao/year.

Arriving at Cua Vuon area, the scenery here is indeed “less impressive” as the staff of the district’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said. The 6-month-old ginseng tree planted on an area of ​​2 hectares is still small, only 30cm high, many trees are hidden in bushes. Understanding the thoughts of visitors, Mr. Ho Dinh Trung smiled: “When we heard that journalists were coming to visit, we were also very shy because the reality is still very difficult. Like this hot weather, we have to use bushes to cool the ginseng…”.

Through radio, newspapers and the internet, they learned that Nam Dinh and Bac Giang are two areas with areas growing ginseng that bring in very good income. All five of them set out to these two areas, looking for families with experience to learn from; at the same time, they also contacted a unit specializing in purchasing ginseng to import for the pharmaceutical company Trapaco to determine the output...

Having accumulated some experience and rented 3 hectares of land, they invested in buying 50,000 ginseng seedlings for experimental planting. Ginseng is a plant that is resistant to drought, cold, waterlogging and frost. The experience of all 5 people was not much, so many ginseng plants had curled leaves, turned black and died...

Not discouraged, they continued to buy more seeds and replant them. In total, the number of ginseng seedlings purchased was 100,000. And now, after 6 months of planting, about 40,000 plants are strong enough to withstand the hot and dry weather.

Mr. Trung said: “In the past, the famous physician Hai Thuong Lan Ong Le Huu Trac called the ginseng plant “ginseng of the poor”. If we cannot grow it, then that’s fine, but if we can, people will come to buy it all, from the roots, stems, branches, leaves…”.

Knowing that in 2015, a foreign organization also carried out a project on growing ginseng. However, it was damaged by frost. Talking about this, Trung was quite calm: “We have gained experience over the past time. In the future, there will be a solution to both plant a new crop and build a frost-proof trellis for ginseng…”.

Teacher Trung in the garden of self-grown ginseng seedlings.

According to Trung's calculation, the cost so far for seedlings is about 500 million VND; for 3 years, the land rental cost is about 360 million; labor cost is about 150 million; infrastructure investment is 500 million; the total cost is about 1.5 billion VND.

If the ginseng is stable, after 3 years of harvesting with a value of about 100,000 VND/root, it will also bring in 3 - 4 billion VND; in addition, with the remaining 1ha of ornamental plants and fish farming, it will also bring in additional income. "Currently, we also realize that the tree species we bought from the North are difficult to adapt to Nghe An's weather, so we are investing in creating our own seedlings. So we have tried to grow more than 2,000 ginseng cuttings from local trees. As expected, this self-grown variety grows very well..."

Looking at this nursery, thinking about the billions of dollars you guys have invested, and then thinking about what former Chairman of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee Ho Xuan Hung once said "doing business requires a bit of daring", I find your search for new directions in economic development even more valuable...

Nhat Lan