Truong Xuan Green Garden: Helping to Build Dak Nong Sweet Potato Brand

In 2010, Truong Xuan Green Garden Joint Stock Company was licensed by Dak Nong Provincial People's Committee to invest VND145 billion to develop agriculture and forestry in Dak Nong province, mainly planting forests and growing Japanese sweet potato - a crop becoming a super-profit earner among local farmers. Since the first experimental cultivation in 2002, Japanese sweet potatoes in Dak Nong have constantly grown in volume and quality. In the first year, it was planted on 500 ha and yielded 5,000 tonnes. But now, the area has been enlarged to over 6,000 ha and the output has reached 76,000 tonnes. According to the Dak Nong Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, an average output on a hectare is 15 tonnes and costs VND23 million of investment capital. At the current price of over VND6,000 per kilo, a farmer may earn VND100- 150 million a year from growing Japanese sweet potato (two crops a year). The strong growth of Japanese sweet potato production not only contributes to economic development and agricultural production structure, but also directly reduces poverty in Dak Nong province.

 

Mr Nguyen Dinh Minh, Director of Truong Xuan Green Garden Joint Stock Company, said, productivity and value advantages of Japanese sweet potatoes not only help reduce poverty rapidly but also increase exports of Dak Nong. At present, the company is focusing on improving the quality and expanding potato acreages to meet domestic and export demands. With good climate and soil in couple with advanced scientific and technological application to all production processes, Truong Xuan Green Garden always has best products. To ensure quality and productivity, the firm is using Israeli drip-watering technology. In the coming time, it will accelerate application of automated fertilisation and preservation to ensure the quality of sweet potatoes and sustain export.

 

Director Minh said the company is using the name of Da Lat sweet potato because Da Nong has not built up this name. This is just a temporary solution to ensure good sales, increase incomes for farmers and expand international presence of this product. But, in the long term, to protect the legitimate rights of farmers, Da Nong needs to have a registered sweet potato trademark and Truong Xuan Green Garden Joint Stock Company is striving for this goal.

 

Director Minh noted that the primary difficulty of Truong Xuan Green Garden is its limited land fund. The company is asking permits from authorities to enlarge the sweet potato acreage and apply reasonable policies to build up the Dak Nong potato brand name.