Hoa Viên Farm in Yên Bình Commune, Thạch Thất District grows organic vegetables with the desire to bring clean food to consumers.

Highlighting the successes of the One Commune, One Produce (OCOP) programme in Hà Nội’s Thạch Thất District, Mr. Nguyen Van Chi, Deputy Head of the Standing Office of the Hà Nội New-Style Rural Development Programme Coordination Office, noted the significant contribution of Hòa Lạc Ecological Potential Ecological Company Limited (Hòa Lạc POTECO Co., Ltd.) which specializes in supplying Đại Ngàn organic vegetables.

In early 2024, five of the company’s organic vegetable products – cải sâm, bò khai, cai canh, rau dớn, and rau mỏ – received 4-star OCOP certification from the city authorities. This is a well-deserved achievement for the company, the first in Hà Nội to apply an organic vegetable cultivation model in agricultural production. This brings the total number of 4-star OCOP certified products in the capital city to 46.

Đại Ngàn organic cải sâm vegetable - a 4-star OCOP product

Looking back more than a decade, to 2013, amidst growing concerns about food safety, Trương Kim Hoa, Director of Hòa Lạc POTECO Co., Ltd. boldly implemented an organic vegetable cultivation model at Hoa Viên Farm. She initially chose Yên Bình Commune in Thạch Thất District to develop this model. Within a few years, the barren forest patches of Dục Village were transformed into a vibrant green expanse of clean vegetables.

To witness firsthand this large-scale OCOP-standard organic vegetable farm, we visited Hoa Viên Farm in Dục Village, Yên Bình Commune. There, we observed the organic vegetable cultivation process on the mountainside. Millions of wild vegetable plants, including rare varieties such as rau sắng (a type of wild vegetable), rau bò khai, rau dớn, rau mỏ, red sour amaranth, mountain bamboo shoots, and glutinous fig, thrived. Beyond the wild vegetables, a wide array of leafy greens, root vegetables, and fruits, including moringa, rau ngót (another type of vegetable), various types of mustard greens, moonflower, rau muống tiến vua (a type of water spinach), sweet potato leaves, amaranth, fragrant melon, gourds, squash, and chayote, also flourished, creating a lush green landscape across the hillside.

Đại Ngàn organic bò khai vegetable - a 4-star OCOP product.

Trương Kim Hoa, Director of Hoa Lac POTECO Co., Ltd. said that her family's initial simple desire to provide clean food to consumers was the driving force behind their efforts. With 60ha of land encompassing an entire hill in Yên Bình Commune, for over 10 years, her family has been raising wild boars on a scale of 10,000 animals. This provides an organic fertilizer source for breeding red worms, and the decomposed, hygienically treated manure is used to nourish plants.

In the early days of growing vegetables, Hoa Viên Farm faced many difficulties due to the poor quality of the soil in this area, which was full of gravel, stones, and lacked nutrients, resulting in slow plant growth. To improve the soil quality, the farm purchased fertile soil from other locations to spread on the vegetable beds, supplemented with various organic fertilizers to make the soil more porous. With a systematic production process and strict supervision, the Đại Ngàn organic vegetables gradually achieved eye-catching appearance, high yield, delicious natural flavour, and rich nutritional content.

To prevent pests and diseases, Hoa Viên Farm does not use chemicals but uses insect traps to eliminate harmful pests.

Assessing the process and quality of clean vegetables at Hoa Viên Farm, Head of the Hanoi Plant Protection and Cultivation Sub-Department under the Hà Nội Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Lưu Thị Hằng said that the organic vegetable model at Hoa Viên Farm is based on five principles: no chemical fertilizers, no pesticides, no herbicides, no growth stimulants, and no genetically modified plants. Thanks to safe cultivation practices, the vegetable products from Hoa Viên Farm have achieved the USDA Organic certification (Certificate No: 91038 Certified Organic by CERES) and conformity with the IFOAM Norms for Organic Production.

Currently, Hoa Viên Farm supplies approximately 500 tonnes of organic vegetables to the market annually. The farm's development not only provides a source of clean food for the market, generating annual revenues of tens of billions of đồng but also creates jobs for many local workers. This is a sustainable economic development model that deserves attention and expansion in the future. — VNS

The article is published under the coordination of the Coordination Office of the New-Style Rural Development Programme in Hà Nội.