HÀ NỘI – High-quality flower farming has helped make farmers in Hà Nội’s suburban districts become more prosperous in recent years, said Hà Nội’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department director Chu Phú Mỹ.

Mỹ said that since the city’s project on flower and ornamental plants farming was implemented in 2012, high-quality flower zones had been formed including 170ha of roses in Mê Linh District’s Văn Khê Commune, 20ha of peach in Long Biên District, orchid and lily farms in districts of Đan Phượng, Chương Mỹ, Hoài Đức, Quốc Oai and Phúc Thọ.

The high-quality flowers helped growers earn profits up to ten times higher than from normal flowers, he said.

Nguyễn Văn Suốt, a gardener in Tây Tựu Commune, Bắc Từ Liêm District, said his family earned more than VNĐ50 million (US$2,200) yearly from 1,000sq.m of lilies.

He hired ten people to work on his farm, paying each about VNĐ3 million ($135)monthly, he said.

Vice chairman of Tây Tựu Commune People’s Committee, Bùi Trung Hòa, said that flowers helped local farmers earn on average VNĐ550 million ($24,700 ) per hectare, much more than rice cultivation.

Nguyễn Thế Đỗ Cường, a gardener in Hương Ngải Commune, Thạch Thất District said that he earned billions of Vietnamese đồng each year from forest orchids.

With assistance from Hà Nội Agriculture Promotion Centre, Cường raised hundreds of orchids which grew around the year, generating a stable income for his family, he said.

However, agriculture official Mỹ said that most flower growers sold to wholesalers with unstable prices and volumes.

“The city’s agriculture sector wants to boost co-operation with other localities to set up a stable supply-consumption chain for flowers,” he said, adding that better links between farmers and firms were needed.

Vice director of Hà Nội Agriculture Promotion Centre, Vũ Thị Hương, told the Nông thôn ngày nay ( Countryside Today) newspaper that flower growing in Hà Nội had been a popular industry since the 1980s.

The area for flowers and ornamental plants in the city in 2014 was about 2,650ha, more than four times higher than in 2005.

In 1995, each hectare of flower/ornamental plants generated VNĐ86 million ($3,900) per year but in 2014, this increased to VNĐ360 million ($16,000) per hectare per year.

Hương said that few flower-growing zones in the city applied modern farming and processing technology, which reduced flower quality.

She said that the city did not have a good supply of high quality seedlings.

She added that most flowers were grown with traditional techniques which were cheap, easy to apply but low quality and vulnerable to cacogenesis. -- VNS