Japanese tourists visit a longan farm in Hoài Đức District, Hà Nội in September 2018. Photo Tú Quỳnh

Sơn Tùng

HÀ NỘI — Nguyễn Thu Nga, living in Hoàng Mai District, Hà Nội and her family had a two-day agricultural experience tour to Ba Vì and Phúc Thọ districts over the recent four-day holiday.

“Within just 60 minutes we drove from home to Ba Vì and my family, especially the children, enjoyed many activities,” Nga said.

"My children were immersed with nature, freely explored, learned about the farmer's life, how to take care of and harvest vegetables, feed chickens, pigs and cows, while my mother bought many safe agricultural products.”

Ba Vì is home to several agricultural tourism-educational experience models.

Đỗ Mạnh Hưng, Chairman of the Ba Vì District People's Committee, said: “By 2020, the local tourist sites brought the revenue of tens of billions of đồng including selling agricultural products (mainly milk and ostrich meat)."

"Selling milk to tourists has significantly contributed to stabilising the output for cow farmers in Vân Hòa and Tản Lĩnh communes during the difficult period when local businesses could not purchase all the output."

Nguyễn Thị Tuyến, the owner of the Sang Tuyến dairy shop in Tản Lĩnh Commune, said more than 90 per cent of her family's dairy products were sold to tourists.

"When tourists visit the cow farm,  they will experience activities like a cow farmer, such as cutting grass and feeding cows," she said.

"They will trust and use more Ba Vì dairy products."

Besides localities with strengths in agricultural-tourism and experiential education such as Ba Vì, Sóc Sơn and Long Biên districts, some new areas like Mỹ Đức, Chương Mỹ, Ứng Hòa, Phú Xuyên and Yên Mỹ (Thanh Trì) have developed this model.

Yên Mỹ Commune, Thanh Trì District has been emerging recently as a leading home of agricultural-tourism experience education models.

Trần Quang Khánh, Chairman of Yên Mỹ Commune People's Committee, said: "We are taking advantage of the land, local people have been forming many agricultural tourism models, typically, Văn An School-model Farm, Hải Đăng Experience Tourist Site.

The 4ha Phúc Thọ Hoa Bay Ecological Garden, located on the edge of the Đáy River in Tam Hiệp Commune, Phúc Thọ District, is known as a park of flowers, with its picturesque valley, surrounded by safe vegetable areas and rice fields attracting a large number of tourists.

Nguyễn Thị Thúy, the garden's manager, said: "We collaborate with local farmers to build safe agricultural-experience tourism experiences such as harvesting clean asparagus, planting vegetables and grapefruit picking". 

Nguyễn Văn Chí, head of the Rural Development Division of the city's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: “The development of agricultural experience models is not only meaningful to tourism but also has a positive impact on the development of agricultural production and farmers' lives."

Agriculture creates conditions to make tourism products, while tourism contributes to promoting and consuming agricultural products, creating jobs and increasing income for farmers, according to Chí.

"The development of agricultural tourism is contributing strongly to the transition from production to business thinking for farmers," he said.

"This is the right direction of Hà Nội authorities in restructuring the agricultural sector towards ecological sustainability."

Director of Hà Nội Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chu Phú Mỹ, said the city with tens of thousands of hectares of alluvial land has large areas of fertile agricultural land, making conditions suitable condition for agricultural tourism.

"Therefore, in the city's restructuring plan of the agricultural sector, the main direction is to promote localities to develop sustainable agriculture," he said.

"The agricultural sector will continue to support these areas in infrastructure and irrigation works for environmental landscape." VNS