"Support the farmers, don't take their jobs away."

Báo Đầu tư•18/04/2024

Nguyen Thi Le Na, Founder of EcoNations: “Support farmers, don’t take their jobs away.”

By applying technology, Nguyen Thi Le Na and the EcoNations team created a "shortcut" connecting farmers with consumers and supporting them in management and sales... As a result, farmers can focus on their strength: farming.

Nguyen Thi Le Na, Founder of EcoNations

Agricultural model in the 4.0 era

Uncle Bay (real name Bui Chon) sat in the mango orchard, his face beaming with happiness. He first learned about the mango selling model when the trees hadn't even bloomed yet. More importantly, the prices were clearly defined, allowing farmers like him to focus on production without worrying about finding buyers when the fruit ripened.

"These kids are really talented, now my 7 Chơn mangoes have a famous brand," shared the man who owns an 8-hectare farm in Ninh Hung commune, Ninh Hoa town ( Khanh Hoa province).

The "people" that Uncle Bay was referring to are the staff of EcoNations, an agricultural technology start-up run by its founder, Nguyen Thi Le Na.

Inspired by the "My Mango Tree" model in Dong Thap province, the EcoNations team collaborated with Mr. Bay and brought the model to Khanh Hoa. Accordingly, each customer "invests" from 500,000 VND to over 700,000 VND to own a large, healthy mango tree, cultivated according to natural farming standards in the 7 Chon mango orchard. Each mango tree is identified by a small plaque with a QR code and a message from the buyer.

When mangoes ripen, customers can visit the orchard to harvest them, or the EcoNations team and Uncle Bay will harvest and deliver all the mangoes directly from the trees to the customer's home. The orchard guarantees a minimum yield of 20-25 kg per tree. If there is a shortfall, the orchard will compensate customers with mangoes from reserve trees.

It's difficult to expect farmers to cultivate well, manage well, sell well, and market well... With EcoNations, farmers only need to cultivate well according to ecological processes, and we will support them with the rest. Let's keep farmers happy in their fields.

- Founder Nguyen Thi Le Na

"In my 'Mango Tree' model, farmers like Uncle Bay can produce with peace of mind, as they have both initial capital and don't need to worry about sales. Meanwhile, customers get to use safe products with clear origins and have a new experience," explained Ms. Le Na.

First offered for sale in December 2023, over 100 mango trees in Uncle Bay's garden found "investors". To date, approximately 1,000 mango trees have been sold to customers throughout Vietnam.

Speaking to a reporter from Investment Newspaper, Ms. Le Na recounted that her team spent nearly a year both developing the EcoNations application and manually recording data for each mango tree (taking photos and videos of each tree, then gradually integrating the information into the application).

Last March, the EcoNations application was initially completed. Now, it only takes about a week to update all the data for a mango orchard similar to Uncle Bay's. However, information about the care and development process of each mango tree is still provided to customers manually, not yet integrated into the application and updated in real time. Therefore, EcoNations still has a long way to go...

"That's what entrepreneurship is like; you don't necessarily need a perfect product to sell. Sometimes, the happiness of an entrepreneur is simply having buyers and supporters even when the product isn't perfect," shared the founder of EcoNations.

In addition to "My Mango Tree," EcoNations is also implementing a similar model called "My Beehive." Beehives are placed directly under the mango tree, creating a multi-product ecosystem. Bees collect nectar from mango blossoms to produce honey, and also pollinate the flowers to form mangoes.

With an investment of just 3 million VND, customers participating in the "My Beehive" model own their own beehive, eliminating the need to bring the hive home themselves. The project team will manage, care for, and update information on the beehive, and deliver the honey to the customer's address after harvesting.

Spreading the ecological agriculture model

While collaborating with mango farmers and beekeepers, the founder of EcoNations has repeatedly emphasized that this is not the main activity the start-up aims for. The "My Mango Tree" and "My Beehive" models serve as pilot projects before the platform expands its operations to include a range of other farms.

At that time, farmers like Uncle Bay could participate in the EcoNations platform, selling agricultural products even before the products were fully developed. In simple terms, it's a form of crowdfunding, similar to many crowdfunding platforms in the tech startup world like Kickstarter or GoFundMe.

“EcoNations is the first crowdfunding platform in the agricultural sector in Vietnam. EcoNations' goal is to support farmers, not to grow crops ourselves and compete with them,” Ms. Le Na affirmed.

Many years ago, Le Na was also a true farmer. She gave up a stable job in Hanoi to return to Nghe An to grow oranges, helping her fellow villagers change their arduous lives through an ecological orange farming model. In this model, orange trees are cultivated in a natural way, without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

To date, the Cam Vinh Ky Yen brand, founded by her, remains a strong agricultural brand in the market. Its main product, fresh oranges, is available in major retail chains in Vietnam, while its processed orange products, such as essential oils and jams, have reached many international markets.

But the success of Cam Vinh Ky Yen couldn't stop Nguyen Thi Le Na from pondering about a clean agricultural model with widespread potential. The area planted with Cam Vinh Ky Yen is only about 3 hectares, plus over 30 hectares in partnership with farmers, still a small number. However, expanding the planting area would present the founder with the challenge of increased investment, while oranges are only harvested once a year.

How can more farms in Vietnam become the second, third, or even the nth Vinh Ky Yen orange farm? Le Na asked herself this question and found the answer through courses on innovative entrepreneurship. She understood that only by leveraging the power of technology could the ecological farming model truly spread without limitations of time or distance.

Together with several partners, Nguyen Thi Le Na officially established EcoNations Joint Stock Company in January 2024. The platform is still in its early stages, but she is quite confident about the path she has chosen. Looking ahead, in the second half of this year, the start-up plans to expand its cooperation with farms across the country. Similar to the 7 Chon mango orchard model, these farms will be guided on ecological farming methods and receive investment capital from buyers. EcoNations acts as an intermediary, controlling the farming process and disbursing capital in installments.

Later, when the data source is large enough, EcoNations plans to expand features such as using technology to support farmers in cultivation and sales. In addition, customers will also be able to rate products directly on the EcoNations app, creating opportunities for good farms to continue receiving investment in subsequent years.

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