With the strength of indigenous resources, especially medicinal herbs and cultural diversity, in recent years, the highlands of Quang Nam have had many outstanding start-up projects. However, to bring highland products to the big market still face many challenges.
Mr. Riah Cuong (born in 1991, Arooi village, Ga Ry commune, Tay Giang) studied Information Technology at Quang Nam University with the desire to approach and learn scientific and technical advances to apply and contribute to his hometown.
Mr. Riah Cuong checks the medicinal herb garden of the cooperative.
Having become familiar with many economic models, in 2015, Mr. Cuong returned to his hometown to dig a pond to raise fish. Then he saw that the market demand for Codonopsis pilosula was so great that he invested in planting nearly 1 hectare of this type of ginseng.
Some time later, Mr. Cuong approached the USAID-funded Truong Son Xanh project, where he was sent to learn economic development skills based on indigenous resources and how to organize some new models suitable for mountainous conditions. He determined that if he wanted to increase the value of agricultural products and medicinal herbs in the highlands, he alone would not have enough resources.
Mr. Riah Cuong shares about his entrepreneurial journey.
Mr. Cuong and 11 other members, who are also Co Tu ethnic people in Tay Giang, founded the Truong Son Xanh Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Cooperative. Later, when the project developed, the cooperative recruited a number of Kinh members, increasing its financial resources.
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Currently, the Cooperative has developed many product lines, including ginseng extract, ginseng jam, ginseng wine and some other packaged medicinal herbs such as Morinda officinalis, Ganoderma lucidum, and Seven-leafed Flower... We have also expanded our cooperation with more than 20 households in the communes of A Tieng, Lang, Ch'om, and Ga Ry to build a raw material area of 20 hectares of ginseng and 20 hectares of ginseng.
Riah Cuong
In 2022, the ginseng chicken stew product of Truong Son Xanh Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Cooperative was recognized by the People's Committee of Quang Nam province as a provincial-level creative startup project. The product is highly appreciated for its quality and has reached the market in major cities.
When mentioning Nam Tra My medicinal herbs or the Ngoc Linh ginseng growing and selling facility here, we probably cannot ignore the Muoi Cuong brand of Ms. Ho Thi Muoi. Ms. Muoi is a Ca Dong person, working at the Nam Tra My District Vocational Technical Center for 20 years. In addition to her office hours, this female officer also goes to each village and hamlet to study with the people how to make money from local agricultural products and medicinal herbs.
Ms. Ho Thi Muoi produces products from Ngoc Linh ginseng.
Ms. Muoi is the first ethnic person, a pioneer in packaging medicinal products of the Nam Tra My highlands such as Ngoc Linh ginseng, Gynostemma pentaphyllum, tea rope, green lim mushroom, ginseng... to bring to the market. In 2019, her economic model was recognized as a provincial-level creative startup project. After that, she had 2 products, tea rope filter bags and Gynostemma pentaphyllum tea, which were certified as 3-star OCOP products.
Tea products are certified with 3-star OCOP.
Currently, Ms. Ho Thi Muoi's facility has about 10 highly commercialized product lines processed from medicinal herbs. Starting a business in the highlands of Nam Tra My faced difficulties due to the remoteness and isolation, Ms. Muoi realized the power of communication, packaging and labeling.
She has invested heavily in upgrading her designs to be more eye-catching, in order to reach demanding markets. This approach is bringing positive results when her products are displayed next to luxury products of large companies and corporations but still attract customers.
With a planned raw material area of 10 hectares, Ms. Muoi has been growing medicinal herbs typical of Nam Tra My such as Ngoc Linh ginseng, Gynostemma pentaphyllum, and Vietnamese ginseng... In addition, she has also linked and cooperated in production with more than 100 other local households, forming a highland startup community.
Ms. Bhling Thi Doi (born in 1994, Cha Lang village, Ch'om commune, Tay Giang) has 3 hectares of production forest land. Instead of growing acacia auriculiformis like other households in the area, Ms. Doi chose to build a raw material area to supply to traders. She planted Codonopsis pilosula under corn, ginger and beans. In 2023, she harvested nearly 800 kg of ginseng to sell to Truong Son Xanh Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Cooperative and nearly 5 tons of ginger to traders. However, her model is facing instability due to the unsustainable product purchasing linkage.
Ms. Doi is currently growing 3 hectares of medicinal herbs and highland agricultural products.
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When I sell to local cooperatives, they are responsible for transporting and then processing the finished product. But when I sell to traders from other places, I am constantly forced to lower the price. They give the excuse that the transportation cost is high, the cost of transporting tons of ginger from the mountains to the plains costs several million VND. They deduct it from the price of the goods, but in the end, I don't make much profit. The cost of planting, caring for, picking from the mountains to the house, all added up, is not equal to the cost of transportation.
Bhling Thi Doi
In the case of the Green Forest Ecological Cooperative of clean vegetables, directed by Ms. Koor Thi Nghe (Ga Ry commune, Tay Giang), when investing in machinery and equipment to increase the value of mountainous agricultural products by drying, preserving, and processing raw materials, it encountered problems with the power source. In this border area, the national grid infrastructure only ensures daily life, so when producing with machines that require large capacity, the grid is not enough to meet the demand.
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"The current power grid only has 1 phase, while the machines I am using require 3-phase power, so I have to rent a factory far away from the growing area. There are areas where electricity is not available, so we have to use generators to generate electricity. Production costs have therefore increased a lot. When the products are brought to market, it is very difficult to compete."
Ms. Koor Thi Nghe
In addition to the difficulties of long distances and an unsynchronized power system, the highlands also frequently suffer from natural disasters such as flash floods, landslides, and hail.
During the rainy season, trade traffic from the highlands to the plains is almost completely cut off. Most recently, on April 24, Ga Ry commune (Tay Giang) experienced a historic hailstorm, causing many areas of crops to be completely damaged.
Ms. Do Ngoc Anh Tuyet (born in 1985, Kham Duc town, Phuoc Son) brought dried F1 black pig products and charcoal sticky rice wine (distilled from local rice wine) into the list of 3-star OCOP products of the province and expanded the market to major cities across the country. In 2023, Ms. Tuyet sold more than 1 ton of finished dried meat and hundreds of liters of charcoal sticky rice wine to the market.
[VIDEO] - Startups talk about the difficulties in the production business process in the highlands:
Understanding the market demand, Ms. Tuyet planned to expand the production scale, upgrading from manual methods to semi-automatic machines to ensure the quantity of finished products. However, with limited financial resources, Ms. Tuyet did not have enough money to invest and considered borrowing from policy banks with preferential interest rates.
Despite not having financial difficulties, Mr. Tran Quang Tuan (born in 2000, Tra Linh commune, Nam Tra My) had to put aside his plan to expand the production and trade of Ngoc Linh ginseng products due to a lack of high-quality human resources. With 3 ginseng gardens in 3 communes of Tra Linh, Tra Cang and Tra Nam with more than 10,000 Ngoc Linh ginseng plants, of which about 5,000 plants are in the harvest stage and are 5 years old or older, Mr. Tuan plans to produce commercial products such as ginseng juice, ginseng essence, ginseng tea, etc.
In fact, many factories and research areas for medicinal herbs and Ngoc Linh ginseng in Nam Tra My district opened with quite a grand scale in terms of technical equipment but also quickly closed due to lack of human resources.
Returning to the Tay Giang highlands in early May, on the hills where people previously only knew how to grow acacia, large-scale medicinal herb gardens have now been replaced. Many collective economic models such as cooperatives and cooperative groups have been established, creating a legal basis for the raw materials that people produce. Most of these units have signed contracts with businesses and factories in the plains to provide raw materials for the production of deeply processed products.
Mr. Tran Duc An - Executive Director of Tu Mo Rong - Kon Tum Ngoc Linh Ginseng Joint Stock Company said that for many years, the unit has signed contracts to purchase Ngoc Linh ginseng from Nam Tra My district and Codonopsis pilosula from Tay Giang district. During the recent survey of Codonopsis pilosula quality in the two communes of Ch'om and Ga Ry, Mr. An will proceed to sign a contract to purchase output for the people here.
[VIDEO] - Mr. Tran Duc An - Executive Director of Tu Mo Rong Ngoc Linh Ginseng Joint Stock Company - Kon Tum:
Most of the start-up projects in the highlands are tending to focus on producing raw medicinal materials, supplying to companies and corporations specializing in the production of functional foods or products related to medicinal materials, medicines... with clear and stable memorandums of understanding and economic contracts. Among them, the Muoi Cuong business household, the Ngoc Linh ginseng growing model of Mr. Truong Quang Tuan, the Truong Son Xanh Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Cooperative, the Green Forest Clean Vegetable Ecological Cooperative... are also following this direction.
Model of bean production according to company orders.
Mr. Pham Ngoc Sinh - Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Technology, Head of the Provincial Startup Support Executive Board said that in recent years, the Quang Nam startup ecosystem has developed widely from the forest to the sea. Startup projects in the highlands have made a breakthrough in quantity and quality when promoting the strengths of local resources from agricultural products and medicinal herbs.
In particular, the projects also invest in products that are quite meticulous in terms of image, packaging, and labeling. Startups also know how to rely on the highland culture of their people, telling attractive stories about the products, creating highlights when launching them to the market.
Mr. Pham Ngoc Sinh guides start-up projects in the highlands.
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Therefore, in addition to promoting local strengths, startups in the highlands need to continuously learn and cultivate the necessary skills to operate their production and business models. Equip medicinal plant cultivation methods according to modern scientific and technological advances to improve product quality. If these things can be done, I believe that the highlands of Quang Nam will have a strong medicinal plant brand that many other localities do not have.
Mr. Pham Ngoc Sinh
However, Mr. Sinh also acknowledged that start-up projects in the highlands are still limited in terms of transport infrastructure, financial resources and human resources. In particular, the start-up skills and business management skills of start-up entities are still lacking compared to the current general level.
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