Finding a new direction with coffee
Born into a large family with difficult circumstances, Mr. Tran Van Phu, Dak Ru commune, Dak R'lap district, was soon aware of his responsibility in developing the family economy .
In 2008, Mr. Phu graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Department of Tan Binh District Vocational Training Center and stayed in Ho Chi Minh City to work. In 2010, Mr. Phu decided to return to his hometown to seek opportunities to start a career in his family's farming profession.
Growing up in a land where coffee is the main crop, Mr. Phu soon realized the potential of coffee for the economic development of the locality. Mr. Phu began researching coffee, from famous coffee varieties to cultivation and harvesting methods to improve quality, thereby increasing the value of the product.
Mr. Phu realized the limitations in traditional farming methods, low product quality, unstable prices and being affected by many factors of supply and demand in the market. Besides, people are used to farming and production focusing only on productivity, not on quality. In particular, the post-harvest processing stage is still very rudimentary, so the quality is reduced.
Realizing the great potential of Vietnamese specialty coffee, Mr. Phu researched and learned how to make specialty coffee on his family's 1 hectare coffee plantation. In 2014, Mr. Phu successfully produced his first batch of specialty coffee and was contracted by a company in Ho Chi Minh City to purchase the product.
Link in production
From that initial success, Mr. Phu mobilized and guided the youth in the Youth Union of Village 8, Dak Ru Commune to join together to produce specialty coffee using the honey method to improve the quality and value of coffee beans, thereby increasing family income.
In 2017, Mr. Phu established a high-quality coffee production group with 10 members and initially tried to produce large batches to ensure quality stability.
In 2020, young man Tran Van Phu founded Dak Ka Fair Trade Agricultural Cooperative with 39 members, mostly young people.
The cooperative was established with the aim of linking and supporting farmers in the production and consumption of high-quality coffee. Not only providing high-quality coffee products to the market, the cooperative also organizes training programs to improve farmers' knowledge. Thanks to that, members and farmers in the area can apply science and technology to production, increasing productivity and product quality.
Mr. Tran Van Phu said that as a young person, starting a business has never been easy, especially in the agricultural sector because agricultural products have low value and profit compared to other sectors. Young entrepreneurs lack capital, experience, etc. "On the journey of starting a business, overcoming difficulties, I feel very happy to make specialty Robusta coffee and spread it to everyone. Thereby, helping coffee growers to increase product value and increase income."
According to Mr. Phu, Dak Ka Fair Trade Agricultural Cooperative continues to focus on building brands, expanding domestic consumption markets and aiming for exports.
Achieve much success
After 4 years of establishment, Dak Ka Fair Trade Agricultural Cooperative, of which Mr. Phu is the director, has grown with a raw material area of up to 100 hectares. The cooperative also cooperates with 3 cooperatives and 1 cooperative group in the province to produce high-quality coffee.
To date, the cooperative's specialty coffee products have achieved Fine Robusta certification recognized by the Coffee Quality Institute; FRD ground coffee products (Fine Robusta Daknong) have achieved 3-star OCOP certification in 2022.
The cooperative has an output of 200 tons/year, with 1000 m2 of coffee drying greenhouse and 220 m2 of coffee roasting and grinding workshop with annual revenue of over 1 billion VND. With the production of high quality coffee, each cooperative member has an income increase of 150 - 200 million VND/year (increased by 1.5 - 2 times compared to the traditional way of making coffee). The cooperative creates jobs for 5 regular workers, 10 seasonal workers, mainly young people and local people.
With that result, Dak Ka Fair Trade Agricultural Cooperative was awarded a certificate of merit by the People's Committee of Dak Nong province for its outstanding achievements in the emulation movement to build typical and advanced cooperatives and People's Credit Funds in the period 2021-2023.
In particular, Mr. Phu is one of 36 outstanding young people nationwide to be awarded the Luong Dinh Cua Award in 2024. This is a noble award of the Central Youth Union to honor outstanding young farmers with outstanding achievements in the field of startups, research, and application of scientific and technological achievements to improve production and business efficiency.
Mr. Ton Duc Bao, Secretary of the District Youth Union, Chairman of the Vietnam Youth Union of Dak R'lap District, said that in recent times, the youth union organizations of Dak R'lap District have created conditions for young people to participate in activities to establish themselves and start a business. Up to now, many young people in the district have successfully started their own businesses, of which Mr. Tran Van Phu is a typical example. Mr. Phu's Luong Dinh Cua Award is a source of pride, motivation, and encouragement for the local youth movement to participate in economic development to become stronger and stronger.
The results achieved in the past time are a solid journey for Mr. Tran Van Phu to continue pursuing his passion for specialty coffee. With continuous development, Mr. Tran Van Phu and Dak Ka Fair Trade Agricultural Cooperative have been making important contributions to the development of rural economy, poverty reduction and new rural construction in the locality.
The Luong Dinh Cua Award has been organized by the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union since 2006 and is the only award to honor rural youth who are good at economics.
Source: https://baodaknong.vn/thanh-nien-tran-van-phu-va-hanh-trinh-den-giai-thuong-luong-dinh-cua-237333.html
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