From farm straight to kitchen

After much deliberation about healthy meals, Dinh Thi Thu Hang decided to quit her job of 10 years, which provided an income many people would envy, to grow vegetables using the "Farm to Kitchen" model.

Báo Thanh niên•28/05/2018

In 2016, Ms. Dinh Thi Thu Hang (35 years old, a graduate of the Environmental Science department at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology) started a vegetable garden in Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City. On over 3,000 square meters of land, in addition to growing tropical-suitable vegetables using organic methods such as cabbage, amaranth, water spinach, jute mallow, tomatoes, zucchini, gourds, and pumpkins, she also rents out plots of land, each about 20 square meters, for customers to grow, care for, and harvest daily. If the tenants are too busy, gardeners will help tend the vegetables. “If each person has 20 square meters, they might only be able to grow a small amount of vegetables, and they would get bored eating them all the time. Therefore, we let customers pick vegetables from other plots to make their meals more varied,” Ms. Hang said.


	Hopefully, my approach will provide safe food for my family and those around me, and inspire many other young people who are also aspiring to do something good for the environment and for nature.

Dinh Thi Thu Hang

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Starting with a garden in Cu Chi, Ms. Hang has expanded her farm to Mang Den District (Kon Tum province), covering approximately 3 hectares and specializing in temperate vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli, and cucumbers. She does not use chemicals, fertilizers, or pesticides in the cultivation process. Both the gardens in Cu Chi and Mang Den are open to visitors every day of the week, allowing families with young children to learn about clean farming practices. Ms. Hang says that both of her gardens currently supply more than 300 kg of various vegetables to the market each week.

Instead of taking her produce to the market or supplying it to traders, Ms. Hang distributes her vegetables directly to consumers using a farm-to-kitchen model. In early May 2018, her first vegetable store opened in Ho Chi Minh City (previously, customers ordered vegetables via phone and Facebook).

Besides selling to customers, some of the vegetables are delivered to a small restaurant in the Vinhomes urban area (Nguyen Huu Canh Street, Binh Thanh District) invested in by Ms. Hang. "The reason I run this restaurant is so that my children will have a place to eat delicious, clean meals every day," the farm owner shared.

A corner of Ms. Hang's vegetable garden.

As an environmental engineer who transitioned into agriculture , Ms. Hang is very interested in sustainable development; the packaging for vegetables and fruits is also made from recyclable, environmentally friendly materials.

Clean agriculture always comes with significant risks due to its high cost and limited consumer acceptance. Furthermore, she expressed concern about the proliferation of contaminated vegetables labeled as clean and sold cheaply, deceiving consumers and putting clean vegetables at risk.

Ms. Hang expressed her concern: “Having worked in the environmental field for 10 years, I understand how the environment is being destroyed by humans. I also understand that many food sources using chemicals have been and are still poisoning Vietnamese people, especially children. That's why I switched to clean agriculture, hoping that my methods will provide safe food for my family and those around me, and at the same time inspire other young people who are also aspiring to do something good for the environment and for nature.”

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tu-nong-trai-toi-thang-bep-an-185760530.htm

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