Standardizing the process of selecting, creating and cultivating macadamia

Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh led a delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on November 10, to inspect the production and development of macadamia trees in Tuan Giao, Muong Ang and Dien Bien districts of Dien Bien Province.

At a meeting with the localities, the Deputy Minister highly appreciated the production linkage between the Vietnam Macadamia Association and business enterprises in the province, as well as their technology transfer and creation of jobs for local farmers.

“Macadamia is a dual-use plant, bringing a lot of economic value to farmers. The problem is that we need to standardize the processes from selecting the varieties and harvesting to preliminary and deep processing," he said.

According to Deputy Minister Doanh, the Northwest region has soil and climate conditions suitable for plants with high economic value like macadamia. However, he reminded local enterprises and farmers about technical measures to develop macadamia in a sustainable way.

A report from Dien Bien Department of Agriculture and Rural Development shows the province has planted 3,820ha of macadamia of which 3,767ha for normal planting and 54ha for interplanting with other crops. The cultivated areas are concentrated mainly in the districts of Tuan Giao, Dien Bien, Muong Nhe, Dien Bien Dong, Muong Ang and Dien Bien Phu City.

The MARD leader especially asked Dien Bien farmers to pay attention to the "fruit-catching" process, because it plays a key role in ensuring post-harvest quality. Besides, he also stressed ensuring the cultivating density from 205 to 280 plants/ha in normal planting.

One more issue that the Deputy Minister had concerned is to ensure the organic farming process, absolutely no use of herbicides. In addition, to ensure productivity, he advised people to prune branches and create canopies because macadamia is an easy tree to grow in the northern mountainous region.

Most of the macadamia area in the province is planted with investments from business enterprises (3,375 ha). The remaining area (about 446 ha) is intercropped with coffee trees.

Dien Bien has so far approved investment policies for eight projects of growing macadamia trees in a total approved planting scale of 47,046 ha and with total investment capital of VND8,812 billion. Currently, there are 2 projects having completed submitting procedures for investment policy approval, and 5 projects on the way of surveying and preparing dossiers for approval, with a total scale of about 73,000 ha.

Up to now, about 3,375ha of macadamia have been planted reaching 41% of the projects’ approved progress by 2021 and 9% of the total approved projects. More jobs have been created with an increase incomes for farmer households, contributing to improving life in rural areas, especially those of ethnic minorities. where have taken macadamia as a high-value crop in agricultural and forestry production.

Since 2015, some macadamia growing areas in Dien Bien Province have been harvested including about 84ha with a yield reaching 136.57 tons of fresh fruit.

In Dien Bien, Tuan Giao is one of the districts that grow the most macadamia. Ms. Pham Thi Tuyen, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee, said the district is implementing many forms of linkage between businesses and farmers.

Accordingly, after signing the contract, the company will pay for local land contributors some amount of money to support them during the cultivation conversion in the first 5 years when they have not harvested macamadia. The company will also recruit full-time workers with an income of VND4-7 million/month giving priority to households that contribute land to the company, and 400-450 part-time workers.

Although the district has identified macadamia as a plant with high economic efficiency, Ms. Tuyen acknowledged some difficulties in promoting and popularizing growing it. She said there was so far no development plan for the area while the progress of issuing certificates of land use for farmers to grow macadamia is still slow... She suggested the MARD and the provincial People's Committee have more supportive policies.

Listening to the local opinions, Deputy Minister Doanh pledged the MARD would support and co-operate with localities in seedling, cultivating, and processing of macadamia. He called on relevant units to focus their resources on reconnecting, and doing more in-depth surveys in the areas, in order to help Dien Bien continue to maintain its tradition of a macadamia capital.