Vietnam News
| Thach Chia tends his Sap coconuts in Cau Ke in the southern province of Tra Vinh.—VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Hai |
Sap is a variety of the coconut that contains soft jelly inside the coconut shell instead of coconut juice. It is used as beverage.
Cau Ke District now has a total of 16,000 Sap coconut trees, covering an area of 100ha in Hoa An andHoa Tan communes, which are mostly cultivated by Khmer ethnic farmers.
Of the figure, 3,00 trees have started to produce fruit while the rest were only planted since the price of Sap coconut increased, when the beverage became popular in 2004.
Hoa Tan Commune has the largest quantity of Sap coconut trees in Cau Ke District, with 11,000 trees.
The Hoa Tan Commune Sap Coconut Co-operative pays VND85,000 for a coconut, much higher than the VND2000-2,500 price of a normal coconut.
Thach Phu My, deputy head of the Hoa Tan Commune Sap Coconut Co-operative, said in 2005, Hoa Tan Commune authorities had begun encouraging local farmers to grow Sap coconuts after many local farmers chopped down their longan orchards because longan prices dropped.
Supporting farmers
Ngo Thanh Xuan, deputy chairman of the Cau Ke District People's Commitee, said the Tra Vinh Province Department of Science and Technology had worked with relevant agencies to implement a pilot project to support farmers in Hoa Tan Commune to plant 5ha of Sap coconut in Hoa Tan Commune in 2006.
Under the pilot project, local farmers ha cultivated 960 trees and half of them have started bearing fruit, Xuan said.
Farmer Thach Dach in Chong No 2 Village, who benefited from the pilot project, said he was given Sap seedlings and farming techniques to grow the trees and now half of them bear fruit.
To further develop the special coconut, the department started a project to plant 50ha of Sap coconut in Hoa Tan Commune in 2008-10.
The department has scientifically improved the quality of the Sap seedlings and ua6ds artificial pollination to increase yields.
The project has also helped local farmers to grow other short-term crops in their Sap orchards between crops.
Farmer Thach Em in Chong No 1 village in Hoa Tan Commune, for instance, was instructed by local goverment scientists to grow nearly 400 seedless lemon trees in his Sap orchard.
Em said he earned VND20 million from the lemon last year.
Another farmer, Thach Chanh, who planted 400 Sap coconuts trees in Chong No 2 Village in Hoa Tan Commune, said 20 of the trees have started fruiting. He expects to earn VND1 billion (US$57.000) a year once all the trees can bear fruit.
In March last year, local authorities applied Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGap) standards in Hoa Tan Commune to raise the quality of Sap orchards.
Sap coconut was first planted in Tra Vinh province in 1924 after Thach So, the fourth head monk of Botum Saka Pagoda in Cau Ke District's Hoa An Commune, was given Sap coconut by a Philippine classmate when he studied in Cambodia. — VNS
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