When talking about natural coffee, the friends who stood shoulder to shoulder, side by side with Mr. Nam said: Nam! You are a madman! No one goes to do that.
“Crazy guy” on top of Brah Yang
The slope is zigzag, the soil is jagged, but Nguyen Thai Nam still increases the gas to let the motorbike climb forward. The car shook and sometimes the front wheel suddenly seemed to be lifted, deviating from the path. However, in some way, Mr. Nam still kept his balance and the car still jumped up deliciously.
At the height of 1,400m, where coffee is covered with carpets, Mr. Nam stopped the car and said: “This mountain is called Brah Yang. As the local ethnic minority people call it, Brah is the place to live. Yang means heaven and Brah Yang means abode of heaven.From this height, a large area of Di Linh Plateau (Lam Dong) can be seen.
Pointing to the slope, Mr. Nam said: “My brothers and sisters like to mechanize and drive up for convenience, but many delegations of agricultural experts and customers from Japan and Europe come here, they keep walking. Climb the path to the garden, they say, because they want to be integrated with nature, want to experience the fresh air of the mountains.”
Mr. Nguyen Thai Nam is the co-founder of Vietnam Organic Food and Agriculture Company (located in Di Linh district, Lam Dong). This unit’s “organic coffee” garden is developed with a total area of 35ha at Brah Yang mountain, Dinh Lac commune, Di Linh district.
About the journey of starting a business, Mr. Nam shared: 7 years ago, with the desire to bring clean coffee products and quality coffee to consumers, he researched, learned and determined to start a business. organic agricultural sugar. At that time, when listening to Mr. Nam’s presentation of a natural coffee model, the local traditional farmers firmly turned their backs on it. Friends who stood shoulder to shoulder and stood side by side did not hesitate to say: Nam! You are a madman! No one is going to do that!
Even though his point of view did not receive support, Mr. Nam still decided to start building the model. He shared: “In order to live with natural agriculture, I had to study and research a lot. When I started doing organic, I changed the traditional coffee model to farming towards agriculture. This method also contributes to improving the soil and water environment and gradually regains the ecosystem for the garden.
It took nearly 5 years, the traditional coffee garden of Mr. Nam’s family was “weaned” from toxic pesticides, “weaned” from chemical fertilizers and oriented towards natural farming. More specifically, the yield of the garden is still within the average range of 3 – 3.5 tons of kernels/ha.
Mr. Pham Quoc Nam (living in Dak R’lap district, Dak Nong), who came to visit the organic coffee garden on Brah Yang mountain, confided: “I knew about the coffee garden through some information from friends and colleagues. Karma. When visiting the garden, I feel the fresh and cool air, in harmony with the mountains and nature. Especially witness a completely different coffee making process compared to the way many locals still do. This is essentially green agriculture, creating clean and quality products.”
Bringing organic coffee to the US, the price is 3 times higher than normal
From the initial success, Mr. Nam has received the approval of everyone. The most remarkable are still the friends who once said that Nam Crazy has returned to learn, cooperate with capital to jointly produce and establish an organic agricultural product company.
Regarding the care process for the garden, Mr. Nguyen Thai Nam confided that, unlike the traditional process, the entire lawn in the 35-hectare garden is still maintained to keep moisture and create a living environment for natural enemies. In case the grass is too tall, overwhelming, affecting the growth of coffee, use a generator to cut the tops.
Mr. Nam also added that he is taking advantage of by-products such as coffee bark, branches and leaves of plants in the garden to incubate with trichoderma and combine sources of organic and microbial fertilizers to fertilize plants. In the case of coffee pests and diseases, garden owners use biological products to prevent them.
Currently, with the organic production process, all the coffee on the garden grows well. The tree is sturdy, very few pests and diseases. In the season of 2022 – 2023, the 35ha coffee garden of Vietnam Organic Food and Agricultural Products Company Cho collected nearly 100 tons of green kernels. Especially, on March 1, 2023, after a series of assessments and tests on buffer zones, isolation areas, water sources, soil sources, residues of pesticides, chemicals, heavy metals…, The coffee model of Vietnam Organic Food and Agricultural Products Company has been certified by the US USDA organization to meet international organic agricultural standards.
Recently, along with the development of organic coffee material areas on Brah Yang mountain, Mr. Nguyen Thai Nam has invested in building facilities, pre-processing and processing factories for organic coffee products in Di Linh district. and HCMC.
“These facilities and factories must also meet USDA’s strict organic standards. We are selling organic coffee products through the US market, some European countries and countries such as Japan, Korea, Thailand… The price of organic coffee (green bean) is 3 times higher. compared to traditional coffee”, Nguyen Thai Nam confided.
According to Mr. Nam, currently, the unit’s organic coffee products are not enough to supply customers. Therefore, he is planning to build a large-scale organic coffee development project in Di Linh district.
“I want to further expand this production process to increase the value of coffee and bring to the market quality and healthy products. Especially, I want to popularize the natural agricultural model to people, help people in the vicinity to convert and create coffee of higher value, “said Mr. Nam.
Mr. Vu Hong Long, Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Di Linh district, said that the whole district has over 45,000 hectares of coffee with a total annual output of about 145 thousand tons and about 95% of the local coffee is for export.
According to Mr. Long, the world trend is to increase organic production and consumption of organic products. Therefore, the locality is encouraging people, businesses, cooperative groups and cooperatives to focus on producing organic coffee, improving value.
Mr. Long shared: “Mr. Nguyen Thai Nam’s organic coffee model is a new model with a large area and has been certified by USDA to meet organic agricultural standards. In the coming time, we will work with Mr. Nam to have a direction to replicate the model, build attractions, and disseminate experiences to people.”
According to Mr. Nguyen Thai Nam, Vietnam’s coffee industry is facing many problems that make the export value not high. The reasons include that coffee is grown on land that has lost its ecosystem and that most coffee farmers do not have enough scientific knowledge about agriculture, especially the concept of sustainable agriculture.
Therefore, he wishes to build a large-scale organic coffee development project in Di Linh district according to the model of farm – processing factory – education and training in sustainable agriculture – trade and business. export quality coffee products. In which, core values must be achieved such as: No use of chemicals in farming and processing; no plastic waste; do not waste resources, conserve plant seed resources, preserve ecosystems; restore ecological resources of soil, nature and keep the growth process of plants naturally.
