Identifying lemon trees suitable for soil conditions in communes in economically efficient industrial tree areas, specialized sectors in Ben Luc district (Long An) have regularly organized technical guidance on planting and caring for lemon trees, transferring scientific and technical advances to farmers, advocate directing farmers to cooperative economic production.
Area of agricultural land in Ben Luc, Long An
Ben Luc district has a total area of over 8,000 hectares. In previous years, Ben Luc was known as the sugarcane cultivation area of Long An province. However, in recent sugarcane crops, sugarcane prices are precarious, and farmers' lives face many difficulties. The shift from sugarcane cultivation to other crops with higher economic efficiency has been paid special attention by functional sectors, localities and people.
Accordingly, starting from 2002, with the guidance of functional sectors and the research of farmers, many households in Ben Luc have boldly converted from sugarcane to seedless lemon trees, initially giving higher efficiency than sugarcane with an area of about 1 hectare planted, in hamlet 1, Binh Duc commune. Next, households in hamlet 7 of Luong Hoa commune also planted 2 hectares of lemon varieties with the above seeds and the people saw the economic effect from this crop.
Since 2002, the seedless lemon tree, commonly known as paper lemon or prickly lime, has taken its foot on Ben Luc land and has now grown to thousands of hectares, concentrated in Thach Hoa, Thach Loi, Hung Hoa communes ...
Exploiting the soil strengths of seedless lemon cultivation
Identifying lemon trees suitable for soil conditions in communes in economically efficient industrial tree areas, specialized branches in Ben Luc district have regularly organized technical guidance on planting and caring for lemon trees, transferring scientific and technical advances to farmers, advocate directing farmers to cooperative economic production. Since the end of 2011, Ben Luc district has built the exclusive brand of Ben Luc lemon.
Local authorities and all levels and branches in the district have also promoted to find stable output for lemon tree products, expand investment cooperation relationships, invite businesses to set up purchasing facilities, processing lemons in the district.
In addition, the district also directed the agricultural sector to continue guiding and supporting farmers to promote science and technology transfer, open many classes to guide lemon cultivation, build lemon material areas according to the decision of the People's Committee of Long An province on the implementation of the Project "Production and consumption of commercial lemons".
In 2014, Ben Luc district officially established Thanh Hoa Agricultural Service Cooperative, opening a new direction for Ben Luc lemon trees, developing the scale of seedless lemon area, building a specialized cultivation area, orienting to develop production models according to VietGap and GlobalGap standards. The market for lemon fruit consumption in the district is quite rich such as domestic consumption and export through official sugar, urinary sugar, export to European markets, Middle East countries and countries in the region.
Scale of seedless lemon growing area in Long An
According to statistics of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ben Luc district, the area of lemon trees of this district is currently 4,776 hectares, of which seedless lemons occupy over 3,580 hectares.
Long An province set a target of developing the area of lemon trees by 2020 of about 10,000 hectares, of which, Ben Luc district determined to expand the area of lemon trees to 5,000 hectares, mainly seedless lemons, develop specialized agricultural production areas in the direction of collective economic development, help farmers have stable output to bring Ben Luc lemon products to the world market.
At the same time, Ben Luc district will also make efforts to strengthen trade promotion activities, brand building, product quality management and improve collective economic efficiency. The goal is to form a good agricultural production process, value chain model, safe supply of lemon products, contributing to building a comprehensive sustainable agriculture.
In addition, Ben Luc continues to call on domestic and foreign enterprises to invest, develop production and consumption of lemon products; invest and develop lemon products to improve economic value and stabilize output for branded lemons of Ben Luc district./.
Source: Online newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam
