Tu Viet lua mua (the brand of six-month rice produced by Mr. Tu Viet): “Growing lua mua (six-month rice) to conserve the age-old local culture”
Mr. Tu Viet, an engineer from Cu La village, Chau Thanh district, Kien Giang province, once appeared crazy to many people as he nurtured a dream to restore six-month rice, local breeds of rice that are no longer in use because of their low yield. This determination is in stark contrast with everyone else’s ongoing embrace of high-yield breeds in response to the demands of the market. Mr. Tu Viet’s dream is driven by the memories of the taste of rice grains of the breeds during the harvest time and stories about golden days of the land and agricultural equipment and villagers’ activities associated with this farming method and the yesteryear cultural traditions of ancestors. Six-month rice are grown only in the rainy season, which ranges from the sixth through the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Therefore, there is only one crop for the breeds, for they will need plenty of water to germinate, grow and become mature. Furthermore, the six-month rice variety bring forth fruit by light period, meaning the fruit-bearing takes place in the season of northeast wind (the eleventh month of the lunar calendar year) and the harvest in the twelve month.
Mr. Tu Viet is officially known by the name of Le Quoc Viet, who works at the Sub-Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Chau Thanh District, Kien Giang province. Inherited two farming hectares, he has been taking pains to modify the soil with an aim just to conserve six-month rice varieties. These livelihood endeavors are now also carried on by other households in the community given the local authorities’ incentive schemes.
In order to restore six-month rice varieties, for which fertilizers or pesticides would not be used, Mr. Tu Viet built a local ecological niche for six-month rice by restoring native plants that used to be found with traditional farming such as co rau dua (Ludwigia adscendens (L.) Hara), Sesban-River Bean (Sesbania sesban), to name just a few and raising green lobsters and fresh water fish and ducks, which would help to kill pests. The farming work was done manually using traditional agricultural equipment all through the steps including weed clearing, plowing, soil-raking, sowing, pulling up of rice seedling, transplanting and harvesting. It took the rice as many as seven to eight months to grow mature and be ready for harvest naturally.
In order to get those native rice varieties, Mr. Tu Viet sought help from the Mekong Delta Development Institute (MID) of the University of Can Tho, whose breeding bank kept traditional six-month rice breeds. The Institute gave him several six-month rice varieties such as ba bui, mot bui, chim roi, trang tep vang (names of local rice varieties in Vietnamese), and 100 seeds each varieties. The early days were faced with difficulties as six-month rice varieties without fertilizers, and chemical supplements appeared to be well second to the ones presently in popular use in terms of resilience, adaptability to the elements, climate, pesticides, and soil pollution. Moreover, it has taken the Tu Viet lua mua breeds more than seven years to reach where they are now: They have become the pride of the villagers of Cu La, Chau Thanh, Kien Giang.
Mr. Tu Viet is currently further refining his rice farming models and coaching local people on how to grow these six-month rice varieties – with special interest in quality assurance and risk minimization. All the advice is taken from the wealth of experience he has had that aims to build up rice brands for the whole region. By this time, a wide variety of traditional rice breeds are available on his farm including mot bui, ba bui, trang tep vang, chim roi (names of local rice varieties in Vietnamese), nep than tau (Asian taste black glutinous rice), which have all been restored from near extinction. Despite the success, Mr. Tu Viet keeps on looking for even more traditional rice breeds and developing their own ecologies. All these attempts, he believes, will help to remind the young generations of a traditional agriculture that once existed and of the old-time farmers the memories of whom have apparently been faded. Mr. Tu Viet’s special attention is being paid to breeds that are almost lost such as trang tep trang, trang lun, tai nguyen, duoi trau, and chau hang vo (names of local rice varieties in Vietnamese). At this time, he is trying to restore the Nang thom Cho Dao breed, a rice specialty of Long An.
Together with the conservation of rice breeds, Mr. Tu Viet is also very interested in bringing to play and honoring traditional values of Vietnamese agriculture. The undertakings to do so, in his vision, will revive the images of the old agriculture in the mind of young people, who could thereby be able to appreciate the hardship of farmers and enjoy tasty chemical-free rice grains. Treasuring the ambition to bring the six-month rice culture to as many people as possible, especially the youth, Mr. Tu Viet has been building his own display yards of agricultural equipment that are associated with six-month rice. He has a sizeable collection of it for tourists and students to come and see themselves, including those of farming (sickles, rice planting tools, hoes, ploughs, turning-up forks, ox carts, threshing baskets), fishing (wooden eel-catching traps, fish-catching cage) and food processing (rice-hulling mills, rice mortars and sticks, flour mills). When the harvest time comes, his farm is very busy with paddy harvesting and threshing activities, which happen in the moonlight and are filled with the laughter of farmers harvesting the crop, the banging of paddy bundles, and grinding sounds of rice-hulling mills. All this will take participants back to the past years ago when life would be simple and straightforward.
Setting his mind on developing business brands of green six-month rice products for domestic and international consumers, Mr. Tu Viet has been funded by Mekong Organics PTY LTD, an Australian company, to do research into the farming system, biodiversity, eco-manufacturing of
bun gao lua mua sinh thai (ecological six-month rice vermicelli) and building rice value chain and value-added products and specialties. Their aim is to get approval for the green-organic production of six-month rice (on Australian organic standards such as NCO), paving the way for entry into the domestic and international markets. These attempts are supported by the United Kingdom Rufford Foundation
6). Funding support has also been given to their investments in building storage warehouses that can meet the required quality by the project “Organic Farming in the MRD, Vietnam”
7) run by Mekong Organics and the Rotary Club of Hall based in Canberra, Australia. By now, their eco-noodles have been launched and got keen interest from consumers.
Ech Op farm (literally meaning “frogs croaking”): “Managing nature by nature,” and “Eco-production going hand in hand with environmental education”
Very much aware of the enormous hazards on human health and the environment of chemical use in agricultural produce, Mr. Truong Thanh Dat (called Dat) took early and strong interest to study organic farming models proposed by his lecturers, friends, and others in the field. He has been growing the interest since he was a student majoring in rural development at the An Giang University, in the MRD. Observing that the market was lacking in green agricultural produce, Mr. Dat gave up his well-paying job at a high-tech park in 2017 and returned to his hometown, where he then set up his own farm – determined to embrace the ambition to develop nature-agreeable clean agriculture. The farm, as was explained by the agricultural engineer, was named Ech Op suggests an agricultural sphere that is traditional, taking advantage of natural strengths available and relying on nature to produce, for frogs, as was explained by Mr. Dat himself, will croak only when they find themselves in a habitat that is safe and clean. The Ech (frog) is the nature-based solution.
The Ech Op is located in My Phu village, My Quy Ward, Long Xuyen City, An Giang province. Its size was only 7,000m2 of field land in the beginning, but after three years in operation, it can now boast nine hectares. It also has several farming affiliates, including Cho Moi farm, My Khanh farm, and My Thoi farm around Long Xuyen city. Up to the present, the Ech Op has as many as 450 regular customers of its own products.
It is at the Ech Op that the measures are always taken to create an environment that is the most favorable for good insects and frogs, the existence of which helps to improve the natural farming conditions, diversify the local biology and maintain the ecological balance of the farm. Based on the experience from the previous generations, the Ech Op has been successful in making use of natural enemies killing each other and thereby growing green agricultural produce. The quality and safety of the products are also verified by rigorous scientific testing. No pesticides, no herbicides, no plant growth regulators, no genetically modified products while combining organic and inorganic fertilizers are the principles strictly applicable at the farm. The overall motto is “Use nature to manage nature,” which is constantly supported by constant research and rigorous testing, and all of these are believed to serve consumers the best meals. The farm has so far managed to produce as many as 40 types of vegetables and other agricultural produce, including husbandry-related products.
Production undergoes a wholly nature-based process at the Ech Op, where, for example, fertilizers are all organically sourced, from chicken manure, cow manure, and dry rice straw, etc. These fertilizers are either made on the farm or bought only from sellers with certificates of commodity origin that are clear. Throughout the early years, a reasonable combination of organic and non-organic (all tested) fertilizers was used for the soil up-gradation, yet since the third year onwards, neither chemical fertilizers nor pesticides have ever been used in any of the production stages. This is possible thanks to the insistence on enabling natural enemies to kill each other in order to protect the crops. It is for this reason that storks and cuckoos are raised on site to help kill insects, bugs and pests that are harmful to the plants.
The Ech Op Farm’s production is metaphorically a closed circuit as it makes use of the fact that natural enemies kill each other for the planting of vegetables of the same family such as cucumber, Chinese peas, bitter melons, and string beans. The crops are overlapping with the dual aim: (i) to ensure a non-stop supply of agricultural produce and (ii) to maintain the system of natural enemies working properly. This is because if the crops are all harvested at the same time, there would be no foods for the organisms, which would possibly lead to lean crops later on. There are always natural enemies in agriculture to make use of, and some of them are good while others are harmful – in certain ways. Taking advantage of this, the chain of supporting and killing each other turns out to be very effective on the farm. When a plant grows up, there will be some pests causing harm to it. The pests, however, will be sources of food for other organisms when they grow. One example is the Aphis gossypii bug. This insect is keen on eating cucumber, Chinese peas, string beans, and fruits of the same family, yet it falls prey to ladybugs. Eating the Aphis gossypii bug, ladybugs will turn into pupae, and then become adult ladybugs, which will be flying over to the cucumber, bitter melon, and pumpkin vines, of which they will be eating the rice, thrips and worm eggs. The ladybugs will not lay eggs on the cucumber, bitter melon or pumpkin vines. After having taken the foods, they will be copulating there before returning to the string bean vine to lay eggs. So, if the farm has a bad crop of the spring beans, an epidemic will consequently outbreak on the cucumber vines.
All this is the findings of long-time studies on plants which have proved to be practically effective on the Ech Op Farm. The plants acting as ‘sacrifice’ agents play an important role in maintaining the balance of the ecology of the whole farm. Without them, serious consequences would be likely to happen including diseases and decreased productivity and compromised quality. Furthermore, the ecology of the farm is always kept stable and safe for frogs and toads there to live well, a condition to kill pesticides and harmful insects and protect the farm.
Special attention is also paid to the fences that are made up by plants grown along the edges of the farm. To ensure the biological safety, bananas are planted in the outer as their large trunks and leaves prevent the penetration of chemicals used in neighboring fields and farms. Irrigation canals are also dug, functioning like rings, where there are plants such as cattails (Typha orientalis), water morning glory, lotus... that can filter pollutants. The water is filtered first by the aquatic plants and subsequently by the centrifugal filtering apparatus before feeding the automatic watering system in use for the entire farm. The clean water available in the irrigation canals enable aquatic organisms to live well and to prevent snails from entering the farm.
Remarkably, the pursuit of nature-agreeable agriculture is done along with educational activities about the environment. These are conducted by receiving onsite large groups of visitors, to whom and through whom these models of nature-agreeable agriculture are introduced. These have proved to work well as bids to raise people’s awareness about nature-agreeable agriculture and the due respect for natural laws.
The initial success stories have made the Ech Op farm owner be extended the invitation to speak at the First MRD Forum: Developing the Partnership Relations between Vietnam and Australia, an event taking place at the University of An Giang on January 14–15, 2019
8). It was through this opportunity that the Ech Op farm had become widely known. The field study presentation brought the farm to an audience of more than 200 members. Subsequently, the owner, Mr. Dat, got funded by Mekong Organics to study organic agriculture for nine months at the Asian Rural Institute (Japan) in 2021–2022
9). The
Ech Op farm becomes the social training point of the Mekong Organics when it hosted conferences and training for local for students and farmers in the Mekong Region. Since then the
Ech Op was through this trip that the
Ech Op farm’s reputation had gone beyond to the border to the world community.