High income, better life

This year, Luc Nam’s custard-apple output is estimated at more than 14,000 tonnes from an area of over 1,700 hectares. This year, the custard-apples are sold well at high prices, so people are excited to welcome the new fruit season.

A custard-apple purchasing point in Huyen Son commune (Luc Nam district).

It is estimated that Huyen Son provides the market with about 20 tonnes of custard-apple per day. Khuyen village alone has four points for purchasing agricultural products. About a dozen traders gather custard-apples at each point.

Pham Thi Hang, a trader from Hanoi, happily said: “I bring custard-apples to sell in the area near the Noi Bai international airport. To have good custard-apples, I often go very early. With many years doing this job, I find that the Luc Nam custard-apple has a good quality. We can buy custard-apples here for many days because the harvest time is longer than before”.

Determining the custard-apple as the crop for main income, helping to increase economic efficiency, people in Huyen Son commune continue to expand the growing area. This year, the whole commune has 150 ha of custard-apple, an increase of 20 ha compared to the previous year.

With more than one hectare, this crop, the household of Phuong Minh Hien in Khuyen village is expected to earn about 400 million VND (17,250 USD). Since the beginning of the crop, Hien has sold about 2 tonnes of the fruit, with a price of 37,000-45,000 VND per kg. Similarly, the households of Tran Van Hoa and Luu Van Khien in Van Giang village also pocketed millions of VND from custard-apple gardens.

In Dong Phu commune (Luc Nam), there are more than 100 ha of custard-apple, concentrated in Yen Bac and Phong Quang villages. The price of custard-apple here ranges from 30,000 VND to 45,000 VND per kg (depending on type). The custard-apple tree has brought a prosperous life to local people.

A safe and durable product

Compared with some other fruit trees, the Luc Nam custard-apple still sees a bumper crop despite unfavorable weather. A special point is that it is not harvested at the same time, thus avoiding the pressure to reduce prices caused by traders. 

Farmers can make the custard-apples ripen at a certain time in the day and the harvest time lasts from now to the 11th lunar month instead of just 20 days as before. At the end of the year, the average selling price in the garden is 60,000-70,000 VND per kg. It means that a basket of custard-apple is equivalent to 100 kilograms of rice.

Bui Van Quang, Director of the Luc Nam Custard-apple Cooperative, shared that people in the commune now master the techniques of artificial pollination and adjusting the time for the custard-apple to produce fruits. The custard-apple mainly produces fruits from the trunk and main branches.

The fruits are nutritious, strongly sweet and bigger. With the establishment of the cooperative, members exchange their experience and agree not to "force" the custard-apple to produce fruits at the same time.

Luc Nam custard-apple growers have also actively applied safety care measures to help the fruits meet food hygiene requirements, and the trees live longer. The custard-apple is a difficult-to-grow plant; if the trees are not well cared, they can only be harvested for 1-2 crops. 

Learning from each other’s experience, gardeners have focused on using organic fertilizers and biological products to help the trees become healthy and increase resistance to pests and diseases. This is also the way that custard-apple growers protect their own health because they rarely use chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Luc Nam has many advantages in developing fruit trees, of which the custard-apple is the main product of the locality that always receives attention and support from the district authorities. 

Currently, the district's specialized unit is coordinating with relevant agencies to complete the procedures for building the geographical indication "Luc Nam" for the district's custard-apple. It is expected that the work will be announced in August this year.

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