Pepper, the “golden” crop of Vietnam

Vietnam became the world’s No. 1 pepper producer since 2000 and for 14 consecutive years, since then, that position has remained unchanged.

Billionaire Nghe Tinh Village

The pepper growing area of ​​Binh Phuoc province is mostly located along National Highway 13 in Loc Ninh and Bu Dop districts. Through the crossroads of Hoa Lu border gate 20 km, Tan Tien commune, Bu Dop district has Tan Hoa hamlet, but the name of that hamlet is only used for administrative purposes, while the common name is the billionaire Nghe Tinh village.

The whole village has more than 100 households, 100% of them have their original hometowns in Nghe An and Ha Tinh and 100% of them have an income of 1 billion VND/year.

In 1988, Mr. Cao Dinh Hong brought 5 children, 4 boys and 1 girl: Tan, Tien, Manh, Hung, Phuong, all in the “golden working age” from Nghia Trung commune, Nghia Dan district, Nghe An province to set up a business here. .

This land used to have owners, but the new economic households of Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnamese overseas Vietnamese households in Cambodia who fled to Pol Pot could not survive, and Mr. Hong thanks to his new economic “vision” (who used to be Hung Nguyen people who went to Nghia Dan for new economic activities) so they soon discovered a gold mine under the red-brown basalt soil and planted pepper from the early days.

Initially, only a few hundred pillars, but with the price of 1 gold/kg of pepper, Mr. Hong improved very quickly and attracted many other families and Tan Hoa hamlet became a billionaire Nghe Tinh village. Mr. Hong’s family alone has 40 hectares, growing 3 main trees: pepper, rubber and coffee, in which pepper is the mainstay with an average output of 35 tons/year.

Not only Tan Hoa, but pepper has made many other billionaire hamlets, changing the lives of thousands of farmers from poor to rich and rich in Chau Duc (BR-VT), Xuan Loc, Cam My (Dong Nai). ), Dak Mil, Cu Jut (Dak Nong), Eakar, Eahleo (Dak Lak) Chu Se (Gia Lai)…

Coming to these hamlets, you think that you are somewhere in the world because everyone has a villa, full of modern living facilities, a bank account, credit card usage, internet usage and special features. Especially on the holidays, the convoy of cars, their children are going to do business in the cities, one after another…

The power of information

Vietnam became the world’s No. 1 pepper producer since 2000 and for 14 consecutive years, since then, that position has remained unchanged. Pepper is the only agricultural product of Vietnam that does not have a “good season” because farmers can self-regulate the amount of goods sold from time to time to get the most favorable price.

Why can’t products with similar strengths of pepper such as coffee and catfish do that? The answer is that pepper is supported by information. There is no item that has transparent information on production output, inventory, supply-demand balance, prices in each market updated in a complete, timely, and highly reliable manner. as information of the World Pepper Association IPC.

Joining IPC in 2005, Vietnam Pepper Association – VPA is the only industry association of Vietnam to join the world industry association and become the most important member, the member with the highest membership fee contribution. $100,000/year), for this organization.

IPC has 6 members, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Srilanka and Vietnam with a total output of 331,500 T, accounting for 87% of the world’s pepper production (in 2013), so the voice of IPC is extremely important in the production and business activities of this industry on a worldwide scale.

Information of IPC is retransmitted by VPA on its website and becomes an extremely effective consulting tool not only for businesses and farms but also for thousands of other pepper growing households.

On the other hand, because it has been accumulated for many years, most pepper growing households are not forced by ordinary rice, and can store it in normal bags for 2-3 years without fear of damage. This is the basis for pepper growers and pepper growers to choose the most suitable selling time for them.

What are the advantages of Vietnamese pepper?

In 2014, the total area of ​​Vietnam’s pepper business was about 63,000 hectares with an output of 135,000 tons (excluding 20,000 tons of imports) selling $1,080 million (excluding 6,000 tons for domestic consumption) on average, earning more than 1 million tons per hectare. 17,000 USD (equivalent to 350 million VND).

2014 became a historic year in all three aspects: area, output, value, and also the highest year for pepper prices at farmers – an average of 170,000 VND/kg. With the above price, few trees can match and become the driving force to explode the new planting area.

According to estimates of many experts, the new planting area in 2013 and 2014 is very large, estimated at 10,000 ha/year and shows no signs of stopping, so the area of ​​pepper in the coming years will be 100,000 ha. , twice the area planned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In parallel with the explosion in area, intensive farming will also explode in disease. An investigation by the Southern Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology shows that pepper is suffering from 8 serious diseases including fast death, slow death, leaf curl, root rot, black leaf spot, white leaf spot, weed spot, and cotton aphids, including 2 dangerous diseases. The most deadly diseases that have wiped out many pepper areas in Vietnam are the fast death caused by Phytophthora and the slow death caused by Fusarium.

Many fungal diseases make the amount of pesticides used on pepper increase, the risk of food insecurity, which is the main reason why Vietnamese pepper is not reliable enough to break into fastidious markets such as America, Europe, Japan. The price of 200,000 VND/kg is considered a record within 15 years of Vietnamese pepper, but it is still very cheap compared to India, Malaysia, and Indonesia from 1,500 to 2,500 USD/T.

There have been many delegations of IPC to visit Vietnam pepper, including many leading scientists on pepper. When they come to the pepper gardens with a yield of 4-5 T/ha, they all praise our farmers, but when they come back to the hotel, there are only a few loved ones left, they say otherwise, 30 years, 50 years ago the lake. Their pepper used to be just as productive but was disrupted by disease. According to them, if you want to be sustainable, the yield should only be maintained around 2 T/ha.

The price increase for many years of pepper due to the development of the fast food processing industry using more spices; The sudden price increase from USD 7,053 to USD 11,000/T at the end of 2014 was mainly due to a decrease in production of 43,000 T from India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. These countries, especially Brazil, are making efforts to increase pepper production, and it is forecasted that demand and supply will not exceed supply in 2015 and beyond.

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