An animal husbandry engineer in Ho Chi Minh City has become a successful organic baby vegetable supplier that sells hundreds of kilograms of produce daily.

Le Van Tuan, 29, owner of farmland spanning 9,000 square meters in Xuan Thoi Son Commune, Hoc Mon District, showed Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters his nursery where baby lettuces, cabbages, water spinach, and others are grown and harvested.

“No artificial fertilizer, no chemical preservatives, no pesticides, no plant growth stimulants, so no worries,” Tuan said smiling, adding that even the water used to water the vegetables is tested under strict conditions.

“The vegetables are organic from A to Z, and they are ready to serve,” he said, grabbing some and munching away.

Tuan admitted that growing and supplying organic baby vegetables have been a long journey filled with ups and downs and punctuated by failures.

From animal husbandry engineer to baby veggie grower

After obtaining an animal husbandry engineering degree, Tuan first raised a horde of pigs in District 12, but quickly gave it up as it barely enabled him to turn a profit.

“My grandma loves having vegetables in her dish rather than meat, so I started to grow some organic baby lettuces for my family,” he recalled.

As the crops grew perfectly, Tuan came up with the idea of producing organic baby vegetables because “it’s much cheaper in cost, has a shorter growth cycle, provides consecutive harvests, and thus yields a more sustainable income.”

The 29-year-old then applied to work as a trainee on baby veggie farms in Da Lat City in the Central Highlands and Tien Giang, a southern province.

After gaining some experience, Tuan hired an abandoned plot of land and started his veggie growing business.

Since 2012, while growing, he has piloted the incubation of seedlings from lettuces and water spinach imported from New Zealand onto soil made of coconut coir from Ben Tre, the southern coconut capital of Vietnam.

“The first crops failed to meet my expectation as most of the seeds did not germinate and began rotting,” Tuan recollected.

“I then discovered that seeds should be soaked in water for four to six hours to grow; otherwise, nothing will happen.”

“The seeds managed to germinate, but they didn’t seem to grow anymore,” Tuan told Tuoi Tre. Arriving in Hanoi for farming advice, he discovered that the row covers he was using let in too much sunlight, penetrating the plants.

The organic garden then kept growing until many lettuces began to wither and seedlings refused to sprout for two months.

He then tried to figure out the cause by planting the same type of seed in his own garden and then in another one. It appeared that the seeds planted in Tuan’s garden failed to sprout while those in the other grew normally.

“Actually, the coir was infected by a fungus, so I had to renew all the trays,” he said, adding that he felt relieved as the new crops of veggies then grew healthily.

Passion for safe food

Tuan spent two years piloting organic vegetables, which was discouraging as “no one bought them.”

“They even refused to consume them when I gave them away for free,” he said while sharing his memories of marketing his products.

Since giving up was not an option, Tuan kept delivering his goods to wholesale markets at night, while continuing to introduce the vegetables to eateries and fresh food retailers in the city center, knowing there was a high chance of them being rejected.

“Additionally, I carried out giveaways at pagodas and restaurants. Some found the veggies tart while others said it was not tasty,” Tuan said.

He added that consumers tended to choose cheap, good-looking items, ignoring their safety, which discouraged him a lot.

To gain trust, Tuan invited restaurant owners and wholesalers to his garden.

“Things got better after that as many have become my main trading partners,” he said cheerfully, adding that he has set up a company and has created a website as well to introduce the process of growing organic vegetables on his farm to customers.

Tuan said that whenever a produce fair opened, he registered a stand to market his products.

Thai Hung Phat, a trader at Thu Duc Agriculture Wholesale Market, said that on seeing Tuan marketing baby veggies, he decided to buy some out of pity for him.

“I am now one of his main trading partners,” the merchant happily said, noting that customers prefer Tuan’s products.

Currently, Tuan’s farm produces more than 200 kilograms of organic baby vegetables daily.

“That’s not enough to meet public demand, so I am trying to design automatic seed classification and other machinery to improve capacity,” Tuan said.

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