All of the orchards in Lai Thieu are losing their position as the most beautiful in the south-eastern region of Vietnam.

Reasons for this decline include the harsh natural environment and climate change, the backward methods that local fruit farmers use to grow their trees, and the lack of finance and technology.

Therefore, Lai Thieu fruit growers are trying to make small profits from the last exhausted fruit trees that remain in their small gardens by cooperating with local brokers. Together, fruit farmers and brokers have shared their profits.

Tempters’ methods

Local brokers usually gather together at the Ngang Bridge pier in Hung Dinh Commune in Thuan An Town to wait for tourists. After seeing a group of visitors, many of the brokers follow them and loudly plead with them to visit one of the fruit gardens.

This past July, broker Thuy successfully lured a group of six tourists into visiting a farmer named Ba’s garden, which was extolled as an “ecological garden”. While standing at the front gate, Thuy said to the tourists, “There are many kinds of fruit trees like rambutan, durian, mangosteen and many other tropical trees at the center of this garden. All are available for you to enjoy freely.”

However, after walking for a while, all the group saw were a few exhausted jack-fruit and banana trees in a small garden. Furthermore, this so-called “ecological garden” was extremely polluted because the man-made canal was full of garbage. It was actually nothing more than a deserted fruit garden with no name and no local control from authorities.

In another case Ba invited her customers, a couple of tourists who had come to visit her “empty garden”, to rest in her shed and served them coconut juice along with some cold towels. In the end she charged them the unreasonable price of VND 98,000 for the service. Ba explained, “It includes the parking cost, tour guide cost, water cost, and ‘seat cost’ ”.

When the fruit farmer was asked about fruits, she revealed, “There is no fruit left. If you want to enjoy fruit, you will have to come back at another time”.

“I had heard about the famous fruit gardens in Lai Thieu, so I travelled from Hanoi to Binh Duong Province to visit. But how disappointing it is!”, one tourist complained. 

According to other fruit farmers, the gardens in Lai Thieu have disappeared over a long time period because the locals hardly care for their trees nowadays. Currently, profits from selling fruit are too small, and as a result farmers have switched careers, from fruit growing into running their own tourism activities.

There are more than ten gardens being operated as tourism areas in Lai Thieu under the name of “ecological gardens”.

Shared profits

These fruit farmers and brokers have agreed to various deals in different kinds of services, such as seat prices, food and water prices, cold towel prices, and tour guide and parking prices. For example, fruit farmers usually take VND 20,000 for each seat, and half of this money will be shared with brokers.

Moreover, brokers will get a 25 percent commission (about VND 5,000) on every coconut juice that fruit farmers sell and a half commission on each cold towel sold. These prices will be adjusted up or down, depending on each kind of customer.

According to local authorities, all of these orchards are illegal. They run their own tourism services without registering them with the government. On the other hand, the legal gardens always have signboards and sell things at fixed and proper prices.

The authorities revealed that to solve this problem, the government is planning to call for investment in the development of Lai Thieu’s orchards, as well as to provide farmers with modern technology, fertilizer, and guidelines for growing fruit trees.