Many residents from Ho Chi Minh City have traveled to Da Lat City, in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, to come to a long-term agreement on purchasing organic vegetables from local growers after examining their farm for food safety standards.

Vietnam’s food market has been infested with concerns regarding contaminated products unfit for consumption, hence the distrust directed to producers. 

This negative feeling causes users to gravitate toward locations known to provide ‘clean’ food, one of which is Da Lat City, in Lam Dong Province.

“Vegetables sold in markets and supermarkets may be reliable, but I’m still worried because I can’t trace their origins,” said Ho Hai Yen, 40, in Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City, who visited Da Lat to buy food directly from the farm.

She said that she even does not completely believe vegetables with clear labels and price tags, for she had been deceived by an online produce trading company offering such goods.

“I only trust vegetables after examining in person and considering all elements in production," Yen said.

On the weekend, it is easy see tourists from Ho Chi Minh City performing checks on plants, fruits, and fertilizers or pesticides used on farms in Da Lat, and even requiring growers to present official quality certificates in order to be assured of the vegetables’ safety.

Yen visited up to six farms in Da Lat over the weekend, checking whether there were any generic pesticide bottles lying around, or labeled bottles with no import stamp.

A number of growers were taken aback when she took a sample of soil from their land and smelled it before bringing it home to examine its heavy-metal content.

Workers prepare cabbages for packaging in Da Lat, Vietnam. Photo: Tuoi Tre

She decided on a farm to purchase food from after comparing the results from different locations.

A similar degree of scrutiny was also shown by Do Quynh Trang, 36, from Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City, who took photos of approved documents on food safety and vegetable analysis at a garden in Da Lat.

She randomly chose leaves from the farm then subjected them to an examination in Ho Chi Minh City and has every several months performed unexpected checks on the farm she had preliminarily selected.

These suspecting gestures at first annoyed growers, who have later resignedly accepted, realizing they also benefit from the scrutiny.

“At the beginning, I wasn’t inclined to let visitors take samples, because if they make inaccurate analysis, they may cause trouble for us and reduce our trustworthiness,” said Nguyen Dinh, owner of a farm in Da Lat.

“Now I’ve sold all my various vegetables only to those households in Saigon.”

He added that people in Da Lat know how important clean vegetables are, which means they are willing to purchase them at the market price.

Mai Van Khan, director of the local Tan Tien cooperative, noted that the customer’s attention to farms leads to more careful cultivation, which generates stronger reputations and more wholesale contracts.

The Lam Dong authority has encouraged growers to invite visitors from other locations for tours around their farms and present necessary certificates on food safety, according to Nguyen Van Son, director of the municipal department of agricultural development. 

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