Photo: Pham Tien Sinh takes care of "Kim hoang hau” melons which are grown under the VietGAP standards, the outcome of the elderly farmer’s first year of startup.

 From the media, he learned that some provinces and cities throughout the country had successfully applied greenhouse technology in agricultural production. Therefore, he packed up and set out to pursue his dream of seeing with his own eyes and learning the model. Sinh said he travelled to Da Lat (Lam Dong) and Ho Chi Minh City. He immediately fell in love with the farming models and wanted to try immediately.

In 2016, he decided to use all the money he had to pursue his dream of hi-tech agriculture, which was a big risk as high technology is very expensive. The cost of technical infrastructure, greenhouse system and net house amounted to billions of VND. In return, the investment created a breakthrough in production, the value of his products thereby increased significantly. Sinh became the first in the locality to conquer this ground-breaking application.

Since early 2017, the province’s market has seen the appearance of muskmelons, "Kim hoang hau” melons and cucumbers branded Hoa Binh GAP every two and a half months. These products are grown in high technology greenhouse with automatic watering equipment of Pham Tien Sinh. The products are welcomed in the market both in and outside the province. They are frequently in shortage conditions.

The elderly farmer said that it took him a lot of time to find the place with right conditions and then about one more year to build infrastructure meeting technological standards. Finally, his new greenhouse system was put into use at Village 2, Thanh Ha Town (Lac Thuy). Sinh dedicates all his attention, time and capital, including borrowed money, to the project. Every day, from dawn to dusk, he travels over more than 20 km by motorcycle from home to the farm and stays there until it is dark.

The greenhouse system and irrigation equipment of the farmer meet the standard of Israel. The cultivation in greenhouse has an outstanding advantage of avoiding rain, sunshine and the invasion of insects while allowing the proactive provision of nutrition for plants. Thanks to the system, he can produce clean, safe and non-pesticide products to the VietGAP standards. His company has a technical staff, while creating jobs for 10 local workers.

After one year, the farm produced four crops of fruit, with total turnover of 1.4 billion VND. Sinh calculates that he can recover the investment after two years, and he will enjoy profit for the next years. In addition, he plans to expand the greenhouse area from 5,000 square metres to 10,000 square metres in 2018. The remaining 4 hectares of his land will be used to grow organic vegetables to meet increasing demand of the market.

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