Nguyen The Tung: The person who inspires the entrepreneurial spirit in young people
In recent times, agriculture has increasingly attracted many union members and young people to participate, becoming a fertile land for startups, especially agricultural startups. Each union member and young person starting a business has a path and a method to approach agriculture, but among young people, there is one thing in common: the determination to dare to think and dare to do, which has raised the level of agricultural products, contributing to bringing a new look to agriculture.
Along with that trend, starting a business with agriculture, especially high-tech agriculture and clean agriculture, is becoming a trend and choice of many young people. With youthful energy and many passionate ideas, the desire to establish themselves and start a business, many young people have boldly developed the economy from the agricultural production model on their homeland's land, bringing high economic efficiency, creating stable jobs for many local workers. I was lucky to meet Mr. Nguyen The Tung - General Director of Queen Farm (Binh Phuoc) at the workshop "Eco-agriculture, professional farmers - Aspiration to reach new heights", listening to him share about the role of young people participating in developing ecological agriculture associated with building a high-tech organic agricultural model. The person who inspires a strong entrepreneurial spirit in young people.
Mr. Tung shared, before, I knew nothing about agriculture. I studied for a master's degree in Business Administration in the UK. It was my mother who inspired me, creating opportunities for me to learn about agriculture, and learn about high-tech agricultural models.
"Not having knowledge in agriculture is also very difficult for me, from someone who has no knowledge of agriculture, so I had to study a lot on my own. I studied by myself, learned from experts, colleagues, learned from good engineers... I traveled a lot to learn from other people's mistakes. From there, I learned from my own experiences", said Mr. Tung.
The farm started planting durian in mid-2020, when durian prices were not as "hot" as they are now, but Mr. Tung determined to invest systematically and seriously to supply products to the export market. Specifically, Mr. Tung invested in an irrigation system using Israeli technology, with the pipelines around the farm alone being 75km long.
From the initial confusion, Mr. Tung gradually became more and more passionate about gardening, growing fruit trees and wanted to build an experimental farm to grow high-tech durian, applying organic farming processes and ISO 9001:2000 quality management system. At that time, Queen Farm became a standard model not only in terms of planning for easy management but also in terms of solutions for plant care. Thanks to that, his 55-hectare farm only needed 13 workers to operate, including management and tree care techniques.
This modern irrigation system is connected to an app installed on the phone, so users can set the desired watering time, and the plants will be automatically watered at the set time. Every day, 2 agricultural engineers will visit the garden to check the situation of pests and diseases, growth status, and measure humidity... Thanks to that, the care of each durian, star apple, or jackfruit tree is strictly controlled. For example, in 2023, the weather was unusual but only 4 durian trees died out of a total of nearly 10,000 trees.
Currently, his farm is creating jobs for 13 regular workers with a stable income of 8-15 million VND/person/month.
Answering the question of what motivated him to pursue agriculture, Mr. Tung said, if I choose peace, I should stay in the heart of the bustling city. Choose for yourself investment methods that follow financial trends. Instead of having to rush into agriculture at the dawn of the new era, which I consider a green revolution of which I am a part. Accepting sacrifices and overcoming fears. Accepting to retreat to a remote place where electricity is a luxury.
“So where is the reason?”, I asked.
“Perhaps I still have a promise to my deceased mother. Also because I feel I still have a “debt” to my homeland, my community... And somewhere there is the ambition to pass on my thinking to the younger generations on the path of starting a business with agriculture, so I embarked…”, Mr. Tung answered and emphasized.
Therefore, when starting to build an ecological farm, Mr. Tung thought that at an appropriate stage, there would be groups of visitors coming here to experience and enjoy the fruit trees on the farm; experience the farming work of the farmers here so that they understand that farming is done in the original way, but can be built more systematically, with more standardized planning in line with the general trend of the world.
Although the original goal has not been achieved yet, his farm has become a destination for learning and experiencing for students and those interested in agriculture. Somewhere, he feels that what he does has spread his passion to many young people who want to start a business from agriculture.
With the goal of exporting durian to demanding markets, Mr. Nguyen The Tung strictly adheres to the food safety farming process, ensuring traceability, and input and output management stages are recorded daily.
Mr. Tung commented that currently, consumers consider food safety an important "measure" for fruit tree products. In addition, the quality of the product is also required to be higher for international consumers. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of domestic and foreign consumers, manufacturers need to create products that meet standards.
Mr. Tung shared that, with Queen Farm's practical experience, one of the three basic philosophies and cultures that the Farm chooses is ecology. Queen Farm always takes the motto "what is taken from the Earth must be returned to the Earth in the most grateful way".
His goal: First, the farm has oriented towards organic farming from the beginning, currently Queen Farm has implemented the international farming practice Global GAP from the very first days. With the total amount of organic nutrients for farming accounting for 75-80% of the process.
Second, the entire nutritional process is self-produced using microbial technology with a variety of beneficial bacteria strains that are beneficial for the soil, for plants, and reduce pests and diseases. In addition, Queen Farm selects purebred native vegetation that is beneficial to the soil, such as ginger grass, pearl grass, Chinese cogon grass, pig manure, and adds other beneficial plants such as legumes to fix nitrogen and Vetiver grass to create oxygen ventilation in the soil as well as prevent crop leaching.
Finally, Queen Farm is loyal to the Zero waste policy, in particular, plastic packaging waste, plant protection packaging that has been left in the soil for many years will be continuously collected and treated according to Global GAP standards. A few simple examples like the above show that Queen Farm is especially interested in the green environment not only on the farm but also in the surrounding environment. Queen Farm considers soil care to be good for plants, minimizes chemical fertilizers and protects plants from soil erosion or causing chemical residues in the soil. Queen Farm considers the Ecological philosophy as a mission that must be carried out when coming to agriculture, aiming to create a sustainable green agricultural ecosystem.
Author: Thanh Thuy
