In a border village of Son La Province in northwestern Vietnam, a single farmer who turned a cornfield into a citrus orchard harvests roughly 100 tonnes a year, earning more than ten times what he did when growing corn and cassava. It is the case of Hoang Cong Van of Long Sap village (xã Lóng Sập), reported by the local paper Dan Viet. For Japanese sourcing staff and fruit-tree people, the article that followed a young man taking on Son La Arabica— the same flow of 'switching to a cash crop' seen there is now happening with citrus too. What is worth noting is not the amount but the substance of the cultivation: for 15 years using no herbicide at all, planting along contour lines on the slope, and growing with the grass left in place. Because it overlaps, to a surprising degree, with the thinking Japanese horticulture people have built up over many years.
A crop switch that happened in a border village
Van's orchard is 5 hectares. The mainstays are cam Canh (a thin-skinned, sweet local mandarin) and seedless tangerine, with about 1,000 seedless mandarin trees added. From this, roughly 100 tonnes of fruit are harvested each year.
Previously this land centered on crops like corn, cassava, and ginger. Continuous cropping on the slope wears out the soil, and income is unstable. Van, who decided on a full switch to fruit trees in his 40s, toured advanced northern citrus areas such as nearby Cao Phong to bring back techniques, and has spent more than ten years building up the orchard.
Why he kept 'using no herbicide' for 15 years
At the core of this orchard are two labor-intensive choices. One is the method of planting along contour lines on the slope, keeping the row width at about 2 meters and minimizing digging. This is to curb the loss of topsoil, the biggest enemy on sloped land, and to keep nutrients in the soil.
The other is grass-cover cultivation. For about 15 years, Van has used no chemical herbicide at all. The grass in the orchard is mowed by machine, and the cut grass is laid at the base of the trees as mulch. It is a system that protects the soil's humus layer and keeps returning organic matter. Fertilizer, too, is mainly organic compost he prepares himself from corn and soybeans, with chemical fertilizer added only in very small amounts during flowering and fruiting.
This is almost the same idea as the method known in Japanese citrus areas and tea gardens as 'grass-cover cultivation' and 'no-till.'a demonstration in Quang Tri Province that returned forest to coffee fields and raised the unit price As with that, the path by which cultivation that lowers environmental load ends up pushing up both quality and price is beginning to appear in citrus too.
The gap with corn, in numbers
Lining up the positioning of Van's orchard and Son La Province's citrus and fruit trees with reporting and the province's published figures looks like this.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Cultivated area | 5 ha (cam Canh + seedless tangerine, about 1,000 seedless mandarin trees) |
| Annual harvest | about 100 tonnes |
| Annual revenue / profit | Annual revenue on the scale of several billion dong, profit of several hundred million dong (at 10,000 dong ≈ ¥60, 1 billion dong = about ¥6 million) |
| Comparison with former crops | More than ten times the income of the corn, cassava, and ginger era |
| Herbicide | Zero for about 15 years (grass-cover cultivation, grass mulch) |
The amounts are reported with ranged expressions — 'several billion dong,' 'several hundred million dong' — so asserting a single yen-converted value is best avoided. Still, the fact that a family-scale operation runs a not-small 5 hectares and, even with chemical inputs squeezed this far, produced a tenfold gap speaks to the solidity of the cultivation model itself.
The depth of Son La Province as a producing area
This single case is not just a story of outstanding individual skill. Son La Province is the largest fruit-tree producing area in the north, holding over 85,000 hectares of fruit trees and son tra combined, with 2026 fruit output projected at over 390,000 tonnes. The province maintains 216 cultivation codes (area codes) covering about 2,800 hectares, of which 200 are prepared for export.
| Son La Province indicators | Figures (2026 guide) |
|---|---|
| Fruit-tree and son tra cultivation area | over 85,000 ha (largest in the north) |
| Fruit output | over 390,000 tonnes |
| Growing-area code | 216 codes, about 2,800 ha (of which 200 for export) |
| 2026 farm-product export target | US$240 million |
The province's policy, too, is shifting its footing from the stage of expanding area to quality, food safety, processing, and widening sales channels. Beneath the base that lets individual farmers go all-in on reduced pesticides is this lifting of the whole producing area.
Three implications from the standpoint of sourcing for Japan and horticulture
For Japanese buyers and fruit-tree people, the meaning of this case can be summed up in three points.
- An agreement of cultivation philosophy— grass-cover cultivation, no-till, and self-made compost point in the same direction as the techniques Japanese orchards have built up in reduced-pesticide farming and soil-building. The fact that there is a counterpart in northern Vietnam with whom quality can be discussed in a common language is an entry point to producing-area development.
- Stability as a supply source— an orchard that squeezes chemical inputs is structurally lower in the risks of residual pesticides and soil degradation. Fresh-fruit quarantine for Japan is still a high hurdle for citrus, but in a phase of seeking sourcing for processing material or for drying and juice, the clarity of the cultivation record becomes credibility as is.
- Reproducibility of the revenue model— the path of switching a cash crop on a worn slope to high-value-added fruit trees while reducing inputs and multiplying income tenfold can be traced in other provinces and other items too. a farmer in Gia Lai Province who proved that 'organic pays' Likewise, reduced pesticides can be a source of profit rather than endurance.
Of course, a single household's 100-tonne scale does not become an export lot as is. But securing early a producing area that can speak to 'who grew it and how' is becoming a condition for breaking out of competition on price alone.
Summary-what to check next
The citrus orchard in Long Sap village, Son La Province, kept up the plain choices of zero herbicide and grass-cover cultivation for 15 years and arrived at a figure of ten times the corn era. From here, the sourcing side should follow three points. First, the spread of the area codes and export-oriented orchards that Son La Province is preparing in 2026. Second, through which route — processing, drying, or juice — such reduced-pesticide orchards go outside. Third, how local and semi-local varieties such as cam Canh and seedless tangerine fit real Japanese demand. First, please check the registration status of the area codes and the movement of Son La Province's 2026 fruit season.
