In the Dong Dat hamlet of Phu Luong district, Thai Nguyen province in northern Vietnam, party-branch secretary Bui Van Duong planted about 3 hectares of green bamboo (tre lục trúc) ahead of others, and his family's annual income has now reached about 450 million dong (roughly 2.65 million yen at an estimate of 1 yen ≈ 170 dong). The local paper Dan Viet reported this on July 25, 2026. As villagers hesitated over a new crop, a standard-bearer took on the first loss risk himself—this order grew bamboo shoots, a raw material, into a single production region. For Japanese food manufacturers, it offers concrete material for thinking about how to position Vietnam as a supply source for boiled bamboo shoots and menma.
The one who planted 3 ha first in Dong Dat hamlet was not a villager but party-branch secretary Mr. Duong
According to reports, a new-crop project introduced in the past had underperformed in this hamlet, and farmers were skeptical of a new item. Establishing a green-bamboo raw-material zone required registration of 8 hectares, but there were not enough households raising their hands. Here Mr. Duong took cultivation training in 2022 and took on the missing area himself. He planted first, showed profitability through harvest and sales, and then the surrounding farmers followed. Now, of the 8 hectares, the Duong family handles about 3 hectares and other farmers about 5 hectares.
This 'bet first' structure often becomes the starting point in region-building in rural Vietnam. The case in which a former party secretary rebuilt a village through raising Boer goats, the Tuyen Quang case, read alongside it, brings into view a common pattern: consensus moves when a person in a leadership position shoulders the first demonstration. Before technology or subsidies, who bears the first year is the branching point.
30 kg per plant, 50,000 dong per kg: green-bamboo shoot economics underpin 300–350 million dong in direct-sale income
Following the figures makes green-bamboo shoots' economics clear. By Mr. Duong's account, the annual input per plant is about 40,000 dong (roughly 240 yen), and the fresh shoots harvested from one plant come to about 30 kilograms. The harvest season is long, from March to October. The direct-sale price of fresh shoots is 50,000 dong per kilogram (about 290 yen), and of the family's total income of 450 million dong, 300–350 million dong (about 1.76–2.06 million yen) comes from fresh-shoot sales alone, with the remaining 100–150 million dong filled by sales of seedlings and prepped or dried product. At peak times he hires 10–15 day laborers and ships 400–500 kilograms a day, with delivery destinations extending to Hai Phong, Hanoi, Thai Nguyen and Da Nang.
| Product form | Price (per kg) | Approximate yen conversion |
|---|---|---|
| Fresh bamboo shoots (direct sale) | 50,000 dong | About 290 yen |
| Prepped / packaged product | 60,000 dong | About 350 yen |
| Dried bamboo shoots | 1.5–2 million dong | About 8,800–11,800 yen |
As the order of magnitude of the price gap shows, taking it as far as drying makes the unit price around 30 times that of fresh. There is demand for the seedlings themselves too: Mr. Duong selects sound plants to keep as seedlings, and orders come in from several provinces including Ha Giang. As a perennial crop that can be harvested for a long time after planting, it shares—with medicinal gardenia, which can be harvested for ten years once planted and by which a mountain village grew into a crude-drug production region, the Lang Son case— the same revenue structure. Once past the initial planting, the yearly input grows lighter.
A purchase guarantee and a dryer turned an 8-ha raw-material zone into a whole-village production region
Mr. Duong's role does not stop at earning on his own field. He guarantees that he will buy products meeting the quality standard and continues technical support for the surrounding farmers. By first creating a state in which the buyer is predictable, later-starting farmers could plant without carrying price anxiety. On top of that, he introduced a dryer, traceability labels and packaging equipment, lifting raw material that could only be sold cheaply fresh up into the high-unit-price form of dried product.
Here lies a reproducible design: integrating all the way to processing at the hamlet level makes the land's value jump. The case in which idle forest was turned into a revenue source of 700 million dong a year through understory mushroom cultivation, the Phu Tho province case, likewise shows the idea of combining processing and a sales channel with land that had few uses working well. In green bamboo's case, its strength is that onto bamboo—a durable resource—it can layer bamboo shoots as yearly cash income.
Sweet, Taiwan-derived green bamboo splits in character between boiled shoots and menma
Green bamboo (tre lục trúc) is said to originate in southern China and Taiwan and to be a variety whose full-scale cultivation began in Bac Giang province in the early 1990s. It produces sweet, pleasantly crisp shoots suited to fresh eating, and in Vietnam there are examples in many areas of planting it on wasteland and earning 300–500 million dong per hectare a year. Dong Dat hamlet's economics sit neatly within this general level.
What to watch for in Japanese sourcing is that uses divide within bamboo-shoot processed goods. Suited to boiling and slicing are sweet, fresh-eating shoots like green bamboo, while menma is, in its original form, made by lactic-fermenting ma bamboo (Dendrocalamus latiflorus). Different varieties and processing methods mean different shelves to aim at. A green-bamboo region is closer to reality viewed as raw material for boiled shoots, prepared side dishes and dried product, and evaluating it on a par as menma material creates a mismatch. At present, the raw material for Japan's boiled bamboo shoots and menma is mainly from China and Taiwan, but amid moves not to lean sourcing on a single country, Vietnam's name is coming up as a receptacle for supply. A small region equipped with a dryer and labels, like Dong Dat hamlet, becomes the minimum unit of that receptacle.
Can an adoption model where a leader takes on the loss first transfer to other primary commodities?
What Japanese procurement staff should take away from this case is, I believe, the order of adoption rather than the bamboo-shoot price list. The reason a new crop fails to take root in a village is, in many cases, not a lack of technique but that no one wants to shoulder the first year's loss. In Dong Dat hamlet, the party-branch secretary took on that year, showed profitability and guaranteed the purchase. The region's trust is built up on top of this order.
When the procurement side evaluates a small Vietnamese region, looking not only at area and price but at 'who bears the first demonstration and who guarantees the purchase' makes it harder to misread supply stability. A region with a clear standard-bearer sees little dropout of later-starting farmers and is predictable on both volume and quality. Not just for green-bamboo shoots but for spices and fruit too, the habit of confirming this structure reduces sourcing misses.
Sources referenced
- Dân Việt — In Thai Nguyen province, a party-branch secretary succeeds by cultivating 3 ha of green bamboo ahead of others, earning about 450 million dong from bamboo shoots
- Tre trúc Ngọc Dương — Characteristics and distribution of green bamboo (lục trúc), and cultivation techniques for harvesting shoots
- Wikipedia — Menma (its raw material ma bamboo and production areas)
