{"id":1350,"date":"2026-07-15T15:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/?post_type=industry_news&p=1350"},"modified":"2026-07-15T15:53:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:53:24","slug":"laichau-greenhouse-vegetables","status":"publish","type":"industry_news","link":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/en\/industry_news\/laichau-greenhouse-vegetables\/","title":{"rendered":"In mountains where fields vanish in the rainy season, 7,000 m2 of greenhouses yield 11 crops of year-round vegetables"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the mountainous zone of northern Vietnam, when the rainy season comes the open-field vegetable plots get waterlogged by the long rains, and local leafy greens disappear from the market. A small producer group in Binh Lu commune, high-elevation Lai Chau province, has begun to fill that 'annual shortage' with greenhouses. Turning 10 to 11 crops a year in a 7,000-square-meter plastic greenhouse, continuing to ship choy sum and cucumbers even in the midst of rains that wipe out open fields, it reportedly turned a profit of over 300 million dong in the first half of 2025 alone. It looks like a defensive story of avoiding weather risk, but it is also an aggressive sourcing design of 'bad-weather periods are precisely when you can sell high.' For Japanese food buyers, it becomes the sprout of a new option: Vietnamese greens less swayed by season and weather.<\/p>\n

In mountains where rain makes fields vanish, greenhouses created year-round supply<\/h2>\n

The stage is Binh Lu commune, Lai Chau province. Tran Dinh Vuong, who leads the Tan Binh vegetable cooperative (T\u1ed5 h\u1ee3p t\u00e1c rau T\u00e2n B\u00ecnh), was growing commercial vegetables on over 1.5 hectares of open field until early 2024. But production was left to the weather and tended to break off. 'When the long rains continue, the vegetables rot at the root and pests and diseases surge all at once' -- his words mirror directly the structural challenge this region's farmers hold. If the field is unstable, income is unstable, and young workers leave farming.<\/p>\n

The turning point was the introduction of the greenhouse (nh\u00e0 m\u00e0ng). On a greenhouse with a total construction cost of 600 million dong (about JPY 3.6 million, at 10,000 dong = about JPY 60, likewise below), a national subsidy of about 100 million dong was attached, and a half subsidy was attached to the 50-million-dong irrigation system. With the roof blocking the rain and water manageable by drip irrigation, production that had been tossed about by the weather turned into production that can be planned.<\/p>\n

The substance of '11 crops a year,' seen in numbers<\/h2>\n

The impact of going to greenhouses shows clearly in the number of plantings. On the same land where 6 to 7 crops a year was the limit in the open field, 10 to 11 crops a year now turn in the greenhouse. What is grown is leafy greens such as choy sum and cucumbers, with choy sum harvested at roughly 1 tonne per 1,000 square meters per crop. The big point is being able to steadily put out leafy vegetables -- which in the open field would be the first to be hit by rain -- even in the middle of the rainy season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Item<\/th>\nOpen-field cultivation (before 2024)<\/th>\nGreenhouse cultivation (from 2024)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Annual number of plantings<\/td>\n6-7 crops<\/td>\n10-11 crops<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Rainy-season shipment<\/td>\nTends to break off with the long rains<\/td>\nContinuous shipment<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
First-half 2025 profit<\/td>\n\u2014<\/td>\nover 300 million dong (about JPY 1.8 million)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The price side cannot be overlooked either. The usual price for choy sum and cucumbers is 13,000 dong per kg (about JPY 78), but in September-October, when open-field produce is short, it rises to 15,000 dong (about JPY 90). A greenhouse that can ship just when the open field weakens can snipe the high-unit-price phase. It is a structure in which defensive equipment investment becomes, as is, a device for raising revenue.<\/p>\n

The idea of turning 'climate measures' into profit<\/h2>\n

What this case shows is a viewpoint of recasting climate instability not only as a cost to avoid but as a price difference that only those who can ship when supply thins can take. In Vietnam, moves to make greenhouses and smart agriculture an answer to weather risk are spreading in various places, and in the north there is now even a production area raising the unit price of dragon fruit with smartphone irrigation and LED flowering control<\/a>. Even though the item differs from Lai Chau's leafy greens, the design philosophy of 'piercing the off-season in a controlled environment' is shared.<\/p>\n

The same idea is seen in the south too. In Ha Tinh province there is Korean melon that turns 3 crops a year in a 500-square-meter greenhouse and earns a profit of 200-300 million dong<\/a> an example, and the winning path of small area, many rotations and high unit price is being established across Vietnam. The significance of the Lai Chau case is that it demonstrated this equation holds even in a high-elevation poor region.<\/p>\n

The underlying strength of Lai Chau province as a production area<\/h2>\n

This is not a story only of an individual cooperative. Across Lai Chau province, vegetable planting area exceeds 3,200 hectares and output reaches about 23,500 tonnes. Over 95% of inspected vegetable samples are said to conform to food-safety standards, and not only volume but a foundation of quality control is forming. The current sales channels center on the Tam Duong market (ch\u1ee3 Tam \u0110\u01b0\u1eddng) and neighboring provinces, and domestic distribution is still the main thing, but if going to greenhouses stabilizes supply, room emerges to reach farther markets and processing and export.<\/p>\n

Points Japanese sourcing staff should read<\/h2>\n

There are three implications Japanese food buyers and import staff can draw from this move. First, that the 'stable supply capacity' of Vietnamese greens is beginning to spread into mountainous areas too. Open-field-dependent production areas have their supply disturbed by weather, but greenhouse-based producers find it easy to make shipping plans across the year and are easy to team up with as a year-round contract partner. Second, because such greenhouse production is small in area and fast in rotation, it suits small-volume, high-frequency trade narrowed to a single item. It becomes a candidate when you want to continuously source consistently graded leafy greens as an OEM raw material for frozen or cut vegetables.<\/p>\n

Third, production areas where climate adaptation is advancing also tend to have a high awareness of quality traceability. Already, for Vietnamese fruit, the move of production areas shifting their footing from fresh to processing<\/a> is accelerating, and the same current is coming for vegetables. If you confirm the efforts toward greenhouses and food-safety standards at the stage of choosing a production area, you can reduce later-process quality risk in advance.<\/p>\n

Lai Chau's 7,000 square meters is small as a scale. But the fact that year-round supply was created on land where fields vanish in the rainy season becomes an omen of moving Vietnamese vegetable sourcing from 'depending on the production area's weather' to 'depending on design.' The next time you update your production-area list, it is well worth adding the presence or absence of greenhouses as one item.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h2>\n