{"id":1477,"date":"2026-08-12T21:17:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/?post_type=industry_news&p=1477"},"modified":"2026-08-12T21:17:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:17:04","slug":"danang-guava-extension","status":"publish","type":"industry_news","link":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/en\/industry_news\/danang-guava-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning a hill of scrubby trees into a guava orchard: 500 million dong a year supported by a Da Nang extension worker"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Que Son area of Da Nang City in central Vietnam, a hill of cleared scrub trees has been reborn as an orchard. Truong Van A Linh, who leads the local farm cooperative \"HTX Nong nghiep Rung Bao,\" in 2023 dug up 3 hectares of poor acacia (keo) land and replanted it with 1,200 Taiwanese pear guava (oi le Dai Loan) and 350 of the premium wax apple variety \"man An Phuoc.\" The Da Nang City extension center accompanied with fertilizer and technical guidance, and 2025 farm sales reached about VND 500 million (500 trieu VND, about 2.9 million yen), with a profit margin of roughly 50%. For buyers seeking sources of fruit and staff involved in turning disadvantaged land into production areas, this case is worth reading.<\/p>\n

A hill of timber acacia turned into a guava orchard in 3 years<\/h2>\n

The original field was a plantation of acacia (keo) used for timber and chip material. A tree species widely planted on Vietnam's hills, it grows slowly on nutrient-poor slopes and takes years to reach felling. The original describes this land as \"can coi (poor and exhausted).\" A Linh gave up on it and steered toward fruit trees that can be expected to yield every year.<\/p>\n

What he chose were pear guava, with large, long-keeping fruit, and wax apple, almost seedless and suited to gifting. Both have thick fresh-eating demand and a quick start to harvest. Within two years of replanting they grew into trees that steadily bear fruit, and the hill changed its form into a farm that earns year-round.<\/p>\n

The pear guava \"oi le Dai Loan\" is a large-fruited variety with white, crisp flesh, excelling in keeping quality and transportability. The wax apple man An Phuoc is a bell-shaped red fruit crossing a Thai-derived lineage with a native Vietnamese variety, almost seedless and high in moisture. Both are easy to grow in the hot, humid conditions of central Vietnam, and crossing items that fetch a price as fresh fruit shows an aim to shallow the troughs of price volatility that accompany monoculture. Placing two items with staggered harvest seasons in the same orchard reduces periods when shipping is interrupted and also levels the use of labor and transport.<\/p>\n

200 kg a day, 11 tonnes a year, a wholesale price of about 120 yen per kg<\/h2>\n

The guava now, at its peak, ships roughly 200 kg a day and 1\u20132 tonnes a month. The 2025 annual yield was about 11 tonnes, with a wholesale price of about 20,000 dong per kg (about 120 yen). Farm-wide sales reached about VND 500 million, of which roughly half remained as profit. Because sales include the wax apple, it needs to be viewed separately from the guava-only figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Item<\/th>\nFigure<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Converted area<\/td>\n3 hectares (acacia to fruit trees)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Number of trees planted<\/td>\n1,200 guava, 350 wax apple<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Guava yield<\/td>\n200 kg\/day at peak, 1\u20132 tonnes\/month, about 11 tonnes in 2025<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Guava wholesale price<\/td>\nAbout 20,000 dong\/kg (about 120 yen)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Farm sales (2025)<\/td>\nAbout VND 500 million = 500 trieu VND (about 2.9 million yen)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Profit margin<\/td>\nAbout 50%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The exchange rate is an estimate at about 170 dong per yen. The Vietnamese dong uses million = trieu and billion = ty. 500 trieu = VND 500 million, and it is not ty (one billion).<\/small><\/p>\n

The role of the extension center that sent in fertilizer and technicians<\/h2>\n

What supported this conversion was the Da Nang City extension center (Trung tam Khuyen nong TP Da Nang). According to the original, the center subsidized fertilizer and, together, dispatched staff to the site to directly teach pruning, fertilizing, water-saving irrigation, and pest and disease control. It is a form in which a public institution shouldered the early cultivation risk that an individual farmer struggles to bear alone.<\/p>\n

In Vietnam's fruit-tree conversions, cases of choosing the wrong seedlings or stumbling on water management and killing the trees in the first year are endless. Accompaniment-style support that stations people and teaches in the field has a higher yield than measures that merely hand out subsidies. The design philosophy of support overlaps with the case where Dak Lak's durian production area grew its output through contract production with technicians visiting the fields<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n

The meaning of a public institution putting out fertilizer and labor early also extends to farmers' cash flow. In converting from acacia to fruit trees, the investment in seedlings, land preparation, and irrigation equipment comes first, and a gap of 2\u20133 years arises before it can be recouped through harvest. If this trough can be shallowed with fertilizer subsidies and technical guidance, farmers can step into conversion while holding down borrowing. Behind the 50% profit margin figure emerging at an early stage at the Da Nang farm lies a structure in which public support absorbed the early cost of failure. Conversely, in production areas where support is absent, the yield tends to fall even for the same item, and the speed of becoming a production area differs.<\/p>\n

The move to turn poor land into fruit trees is happening in various places<\/h2>\n

The flow of switching disadvantaged land to high-value-added fruit trees is not limited to this farm. Near Ho Chi Minh City, acidic soil where rice would not ripen has been a production area converted into VietGAP-certified guava orchards<\/a> and in Dak Lak, a farmer building up annual sales with guava on poor sandy soil<\/a> is reaching out even into processing. What they share is the stance of filling the land's weaknesses with crop selection and cultivation technique, and structuring sales destinations without relying on fresh produce alone.<\/p>\n

Guava is strong against heat and humidity, with a short span from planting to harvest. It easily generates cash income quickly even on poor land, making it a fruit easy to set as the entry point to becoming a production area. Within Vietnam, fresh-eating guava demand is growing, centered on urban areas, and processing into juice and dried fruit is spreading too. The Da Nang case concretely shows how an extension institution supports that entry point.<\/p>\n

Implications for Japan's idle land and abandoned farmland<\/h2>\n

Japan too has, in various places, artificial forests and abandoned farmland with no prospect of returns. Slopes carrying cedar and cypress with no hands to spare, hilly and mountainous paddies and fields where rice farming was given up over wildlife damage \u2014 the structure is close to Da Nang's acacia field. The idea of switching, without being tossed about by the timber market, to fruit trees that generate cash income every year can be moved to Japan's disadvantaged land too.<\/p>\n

That said, what should be moved is not the item but the mechanism. What took effect in Da Nang was that a public institution put out fertilizer and people, letting farmers avoid early failure. In Japan too, as with turning poor paddies into lotus paddies, the case of a Hue farmer earning several times rice farming<\/a> the success or failure of conversion is decided by the quality of accompaniment more than the item. Whether extension advisors and JA can stay close in the field, from pruning to water management to securing sales destinations, becomes the dividing line.<\/p>\n

Procurement practice buyers will want to grasp<\/h2>\n

Seen from a fruit buyer's standpoint, this kind of emerging production area has its own crux.<\/p>\n