VietNamNet Bridge - For years, the business of growing lotus plants have strongly developed in the area of Dong Thap Muoi in Nhon Hoa Commune, Tan Thanh District, Long An Province, helping the locals escape poverty and have a stable life.

Dong Thap Muoi is a famous and largest lotus growing areas in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, lotus plants grow in all parts of the country. Its flower has a pleasant fragrance and elegant beauty and has been cherished as a rare variety of flower that represents the noble mind and pure spirit of the Vietnamese. Therefore, it has been recognized as Vietnam’s National Flower.

Lotus plants bring high economic benefits because all parts of the plant, such as the flower, leaves, seeds and roots are utilized. For example, the flowers are used for decoration, stamens for scenting tea, roots for preparing salads, soups and steaming with meat, seeds for making sugar coated products and sweeten porridge, seed’s cores being used as a tranquilizer and antipyretic and even leaves being used to wrap Com (green rice flakes).

In Oriental medicine, lotus is a rare remedy and is beneficial for healthcare. For example, lotus seeds are sweet and neutral, benefiting the spleen and for treating nerve damage. The seed’s core is bitter and used to lower high blood pressure and serves as an antipyretic. Lotus seed-pods are bitter and used to treat symptoms of discharge of blood.

One of the most famous and largest lotus growing areas in Vietnam is Dong Thap Muoi, an alum area that is submerged in water all year round, in the Cuu Long River delta. The area covers the three provinces of Long An, Tien Giang and Dong Thap.

During a recent trip, we visited Long An and knew that the business of growing lotus plants has strongly develop in the commune of Nhon Hoa in Tan Thanh District which is annually affected by floods. The plant not only beautifies the land but also helps the locals escape poverty and have a better life.

The land in Nhon Hoa Commune is composed of alluvium, alum and mixed soil. The alum area accounts for over 80% that is suitable for the development of lotus. For this reason, Nhon Hoa has become the largest lotus plant growing area in Long An with a total area of 500 ha.

There are two major lotus crops, one for roots and the other for seeds. Lotus roots are sold at about 15,000-20,000 VND/kg and lotus seed-pods are about 25-30,000VND/kg.

During the harvest, each household can earn hundreds of thousands dong. The locals often collect lotus products and then transport them to Ho Chi Minh City to provide to restaurants.
 
Lotus plants are easy to grow in the alum and flooded areas. Therefore, the plant has been grown in the whole district of Tan Thanh. Each hectare of lotus is estimated to bring farmers about 50 million dong/crop.

Each crop lasts only two months and during the crop, the farmers can harvest lotus once every two days. The profit brought by lotus is two times more than rice. On average, each household grows about 3ha-5ha, even 10ha of lotus and earn from 100 to 400 million dong each year. Thanks to growing lotus, many families have a stable life and even become well-off.

It is not difficult to grow lotus but to promote the sustainable and effective development of the business, the farmers in Tan Thanh need the State’s support in terms of high-yield varieties, techniques on growing and preserving after-harvest products and consumer markets.

If all the difficulties are solved, the lotus plants surely will bring locals in Dong Thap Muoi in general and Tan Thanh in particular a great economic benefit.

Tendering to the lotus plants in blossom.

Harvesting lotus roots.

Harvesting lotus seed-pods.

Tan Thanh is famous for cultivating lotus plants in the area.

Buying lotus flowers for an offering to Buddha.

VNP