Quang Ngai (VNA) – Vietnam’s agricultural sectorshould focus on developing the economic value of domestic plant varieties byensuring their output and protecting branding, instead of importing largeamounts of other plant varieties. Otherwise, typical and valuable local specieswill disappear, experts have warned.

The warning was made after the People’s Committee of the centralprovince of Quang Ngai agreed in principle two Japanese businesses to doresearch and grow Japanese elephant garlic as a pilot on Ly Son Island, whichhas long been known as the kingdom of garlic with distinctive high-nutrientvarieties.

Specifically, Japan-based Nikken Sekkei Civil EngineeringLtd, in cooperation with CAN Holdings – a Japanese company specialising inhi-tech agriculture, proposed to grow elephant garlic on the island and thenexport it back to Japan.

The plant was introduced as a high-yield and high-value crop.About 4-5 tonnes of garlic can be harvested per hectare, bringing a profit of 180,000VND (8 USD) per kilogramme for farmers.

Agricultural specialist Le Tien Dung, who is also former headof the Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry’s Agricultural Faculty toldTien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper that the import of another variety of garlic tothe island with its small garlic cultivation area could seriously affect theexistence and development of local plants.  

Dung said Ly Son garlic is a special and distinctive plantthat could only be grown in the natural conditions of the island. It took along time and much effort by local people to select and develop the currentvariety.

He cited "lonely garlic" which has only one cloveas an example. This kind of high quality garlic requires special plantingtechniques and could be sold at the price of between 1-2 million VND (44-88 USD)per kilo.

If the imported variety was more productive and easier tocultivate, Ly Son garlic would not be able to compete and would graduallydisappear, he said.

Ly Son garlic is one of the best varieties with high valuethat needs to be protected and developed. The problem is all about theprotection of typical plants, not about high productivity.

To build a trademark for a local agricultural product wasmuch more difficult. Imported garlic should be planted in places except for LySon Island, Dung stressed.

According to the agricultural specialist, there were manylessons about imported plants. Japanese-imported Japonica rice was an example.

Although the rice variety has not been tested and accreditedby the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, it was planted on tens ofthousands of hectares in the Mekong Delta region. Many hectares of domesticfragrant varieties such as Tam Xoan, Tam Thơm, Lua Huong have been replaced bythe imported plant.

Domestic-grown peanuts in the central region are anotherexample. Lac giay, a special peanut variety in Thua Thien-Hue province, hasdisappeared from the crops of local farmers. It is now preserved in the HueUniversity of Agriculture and Forestry for gene conservation.

Lac cuc in Nghe An province faced the same fate. Many peanut cropsof local farmers have been replaced by Chinese-imported varieties.

Dung said although the State had policies to restore andre-plant local varieties, not all of them could be re-planted successfully orrestored back to their origins.

Dang Lien, a garlic farmer on Ly Son Island, said that he didnot know anything about the import of garlic to the island and the quality ofthis variety.

Lien said the cultivated area on the island was restricted.Each person was given 110 square metres for garlic cultivation and manyhouseholds had to lease land from other households to expand their crops.

If the new imported variety is planted on the island, thearea for local products will surely decrease, he added.

Nguyen Van Tien, another farmer in An Vinh commune, said hedid not want to try a new variety as the problem was not about productivity.

“My three sao (1,080 square metres) of garlic field hasstable productivity of between 1.5-1.8 tonnes, but the price is not stable asit depends on traders, so my profit is not stable,” he said.

Tien said stable and long-term output was what he and otherfarmers expected most.

Nguyen Viet Vy, Secretariat of the Ly Son Island DistrictParty Committee, said that the warning of the specialist was accurate, and thatthe provincial authorities need to consider carefully before planting theimported garlic variety on the island.

Vy said so far there was no specific information about thepilot project, so the district could not give further comment.

The district estimates that local farmers plant more than 330hectares of garlic annually and harvest over 2,000 tonnes, bringing in 200billion VND (8.8 million USD) for farmers. In April 2009, the brand ownershipof Ly Son onion and garlic was recognised by the National Office of IntellectualProperty of Vietnam under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Vy said the productivity of the plant had slightly dropped inrecent years, so the district has reported to the province and asked for helpfrom scientists.

The provincial People’s Committee said it had planned tobuild a factory producing garlic oil with Japanese technology to ensure theoutput of the plant.-VNA