New Zealand Tree Crops Association

Waikato Thames Coromandel Branch

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- a July 2003 Branch Event -

Chestnuts in Vietnam: the Travel Report

by Dr David Klinac

Two months ago I would never have known if there were any chestnuts in Vietnam. Now I think it's a country with great chestnut prospects.

 

For three weeks in October, I was there on a chestnut consultancy, paid for by the European Union. This was part of a much larger (20 million dollar plus) Regional Development programme aimed at improving the standard of living of Northern Vietnamese provinces, just south of the Chinese border: remote, rugged country, far from the big city and with large minority tribe populations.
It turns out that they've been successfully growing chestnuts there for many years. One district in particular was famous for of them and prices were good. There was great potential for expansion of the industry. The summary I presented in my official report reads...


"Based on my observations and information provided it appears that there are approx. 1000 ha of chestnuts currently planted (though not all yet in production), with an average yield of 10-40 kg/tree and 30-odd trees per ha. Figures on total saleable yield were a bit vague, possibly simply because all nuts are collected and sold privately. I would guess at about 1000 T, with maybe three times as much still to come on stream, but with considerable losses between tree and by air due to poor storage and handling. All of this production seems to be in Cao Bang province, mostly in Trung Khanh district: near the border with South China.

Chestnuts from this region are of high quality and have good reputation throughout North Vietnam: been known by name at least as far away as an Orly. They sell for four to five times the price of similar Chinese chestnuts from across the nearby border. Buyers are apparently bringing cheaper Chinese chestnuts and mixing with local Vietnamese product, prior to sale in the market. When you ask they will deny that any of their chestnuts are of inferior Chinese quality.
The market price is quite high, even by NZ standards, and between US$ 1-3/kg. Best prices are for big, mature, early-season nuts: all of which could be much improved by better management and industry practice. Market price drops quickly once dried or cooked so that they will store longer. Most chestnuts in Vietnam only seem to have a "sales life" of about a week. It should be several months. Better storage and handling, along with processing, would therefore, further improve returns enormously. Most chestnut growing also seems to be very "part time", with rice, especially, taking priority of the chestnut harvest to the further detriment of chestnut quality and price. There are no "full-time" chestnut growers, no real chestnut orchards (as far as we know them in NZ) and no real chestnut growers association or industry structure. Trees are quite highly variable seedlings, with no high-performance budded or grafted cultivars, and tree care and tree health are often much in need of improvement. Even with these limitations, chestnut growers, as a group, are apparently significantly better off than normal farmers. Trung Khanh district is one of the more prosperous in Cao Bang province, and Cao Bang, in turn, is apparently far more prosperous than other similar provinces.

 
For this reason, there seemed to have been several attempts over the years to expand chestnut production into other regions. These generally seem to have failed, either through lack of follow-up, lack of resources, poor execution (eg. growers paid to buy and plant a cheap seed from China), or lack of expertise (eg. failure to successfully adopt budding and grafting to replace seedling production). Though unsuccessful, these are attempts which show that chestnuts have been recognised as a potential cash crop, deserving official government encouragement, and this seemed to be accepted by all the problems, region and district officials talked to. They were apparently eager to encourage chestnut production as a cash crop. Plans were announced of increasing areas planted to 3000ha within five years. This could make Vietnam a significant world producer of chestnuts.
Having become self-sufficient in terms of rice production, (even a larger exporter) the main focus now seems to be on cash crops that could be used to raise the net wealth of the region: especially in the northern border provinces, in rural areas, and in areas of large minority population: ie. exactly where most chestnuts and grown. Sugar cane had previously been widely adopted for this use, and a large number of small processing factories had been built. Sugar-cane grew well in the region but was apparently now being abandoned, as production greatly exceeded demand and price no longer justified its harvest.

Chestnuts seemed a much better choice, with lower labour and fertiliser costs, and much higher market price and better demand (overseas as well as local, though exports are currently non-existent). There is already a good local reputation to build on, a proven advantage over potential competitors (China) and much scope for further improvement. Vietnam is close to the major markets of Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, and is probably the closest you can get to the equator and still grower chestnuts successfully.

 
The Market price currently seems to place one kg of good chestnuts at the same value as 30 kg of rice (15 kg of rice being the basic figure for feeding one person for one month), or 1 kg of duck meat. In the chestnut-growing villages visited, the average level of ownership seemed to be only about 15 trees per family (most time and labour being spent on other crops). At an average production level of say 225 kg/yr (easily able to be improved upon) then this could become expected to provide an income of say US$450/yr. This would produce an income, from chestnuts alone, of US $1.23 per day. This doesn't sound much but it would keep each household above the average regional benchmark of "poor" (less than US $1/day) even if they did nothing else than pick up chestnuts from 15 trees for say, only three/four weeks per year. With halfway decent commercial orchards, then 1 ha of chestnuts could be expected to produce at least 3 T of chestnuts (even with current low standards of management) or enough to support say 500 people (several villages). A single family should easily be able to manage 2-3 ha of chestnuts (harvest is the only bottleneck). This could provide an annual income of say US $9000 (even at only US$ 1/kg), compared to an average salary of US$ 15/month in Ho Chi Minh City, all US$ 50/month working for a big-name foreign factory. Chestnut prices could drop to US 30 c/kg and still provide equivalent income.
Considering the very underdeveloped level of the current chestnut industry in Vietnam, generally, then even quite modest improvements could, I think, be expected to produce much increased returns.

Chestnut yield, production, quality, tree health, tree selection, tree management, time to cropping, tree longevity, storage and shelf-life could all be much improved. Coupled with an industry structure and transport, handling, packaging and processing facilities then there is no reason why export markets and a range of new low-value added products could not also be developed"
On a more "unofficial" level, there was much to see that would have appealed to NZ chestnut growers, and often made them envious. The nut quality was excellent: very sweet, very easy to peel chestnuts, (C. mollisima). I wish we could grow such nuts here. It was even a bit of a mystery why they could grow them there. It's really only this one district that seems capable of it, and no-one knows quite why. It may be the climate: also very suitable for rice, sugar-cane and cassava: a strange mixture. It may be the soil type: large limestone outcrops mixed in with large underground manganese deposits (the locals also swore by the importance of this special red, stony clay soil).

 
Most N Z growers would be far less impressed by the overall standard of tree care and tree health. Rice rules. Chestnuts definitely take second or event 10th place when it comes to care and attention. The fact that chestnut harvest sometimes clashes with the rice harvest doesn't help. The good land is all in rice. Chestnuts are often scattered around in small groups on the less suitable land. Water buffalo damage is common, as they graze freely to feed. Trees are "nibbled at" for firewood and timber also. Then there are the pests and diseases. You will very quickly be reminded how lucky it NZ is to be so (relatively speaking) pest and disease free. There's gall wasps, several different weevils, moths, borers, ants and termites all of which can make a real mess of both trees and nuts. There's even an epiphytic/parasite plant that "strangles" the high branches. It's a much tougher life being a chestnut tree in Vietnam than it is in NZ.
All land and property ownership in Vietnam is now privatised: chestnut tree ownership likewise. Individual households juggle their commitments to other crops with looking after the chestnut trees, taking nuts to the local market and selling them. There's nothing more to it than that, and no facilities or machinery to help.

Some basic "processing" is carried out by the individual grower. To help the fresh nuts store longer, some are sun-dried and others are pre-cooked (boiled) before sale. These both store longer, but sell for a lower price. In the bigger cities it seems as if some use is also made of flotation grading by city "buyers".

 
Finally, for any aspiring tourists, the region where most Vietnamese chestnuts are grown is a very pretty place. The scenery is great. The people are extremely friendly (too much so, perhaps, when it comes to compulsory alcohol consumption for foreign visitors) and the cost of living is extremely cheap (accommodation for US $5/night and all you can eat for US $2-3/day). I found it an unexpectedly "easy" country for visitors (though having a driver and translator no doubt helped) and the people are enthusiastic about chestnuts. I'm sure they'd love to talk to any passing NZ chestnut grower, and compare notes. In fact, they may even recognise you from your photos! We visited several villages and gave the slide-show on "chestnuts in NZ" at each. It was very popular. One of the slides that was of most interest was one I had of a typical chestnut growers field-day, with lots of typical NZ growers lounging around in the sun, criticising each other's tree management. Be warned, those of you wearing short pants in the photo are famous in Vietnam already!

David Klinac

See Part 2: NEXT

Thanks are due to David, John Free and Maurice Denton for arranging access to this information.

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Created: 2003 July 1 - Modified: 2007 August 10