Page 96 - Agricultural innovation

Figure 29. Artichoke garden in Da lat City
Source: Labourer Newpaper

buy back all of the farmers’ products. Farmers participating in this alliance include 45 artichoke
growing households in wards No11 and No12 of Da Lat City. When building the Production Union,
the households joined together to establish the model of the Artichoke Farmer’s Cooperative Group.
The goals of this Alliance are:
• Create an artichoke production model that is supervised from production to consumption
based on a voluntary, long-term cooperation relationship between the company and the farmer’s
cooperative group.
• Produce high quality products thanks to the good application of technical processes based on
VietGAP standards of farmers.
• Stabilize and expand the number of households growing artichokes.
• Raise income and create a stable life for farmers.

• Expand and develop the company’s artichoke consumption market.

This Alliance model was established to solve the difficulties and limitations of both farmers
and businesses. On the side of farmers: limited capital, lack of experience and new techniques in
production, outdated farming practices and post-harvest handling, poor management skills, lack of
product certification, poor quality artichokes, lack of market information, etc. meanwhile on the side
of businesses: not yet self-sufficient in raw materials when developing the market on a large scale, the
source of raw materials from farmers is not high quality, etc.
Through the Alliance model, farmers are the main beneficiaries, including: support to invest in
facilities (equipment, production materials), technical training to improve capacity, sustainable farming
techniques, training in production according to VietGAP standards and post-harvest technology,
ensuring selling price thanks to the contract with Ngoc Duy company.
Farmer households participating in the Artichoke Tea Production Alliance model are mainly
small-scale producers. The total area of 45 farmer households participating in the model is nine ha
(average 0.2 ha/household). Although the number of households and production scale is not large, it
has shown the potential for replication of the model. The important point of the model is the linkage
between farmers to implement the common production technical process, providing uniform and
quality products, and the direct cooperation between farmers’ organizations and businesses. Industry

Agricultural Innovation Review in CLV Countries 89