VietNamNet Bridge – With high-tech agriculture, clean vegetable gardens and fruit gardens and colourful flower gardens, Da Lat City in Lam Dong Province has attracted a large number of visitors, opening up new prospects for “Garden Ecotourism” in the highland city. The tour offers visitors a chance to soak up the life of local farmers and discover the specialities.

Thousands of domestic and international visitors visit the flower village to learn from real-life farming experiences

Satisfactory signals

Thanks to a temperate climate, Da Lat is an ideal place for many kinds of fruits and flowers to grow.

Da Lat’s farmers have shifted from their traditional method of growing strawberries in rows in the ground to a new model of hydroponic hanging strawberry gardens. The Biofresh Company is a pioneer in this model and its strawberry farm next to the Lake of Sighs has become a not-to miss destination for tourists to Da Lat. The plantation is grown to European standard, with French seedlings and Dutch fertilizer, all within small-scale greenhouses.

This innovative technique places less strain on the mineral resources in the soil by keeping the plants on a frame about one meter above the ground. The watering is automatic and no chemicals or pesticides are employed to assist growth or preservation.

The strawberry farm model is being multiplied in Da Lat. Vuong Dinh Phi’s strawberry garden at Thanh Mau Street is one of the first gardens in Da Lat to permit tourists to visit and pick their own fruit. The garden is 3,000 square metres and uses modern cultivating techniques. The garden is divided into two areas, including serving a visitors area and isolated caring area.

Phi shared that the 3,000 square metres did not meet the increasing demand of visitors, for this reason, his family planned to enlarge the garden’s area to 60,000 square metres.

At the gardens, visitors have a chance to act as farmers. Nguyen Huong Le, a 21 year-old visitor from Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa Province, said that she has visited Da Lat many times and she was eager to visit the gardens this time.

In addition to strawberries, the visitors can also visit high-tech vegetable gardens such Mai Van Khan’s garden. He said that bringing high quality and clean products to consumers helps to affirm his brand name. Currently, the brand name ‘Mr Khan Vegetable’ has conquered markets in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang with output of over 1.5 tonnes per day and a turnover of VND3 billion per year.

Called the “City of Flowers”, the flower is considered a key tourism product of the city. Located in Ward 12, around 7km from Da Lat’s center, Thai Phien Flower Village is a brilliant display of thousands of flowers. Ho Ngoc Dinh, Farmers' Association Chairman of Ward 12, Da Lat, said that Thai Phien Flower Village has over 230 ha glasshouses planting daisy, lily and eustoma. He noted that 57 years after the establishment and development of the industry, Thai Phien is recognised as a “traditional trade village” with 900 families planting flowers with the annual flower productivity reaching 300 million sprigs.

Since the start of the year, thousands of domestic and international visitors have visited the flower village to learn from real-life farming experiences.

Comprehensive connecting

With the friendly production model, the gardens not only bring economic benefits to growers but also contribute to tourism development in the province.

The service of visiting and experiencing fruit, vegetable and flower gardens, is considered a new tourism product, favourited by domestic and foreign tourists.

Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that in fact, the model still has some shortcomings in infrastructure, such as parking for visitors and weak promotion by tourist vendors. In the coming time, the province will support owners of gardens to overcome their limitations and help them in their continued expansion, while also supporting farming tourism in neighboring regions with flower and vegetable garden models of all kinds.

She affirmed that the tourism model is a chance to develop agriculture in Lam Dong province in the Central Highlands.

According to Vu Van Tu, Director of the Lam Dong Investment, Trade and Tourism Promotion Center, more support will be provided to local farmers to help them solve current problems, including a lack of professional tourism skills, thus expanding the promising agro-tourism model.

Nhan Dan