Tran Van Cuoc is a farmer living in Phuoc Ninh hamlet, Mong Tho B commune, Chau Thanh district, Kien Giang province. He is a typical farmer of Phuoc Ninh hamlet, as introduced by the Farmers' Association of Mong Tho B Commune, in renovation and conversion from growing rice to setting up a garden to grow green-skinned pomelo in combination with fish farming and interspersed with a number of other valuable fruit trees.

He confides: “My family has more than 10,000 sqm of lands to cultivate rice. Due to poor soil conditions, farming was not effective, so I decided to renovate a part of the area, invest in building an orchard, and Nam Roi pomelo was the first variety I chose.”

In the early days of starting a business with the orchard, Cuoc bought Nam Roi pomelo variety and produced variety himself. By that time, Nam Roi pomelo was very expensive, so it was difficult for him and his family as they did not have enough capital to do big right from the beginning. He chose the strategy called “taking short to raise long”, formed the orchard step by step.

“Nam Roi pomelo variety has a tall stem, many wide branches, laden fruits and is sweeter than other pomelo varieties. By that time, anyone has dozens of Nam Roi pomelo tree could have a good income,” Tran Van Cuoc says.

Recently, many gardeners have applied science to create many new varieties of higher value. To adapt to the development trend, Cuoc has experimented with planting 100 red-fleshed green-skinned pomelo trees.

He uses fertilizers composted from straw, grass, water hyacinth combined with chicken and duck manure treated to kill bacteria and fungi. After more than a year, nearly a hundred pomelo trees have yielded fruits.

"Over the years, several hundred trees are planted, and my pomelo garden is covered and bears fruit all year round," Tran Van Cuoc added.

Currently, Tran Van Cuoc and his family have a monthly income of VND 5 - 7 million from the pomelo garden. Thinking of days when the pomelo getting old and impossible yielding fruits, Cuoc is intercropping short-term durian so the garden will have replacement products. These ways of gardening bring Cuoc’s family a sustainable foundation.

Tran Van Cong is a farmer living in Hoa An commune, Phung Hiep district, Hau Giang province. He is the particular one in the commune who is pioneering in converting from rice cultivation to a model of growing clean vegetables.

He has his own method in gardening and is always ready to share experience with other people. It costs him as less as possible in buying fertilizer for his family's 500m2 vegetable garden. He uses daily-life waste, burned it to ashes in a composting hole, combined with the amount of decaying waste deposited below becoming a kind of fertilizer.

“If letting away the garbage, it is a waste. If letting the garbage picked by truck service, it costs money. I dug a round hole and dump the garbage in it. In the dry season, it is dried out, burned, then put in bag for gradually use. This kind of fertilizer can be used for any tree," Cong says.

More than 20 Tran Van Cong's neighbor households have applied his method. Depending on the waste, farmers classify and compost from 1 to 6 months before start using.

Some households collect fruit peels and vegetable discarded at the markets and compost them at home.

“It saves money for the family, and we have more income. This method both protects the environment and protects the health of consumers as the fertilizer does not have any chemicals, it is organic fertilizer. Every household has a green garden,” said Vo Dong Van from Hoa An commune, Phung Hiep district, Hau Giang province.

Restructuring crops and livestock to increase product value has been promoted by many localities in the Mekong Delta. People promote the renovation of mixed gardens, build models of valuable fruit orchards, change the production structure, create integrated economic models, which are much more efficient than monoculture of rice.

The above models not only improve and increase farmers' incomes, solve pollution problems, but also help reduce production costs, especially at a time of sharp increase in fertilizer prices.

More importantly, the mindset of making "green agriculture" is suitable with trends of environmentally friendly, that has made positive changes of farmers and in agriculture production.

Translated by Duc Thuan