Nguyen Vu Linh was born in My Thuan commune, Hon Dat district, Kien Giang province. Experiencing many hardships on the way back to his hometown to become a farmer, eventually his efforts have born fruit as he owns a 15 ha organic ecological farm called An Moc Farm.

Despite being a leader of dozens of employees, when we arrived, Linh was soaking himself in the canal to pick up algae and moss to make organic fertilizer. "Does the ‘director’ still wade through the canal and play in the water like a little kid?”, we gleefully asked. Linh also responded with a smile, "Spare me, brothers, what director? There is a lot of things to prepare, a mountain of work waits ahead, how can I sit still and play around? Besides, I love to be in the fields."

Hardships on the path of reaching his dream

During his days in elementary school Linh had always dreamt of being a farmer in his hometown in the future. So When he just graduated from school, he left behind his studies, ran away from home to Saigon to find a job, intended to earn some capital and then return to his hometown to build on a farm. The first place he worked was a supermarket supplying packaged food. Seeing a boy so young kept his nose to grindstone, the kind owner advised Linh to work and study in high school at the same time.

After finishing high school, Linh continued to take the university entrance exam. He then passed two schools, the University of Civil Engineering 2 and the Electric Power College of Ho Chi Minh City. Once again uninterested in studying, Linh signed up for military service for training.

In early 2015, Linh was discharged from the army and began his years as a real farmer. He came to Tra Vinh and applied for a job on a farm. He learned a lot at this place, from business strategy, market access, packaging and preservation process. Later he resigned and went to Long An to apply for a job at a raw material farm to accumulate experience and knowledge about microbiology.

Linh returned to his hometown of Kien Giang in2017 and started shaping An Moc Farm from his family’s 3,000m2 land. In order to have some initial capital, he made handmade products for sale such as hanging straps from umbrella grass, reed straws, and coconut shell cups. He even managed to export 500 coconut shell cups and spoons to Singapore. After things had settled down, he continued to invest and rent more land to expand An Moc Farm.

Hearing to this point, some may think that Linh’s career path did not face that much hardship, but Linh’s tone suddenly dimmed down, continuing his story ”The real tragedies began. My company was just established not for long in 2019, but also at that time Storm No. 3 swept through this land. The big storms hit hard, right in the flood season as well. It was raining nonstop, so 10 ha of raw material trees of our farm was drowned. I almost lost everything. The estimated damage was VND 3 billion. I had to borrow money everywhere to strive for recovery, but only 2/3 of the farm could be saved."

A year later, when the business had recovered at a certain level, An Moc Farm had a pharmaceutical material export contract with India and South Korea. Everything seemed to be going well, but noone could expect the Covid-19 pandemic to come. The contract with India flew out the window because of that.

The company struggled by all means possible: looking for Thai partners, reaching out to other businesses, pharmaceutical facilities, hospitals. But the consumption remained meager, so they had to use cold storage. The damage from the two "storms" was too great, so many shareholders had to say goodbye to An Moc Farm.

"I thought I was at the end of the road, that giving up was the only choice left, but fortunately a"noblewoman" offered a helping hand. She was the director of a paint company. She called to say that she admired the willpower of An Moc Farm, and she could lend us money without interest at that time. Thanks to that, we once again could continue to invest," Linh said.

Linh in the middle of checking dried butterfly pea flowers. Photo: Dinh Tu.

An Moc Farm in Hon Dat now has an area of 15 ha, including 10 ha of Phu Yen ginseng (Abelmoschus sagittifolius Kurz), 1.5 ha of butterfly pea flowers, the rest are roses, jasmine, lotus, noni, mint, stevia, drumstick tree and other fruits. Linh is going to expand the area by another 15 ha in U Minh Thuong (Kien Giang) and Cu Lao Dung (Soc Trang).

“Turn food into medicine”

An Moc Farm already has partners to purchase their Phu Yen ginsengs, butterfly pea flowers, but Linh and his associates also have other unique products from plants, roots, flowers and leaves to offer.

“An Moc has many types of drinks, and some of them are unique: My Nhan tea, with butterfly pea flower and herbs such as stevia, mint as the main ingredients. Binh An ginseng tea is also quite special. It is a combination of eight herbs, with excellent effects such as resistance strengthening, liver detoxification, body purification, acne and skin treatment, and anti-oxidants. Next we have An Moc Beauty-care tea is mild and sweet, cooked from ginkgo, red apple, shiraz (Gum Tragacanth), peach resin, honey locust, stevia, ginseng flower and rose.”

It’s common knowledge that there are many external forces that adversely affect human health such as pollution and climate change, but food safety seems to be the closest to daily life. One of the reasons why Linh decided to return as a farmer is because he has this desire to create green values for the land, create a better, safer and healthier lifestyle for everyone through An Moc Farm’s products.

Therefore, An Moc Farm’s message is to "turn food into medicine, not the other way around". Since its establishment An Moc Farm has built environmentally friendly consumption habits through preserving, containing or packaging products using bamboo, cork, coconut leaves, banana leaves or using environmentally friendly kraft paper packaging.

Despite his relatively young age (28 upon this June), Linh has the mind of a true expert.

In my hometown, there is still a lot of cultivated land. A lot of it is deserted because young people have gone to the city to work as hired laborers. I just hope that after the Covid-19 pandemic, the countryside will feel less lonely, fields and gardens will not be abandoned, partly reducing the pressure on the cities.

I think it is possible to get rich in our own hometown without going far. Going far away from home to get rich is understandable, but if you go to the city to work as a hired worker, why don't you think of a way to make a living right in your hometown? Why must one embark on one such common journey?

But with all that said, I also think there needs to be support from the government. For example, if farmers are equipped and accumulate more knowledge, they will surely know how to get rich right in their fields, not to mention it can be considered leverage to help Vietnam’sagriculture develop.

Translated by Samuel Pham