The North’s Year-Round Guava Billionaire

Nguyễn Đăng Phái (28), from Văn Trung Village, Tân Chi Commune, Tiên Du District, Bắc Ninh Province, is nicknamed the ‘Guava King’ by local residents.

Highlights:

– Nguyễn Đăng Phái is the only son in a family of 4 siblings. He passed up the chance to become a professional officer, determined to return and build a prosperous livelihood in his hometown with 3 main crops: guava, jujube and longan.

– With yields of 60 – 90 kg per tree per year and off-season guava prices stable at VND 19 – 20 thousand/kg, fruit sales alone bring young Nguyễn Đăng Phái more than 500 million each year.

Making guava trees fruit out of season

After nearly 6 years in business, he owns over 3 ha of orchards with stable total annual income above 1 billion đồng and became a đồng billionaire before turning 28. Nguyễn Đăng Phái is the only son among 4 siblings. He passed up the opportunity to become a professional military officer, determined to return home and build wealth on his homeland with 3 main crops: guava, jujube, and longan. His biggest income source, however, is off-season guava.

‘An off-season guava tree is essentially no different from an in-season one. The only difference is that an in-season guava tree produces a large crop within a certain period, whereas an off-season tree yields fruit in several overlapping harvests throughout the year (about 4–5 harvests per year). This depends on the grower’s technique,’ Nguyễn Đăng Phái said. The problem of “a good harvest, falling prices” drove him to search for an effective solution.

In 2008, after seeking knowledge and learning from books, the Internet, and off-season guava-growing models, he embarked on the “project” of turning the “one-season” guava trees in his garden into “four-season” guavas, starting with a few dozen guava trees planted on the family's existing small plot of land.

Using his knowledge, Nguyễn Đăng Phái worked out how to divide the main guava harvest into several rounds by removing all fruit in the main season and pruning branches at a ratio of 1/3 (cutting 2 of 3 parts and keeping 1) to delay fruiting, since guavas flower after pruning. After each round of young fruit appears, branches that do not bear fruit are pruned at the specified ratio so they can set fruit for the next round. This creates successive harvests in his orchard. For 4 years now, his guava orchard has averaged 4 harvests annually, at times outside the main guava season.

Becoming a Young Billionaire

After more than a year of successful trials, at the end of 2009 Nguyễn Đăng Phái rented more land and expanded his “four-season” guava cultivation. By the end of 2010, he had a 3 ha orchard with nearly 500 off-season guava trees. With yields of 60–90 kg per tree per year and off-season guava prices consistently at 19–20 thousand dong/kg, fruit sales alone bring young Nguyễn Đăng Phái more than 500 million dong annually.

Selling seedlings also brings him significant income. At 20–25 thousand dong per grafted seedling and 40–45 thousand dong per air-layered branch (which bears fruit within 6 months), he earns over 200 million dong a year. Besides guavas, more than 3 mẫu of apple trees in the orchard also generate nearly 300 million dong annually.

Since 2010, growing off-season guavas and jujubes has consistently generated over 1 billion đồng/year. ‘Guavas are easy to grow and care for, rarely suffer disease and need little capital. So almost all the money from selling the fruit is “pure gain.” Our first harvest of 2015 brought in over 100 million đồng, with fertilizer investment of nearly ten million đồng,’ Phái said.

“Science and technology are extremely important in farming. To succeed, farmers must be willing to learn and find ways to move beyond old-style smallholder practices,” Mr. Phái said, affirming that only differentiation can help farmers make a breakthrough and prosper.