"La khoi" or Ardisia sylvestris Pitard, is one of valuable herbal medicines used in traditional treatment for pain in stomach and duodenum. "La khoi" sold in market are often harvested from protection forest, natural forest of mountainous provinces in the North. A decrease in yield due to shrinking areas of protection forest and natural forest as well as unsustainable exploitation by people results in scarce source of supply while market demand is on increase.
Therefore, the project "Restoration of tropical forest via development of indigenous tree nursery" was implemented under cooperation of SRD and People's Committee of Phu Luong district and the BioTrade Implementation Group (BIG) Vietnam with numerous conservative and developmental activities toward creating indigenous nurseries for "La khoi" following standards introduced by WHO on "Good practices on planting and harvesting herbal medicine".
This project implementing at Phu Luong district attracted positive engagement of communities in terms of financial contribution for seeding, fertilizers and pesticides.... Support from project stayed at level of technical advice. Besides, households are centers of technique hand-over process through every stage including identifying training topics, developing programs, discussing and practicing in the field. Various methods were applied to help farmers to easily apply in their own situation such as in-door training, field meetings, study visits. Trainers were farmers with participation of experts to come to share with people.
After one year of implementation, a number of successes were achieved. 20 models of Ardisia sylvestris Pitard were developed with more than 80% of tree at good development, gaining attention by businesses for potential consumption of "la khoi". At the market price of 200,000 VND/kg, people can earn five or ten times higher than cultivating corn, cassava and tea.... There is high possibilities for local people to make good business from "la khoi".
Observing success of the project, People's Committee of Phu Luong district allocated 600 million VND from state budget for scaling up the models to 30,000 Ardisia sylvestris Pitard.
It is expected that Phu Luong will become the biggest area for herbal medicine products in Vietnam, contributing to conservation and development of valuable herbal medicine trees.