Description
Tien Giang is a province on the northern branch of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, a low-lying, tropical region with a vast network of rivers, rice paddies, and swamplands. It has hundreds of miles of canals that reach far into the farmland. The land is extremely fertile, & as such, has been intensively farmed for more than a century.
The farmers that produce Tien Giang cacao were once organized into a cooperative that was comprised of 12 fermenters serving around 20 farmers each.
Cacao arrived in Vietnam in the late 19th century. It remained a small crop until about 15 years ago, when development organizations began encouraging the planting of seedlings in the Mekong Delta region. While this dramatically increased the amount of cacao grown in Vietnam, it still remains a tiny share of Vietnam’s agriculture compared to its massive rice, cashew, & coffee industries.