In 2017, Nguyen Thi Lan returned to her family’s farm in Soc Trang after 10 years working in Ho Chi Minh City. She found her parents exhausted, in debt, and sick from years of pesticide exposure. The land they had farmed for three generations was depleted.
She had one question: was there another way?
She spent the next two years learning from organic farmers in the Mekong Delta, attending regenerative agriculture workshops, and reading everything she could find. In 2019, she convinced her parents to stop using chemicals entirely. Everyone in the village told them they would fail.
In 2021, An Nhien Farm’s ST25 rice won a regional award for quality. Their yields were the same as chemical-treated fields. Their costs were lower. Their soil was alive again.