Row upon row of macadamia trees spread their broad canopies, glossy green foliage interweaving with round, plump nut clusters dangling heavily from branches. Across the hillsides, local residents are entering the main macadamia harvest season of the year. Calls echoing across the slopes, the patter of falling nuts, the humming of drying ovens and dehullers at processing facilities, all create the vibrant rhythm of a new macadamia season.

We met Là Văn Chanh in Pha Làng village, Tuần Giáo commune as he traced along the hillside to harvest macadamia nuts. With a cloth bag readied, his hands deftly gathered ripe nuts that had dropped to the base of the trunks, then reached up to pluck clusters that had achieved full maturity. Joy radiated across the face of a farmer attached to macadamia trees since the earliest days. “The yield is very high this year. Seeing this makes me exceedingly glad,” Là Văn Chanh smiled, gesturing toward the fruit-laden canopies.

Beneath his feet, brownish-green macadamia nuts lay nestled among dry leaves. High above, dense clusters crowded between large branches and wide boughs. There are trees Là Văn Chanh planted in 2013 whose trunks are now substantial, roots firmly gripping the hillside soil, offering greater yields with each passing season. Là Văn Chanh is among the earliest macadamia growers in Tuần Giáo. In 2013, when macadamia was still relatively unfamiliar to local residents, he read books and newspapers to understand the growth and development habits of this tree. Recognizing that the plant could adapt to the climate and soil where he lived, he boldly brought it home to cultivate. In those days, not everyone had confidence in his choice. “People were skeptical, saying this was a novel tree and nobody knew if it suited the soil. I simply planted while learning, tending, and observing,” he recalled.

Such perseverance was gradually rewarded by the green mantle of the orchard. Around the fifth year, the macadamia trees began flowering and bearing their initial fruit. Those first few clusters, though modest in quantity, proved sufficient to instill confidence in the grower. From the sixth year onward, yields increased progressively. By the seventh year, the orchard began providing stable harvests. Over time, as the trees grew larger and their canopies widened, fruiting capacity rose. From the initial plot, his family expanded the area to 1ha. Today, with each new harvest season, Là Văn Chanh experiences a special joy, which is the sensation of seeing over a decade of arduous tree care culminate in fruit-laden branches.

Picking up a freshly fallen nut and gently turning it in his hand, Là Văn Chanh shared that macadamia does not require overly strenuous tending labor, with the critical element being ensuring healthy tree growth, and once harvest arrives, traders and purchasing facilities come directly to the spot. In this year’s macadamia crop, his family anticipates harvesting approximately 8 tons of fresh nuts. With unsorted green-husk nuts selling between VND 20,000 and VND 30,000 per kg, earnings from the orchard represent a substantial revenue stream for the household.

Visiting Tuần Giáo this season, the green hue of macadamia cloaks hills that once held only maize, cassava, or were even left fallow at times. Macadamia trees have matured alongside seasons of rain and sunshine, step by step reshaping the face of hillside lands. Interlocking broad canopies preserve green cover across mountain slopes, creating additional livelihoods for the people.

The macadamia harvest season in Tuần Giáo unfolds not only across the hills. From orchards, macadamia travels in small cargo vehicles to purchasing and processing facilities, making the production atmosphere increasingly brisk.

At the Việt Hà Macadamia Processing Facility in Tuần Giáo commune, Vũ Việt Hà and numerous workers continuously receive bags of fresh macadamia from local farmers. Nuts brought in are promptly sorted and put through preliminary processing. Inside the workshop, machinery runs steadily. Behind a finished macadamia product lies a sequence of interconnected stages: removing green husks, washing, drying, grading, cracking shells, inspecting kernels, and packaging. In the early days, the family owned only one small dryer with modest output, yet the more she worked, the more she recognized the potential of this agricultural product.

As the consumer market improved, Vũ Việt Hà boldly invested in expanding production, yet to achieve a finished box of macadamia, the journey originates with the very nuts tenderly harvested by farmers in their orchards. “Nuts must be harvested at proper maturity, with pest-free, quality kernels. Preservation is also extremely crucial,” Vũ Việt Hà shared.

From nuts retaining their green outer husks, through numerous stages, plump, cream-colored kernels gradually emerge. Kernels are sorted by size, inspected, and culled of insect-damaged or shriveled specimens before undergoing cracking and packaging. Each stage represents a screening process, so that upon opening a packaged macadamia product, consumers can savor the distinctive rich, aromatic, and buttery flavor of the nut. Beyond purchasing raw materials, the facility signs contracts with farming households, providing technical assistance in tending, harvesting, and post-harvest preservation.

In 2022, the Việt Hà dried macadamia product was recognized as meeting provincial 3-star OCOP standards and achieved HACCP food safety management system certification. From original whole nuts, the facility has also progressively developed deep-processed offerings such as macadamia pastries and macadamia powder. That cohesion forms a complete cycle where residents have orchards, the facility has raw inputs, products secure consumer outlets, and macadamia trees gain stronger footing to stand firm on the hillsides.

From an unfamiliar plant over a decade ago, macadamia has now taken deep root in the productive life of the people. From 2023 to 2025, the locality deployed 30 linked macadamia cultivation projects spanning nearly 900ha, attracting over 2,200 participating households. To date, the entire commune has more than 2,396ha of macadamia, of which about 364ha has entered harvest with an output exceeding 2,468 tons. Those figures indicate that the scale of the macadamia area is growing steadily. Yet viewed from today’s harvest season, that transformation lies not merely in reports or statistical acreages, but is tangible across each orchard, each household, and each processing facility operating at full tilt during the harvest.

According to Quàng Văn Cương, Chairman of the People’s Committee of Tuần Giáo commune, the critical task in the coming time is to continue promoting raw material area advantages, linking acreage expansion with quality enhancement, production and processing linkages, and building stable off-take outlets for products. A sustainable macadamia crop is measured not solely by the quantity of fruit gathered from trees, but also by how far macadamia travels after leaving the orchard, how much added value it generates, and what kind of stable livelihood it provides for the people.

As dusk descends, post-rain sunshine softens across the hillsides of Tuần Giáo. The macadamia season narrates its story through the green of foliage, the brown of ripe nuts, vehicles laden with farm produce, and the vibrant tempo of local life as harvest arrives.

A fruit season passes through the hardworking, devoted hands of growers, moving from hillside slopes to quality finished goods, opening up a new journey bearing the hallmark of the macadamia capital region.