Spanning around 200 ha, during each harvest season, the pineapple fields in Pu Lau bustle with harvesting residents and traders coming to purchase. The honey pineapple tree here is becoming a key crop, creating stable livelihoods for the people while opening up a direction for commodity agricultural development linked with experiential tourism in the border region.

These days, across the pineapple fields in Pu Lau, residents are concentrating on harvesting the first ripe fruits of the season. Large baskets of pineapples are transported down to roadside gathering points, waiting for traders to buy. Amid that urgent working atmosphere, Vàng Thị Cở is busily harvesting pineapples in her family’s field. Fruits weighing from 2 to 3kg are carefully selected by her, neatly arranged into baskets, and brought down to the gathering point. As soon as the products reach the roadside, traders are present to sort, pack into boxes, and transport them back to the center before distribution to other provinces and cities.

Sharing her joy during the harvest season, Vàng Thị Cở from Pu Lau village, Mường Nhà commune, noted that her family has been growing pineapples for many years, and each harvest season is very exciting because traders come directly to the spot to buy. She mentioned that while she does not remember the exact output of each year, from three pineapple fields, her family earned over VND 200 million last year. She emphasized that compared to many previous crops, pineapples provide a more stable income, and the maintenance work fits well with her family’s conditions.

Possessing years of experience with pineapple trees, Sùng A Hà from Pu Lau village believes that the efficiency of this crop stems from growth characteristics that perfectly suit local soil and climate conditions. His family currently maintains nearly 2 ha of honey pineapples.

Sùng A Hà shared that pineapple trees are planted once, after which the focus is primarily on care, fertilization, and monitoring the plants’ development, with an average yield of over 30 tons of fruit per hectare. He added that the second year usually yields large and medium-sized fruits of high value, while it is not until the third year that smaller fruits, often called “bi” fruits, appear in larger numbers. He noted that with proper technical care, a pineapple garden can be exploited for 5 to 6 years before needing replanting.

According to Sùng A Hà, the advantageous point of Pu Lau honey pineapples is the relatively stable output, meaning farmers do not have to search for consumption markets themselves. He indicated that current selling prices are categorized by size, with “bi” fruits at around VND 4,000/kg, medium fruits at VND 6,000/kg, and large fruits at VND 8,000/kg, noting that retail sales can fetch one or two price tiers higher.

Not only do growers benefit, but the development of the pineapple raw material zone also facilitates the growth of agricultural purchasing and distribution activities.

Arriving in Pu Lau early in the morning to purchase pineapples, Lê Thành Đạt from Mỹ Hưng hamlet, Thanh Nưa commune, stated that the consumption market for honey pineapples is expanding continuously, spreading from within the province to various provinces and cities nationwide. He mentioned that he purchases products in Pu Lau based on orders from customers across many localities because the fruits here feature large sizes, a sweet taste, and relatively uniform quality, making them well-received by the market. He added that after buying from the gardens, they carefully select, classify, and pack the fruits in cardboard boxes before transporting them back to Điện Biên for further distribution, ensuring the products maintain their quality when reaching consumers.

Beyond the value of a mere agricultural product, the lush green pineapple gardens amid the hills and mountains of Pu Lau are becoming destinations that attract tourists. Sharing her impressions after a visit, Trần Thị Lan from Điện Biên Phủ ward noted that the pineapple gardens here offer beautiful landscapes, creating a very special feeling. She added that Pu Lau honey pineapples are sweet and fragrant, and a fascinating detail is that enjoying them right at the garden is very convenient since the fruits are easy to peel without requiring extensive eye-trimming like some other pineapple varieties. She expressed that coming here to sightsee, take photos, and enjoy the products directly in the garden serves as an exciting experience.

The combination of agricultural production and tourism experiences opens up a new development path for the Pu Lau pineapple region in particular and Mường Nhà commune in general. The pineapple fields are becoming experiential spaces, contributing to promoting the image of the land and people in the border area, creating a premise for the locality to study and develop agricultural tourism products and build a brand linked with cultural identity and natural landscapes.

With an increasingly expanded area, a stable consumption market, and clear economic efficiency, the honey pineapple tree has been becoming a vital path in the commodity agricultural development of Mường Nhà commune. From the upland fields of the border region, the sweet pineapples contribute to upgrading residents’ incomes, boosting production linkages, building signature products, and generating additional momentum for local economic development toward sustainability.