Golf courses get plenty of flack for being unsustainable. They use up valuable fertile land, consume huge amounts of water and produce nothing apart from perspiring businessmen. Apart from, that is, Lăng Cô Golf Club in Central Vietnam which has made sustainability one of its key goals, and is producing food for local communities. By James Teo.
Lăng Cô, Vietnam. November, 2020. A calming sea breeze wafts across the course, which offers ocean views and a stunning mountainous backdrop for short-sleeved golfers. A nearby clubhouse offers gin and tonic and – what’s this? – a water buffalo chomps on grass and weeds at the edge of the green, as a paddy of lush green rice waves gently in the background.
This is not your usual golf course, by any means. The water buffalo and rice paddy are just part of a push by the Laguna Lăng Cô Golf Club to morph itself into the most sustainable course in Vietnam. The managers have already banned single-use plastics in most of its operations, scrapped on-course garbage bags (players now have to take their rubbish with them), and substituted bamboo, paper, glass, steel or natural grass products for locker room accessories, cups, disposable cutlery, bottles and straws. The club has also recently installed its own water bottling plant to allow the resort to completely eliminate plastic water bottles and move instead to all reusable glass bottles. And it is EarthCheck Gold certified, one of only three golf courses globally to gain the award.
“Being able to donate rice was a really positive outcome for us.” - Adam Culver. Courtesy Laguna Lăng Cô.
But best of all, the golf course has become a mini-sanctuary for wildlife, and has started producing usable quantities of rice from a paddy inside its boundaries. Rather than use mechanical equipment to till and weed the paddy, Lăng Cô uses water buffalo “bio-mowers” to help keep the field and course fringes in the best order.
“They help to manage the seven-hectare rice fields in the middle of the course by eating excess weeds while tilling the soil at the same time,” say the course’s managers. “Otherwise it would require machinery and additional manpower to maintain.”
The rice-fields are not just for show. Harvested twice a year, they have previously yielded up to 20 tonnes of rice for the organic farm at Laguna Lăng Cô. But this year, thanks partly to buffalo power, they have produced a 28-tonne crop that has been donated to help feed members of local communities hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
“This winter’s record haul of 28 tonnes has surpassed previous harvests by some way,” said Adam Calver, Golf Club director. “This could not have come at a more timely juncture, with Vietnam’s economy taking a hit on tourism (due to) the spread of the global pandemic.”
New buffalo calf Lulu is the latest addition to the water buffalo herd. Courtesy Laguna Lăng Cô.
The five-strong buffalo herd – which has just seen the birth of Lulu, a new baby daughter – includes father and mother Tu Phat and Chi Chi as well as existing calves Luna and Bao. With all those hooves ploughing, fertilising and tilling the paddies, it is no wonder the harvest is big enough to share.
“The local communities with limited economic means have been hit hardest by the economic downturn (following) the global pandemic,” said Calver. “The fact that we have been able to donate even more rice this year to locals who need it … was a really positive outcome for our edible golf course.”
Calver added that the use of water buffalo as natural grazers helps protect the original feel of the landscape and also gives a better sense of natural place. “Since we introduced the buffalo we have seen a number of birds like egrets moving back in as they feed on the insects that the buffalo turn up as they till the soil,” he said.
This year, armed with the seeds of success from the buffalo team, the Lăng Cô management is looking to extend its animal helper army. “We are currently building a new home for a family of ducks which will be used next year as part of our Integrated Rice-Duck farming program,” added Culver.