Trung Nguyen, 32, of Melbourne's Cairnlea, was sentenced to jail and placed on a 24-month community corrections order on Friday after pleading guilty in Warrnambool Magistrates Court to trafficking and possessing methamphetamine.

The corrections order includes 300 hours of community work.

Nguyen lodged a severity appeal against his jail term and appeared in court again on Monday.

He was released on bail with strict conditions, including he not enter or remain in Warrnambool or the geographical area west of Geelong, abide by a 6am to 9pm curfew, he surrender his passport, not do drugs, not leave Victoria and forfeit a $20,000 surety.

The court heard Nguyen was living in Australia on a bridging visa with his wife and three children aged under 14.

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On December 2 Nguyen hired a Toyota Hiace van from a business in Essendon.

Between 11pm and 12.40am that night he crashed the van on the Hopkins Falls Road, east of Wangoom. He was not injured and picked up by another motorist.

The cause of the accident is not known. The van was seized and forensically analysed.

Inside the van was a bag containing 11.3 kilograms of cannabis and another weighing 21.6 kilograms - a police biologist said the second bag was filled with a mix of cannabis and an unidentified material.

Police also located 97 rubbish bags filled with potting mix and stems, 62 high powered light bulbs, fertilizer and CCTV cameras.

Nguyen attended the Warrnambool police station the following day to collect the van. He was subsequently arrested.

In January the court was told Nguyen had a number of leased properties in his name, including a house in Cobden, and had evidence on his mobile phone of possible drug growing properties in Victoria.

Magistrate Mark Stratmann said trafficking drugs of addiction "created enormous damage and destruction to this country, particularly in country regions".

"The community needs to be protected from this kind of behaviour," he said.

Nguyen will appear in Warrnambool County Court in August.

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