Need a revolution for dragon fruit

On the morning of February 21, in Phan Thiet City (Binh Thuan), Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan chaired a conference on the production and consumption of dragon fruit.

Depends on the Chinese market
Le Thanh Tung, Deputy Director of the Department of Crop Production, said that currently, Vietnamese dragon fruit is grown in most of 63 provinces and cities with a total area of nearly 65,000 hectares, with an average output of nearly 1.4 million tons per year.

In which, 3 provinces including Binh Thuan, Long An and Tien Giang grow the most dragon fruit. In 2015, the export value of Vietnamese dragon fruit reached 483 million USD and by 2020 it will reach more than 1.1 billion USD. Because of the attractiveness of dragon fruit, it has promoted the expansion of acreage and increased production for export.

However, dragon fruit depends a lot on the Chinese market, mainly exported in the form of small quotas. Recently, due to the influence of the Covid-19 epidemic, China implemented the "Zero Covid-19" policy, making it difficult to export dragon fruits to this market, and the price of dragon fruit dropped sharply.

According to Mr. Tung, there are currently two views on the development of dragon fruit. One is, only to develop dragon fruit up to 100,000 ha and the second is to reduce the area. However, according to Mr. Tung, the increase or decrease must consider market factors and the acumen of businesses and localities, as well as strengthen linkages with dragon fruit consumption for sustainable development. But development that does not bring stable income to farmers and puts pressure on consumption should be stopped.

For dragon fruit processing, we currently have a variety of products but only consume 5% of the output, so it has to be increased to 20-25% to make sense. As well as need to promote processing when increasing area and output.

Mr. Mai Kieu, Director of Binh Thuan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that dragon fruit was identified by the province as a key crop with high economic value compared to other crops; average total revenue is 350-400 million VND/ha/year, average profit is about 150 - 170 million VND/ha/year.

Currently, Binh Thuan dragon fruit area is about 33,750 hectares, dragon fruit output reaches 700,000 tons/year. Up to now, there are 12,397 ha of dragon fruit certified with VietGAP and nearly 355 ha of dragon fruit certified with GlobalGAP.

However, Mr. Kieu realizes that the production of dragon fruit in the area has many shortcomings and limitations such as the production scale is still small and fragmented; The construction of concentrated production areas has not been much, nor has it been able to create a large volume of products capable of competing in the market economy. Productivity, quality and competitiveness of products are still low; The development of preservation and processing stages is still weak, the proportion of quality products and export brands is low.

The consumption is not stable, the price is still volatile; The competitiveness is still weak, the consumption market is not diversified, and it depends a lot on the Chinese market.

Therefore, when exporting through this market encounters many difficulties; In particular, at present, some border gates are temporarily closed or imported, but with very limited clearance output, which greatly affects consumption and export.

Similarly, Mr. Nguyen Van Man, Director of Tien Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the province currently has nearly 10,000 hectares of dragon fruit with a total output of 260 thousand/ton. In which, there are 73 purchasing and processing establishments for export to the Chinese market with an output of 150,000 tons. The difficulty for dragon fruit consumption in Tien Giang as well as Binh Thuan and Long An is largely dependent on the Chinese market. Every time this market changes policy, consumption is difficult, the price drops to only 2-3 thousand VND/kg, people suffer heavy losses.

Therefore, localities believe that, in order to reduce dependence on this market, we need to re-plan growing areas, invite businesses to do deep processing, invest in cold storage, and gradually reduce export output to the Chinese market. countries, as well as diverse consumer markets.

A representative of Hoang Hau Dragon Fruit Co., Ltd. said that now China has grown dragon fruit with a large area and high output, so it has directly affected the consumption of Vietnamese dragon fruit to this market. Previously, they only produced dragon fruit harvested from May to October (seasonal), now they also have seasonal goods.

Therefore, he said that although the export of dragon fruit to this market is not congested, the selling price in this market will also be low. Therefore, in order to reduce dependence on this market, we must improve the quality of our products and export them to other markets. Along with that, in the immediate future, it is necessary to reduce the area to reduce the pressure on consumption.

Need a revolution to reorganize production
After listening to the opinions of localities, businesses and industry associations, Minister Le Minh Hoan showed a clip about a dragon fruit farmer but had to throw away the product to feed the cows because there was no output.

However, this farmer did not turn his back on dragon fruit but still pursued, researched, researched, learned and found a way for dragon fruit to find output and export. At the end of the clip, the farmer reminded that "must change or die".

Borrowing the above words of that farmer, the Minister also said that we all have to change, even the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, localities, businesses and farmers also change. Because for a long time our approach has followed the old way of thinking, production thinks that more output is good. But the market owns production. Therefore, we must change the approach from one end to two ends (production and market end). But now we are still confused about everything, even the Chinese market we also have a vague understanding.

Therefore, the Minister assigned the Department of Crop Production to study and analyze the market carefully. As for the localities, they have to be responsible for controlling and grasping specifically how many people produce dragon fruits, how many granaries buy them, etc. From there, there is a direction to put farmers in a suitable form of production organization, put the into the organization.

The head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reiterated the saying "trade with friends, sell with wards." He said that the Chinese can do it, but we can't, because our thinking is still strong, everyone does it, everyone is strong. Therefore, he said, localities need a revolution to reorganize production right from the commune level, not to develop production in a spontaneous fashion.

Along with that, research to reduce input costs, to reduce the risk of product price drops. As well as switching from exporting dragon fruit from small quota to official quota. Because this is the trend of countries to control epidemics, taxes, even currencies...

And, from the story of dragon fruit, there will be many other agricultural products that are also challenging in terms of markets, linkages, consumption... Therefore, the Minister once again reminded localities to build ecosystems in which all Everyone must have a sense of responsibility. The agencies of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development must also be responsible for providing information on mechanisms, policies, markets, etc. to the localities.

Dr. Tran Minh Hai, Director of the Center for Cooperative Economics Training and Consulting (School of Agriculture and Rural Development II), said that now China can also produce dragon fruit and when it comes to the main season, they do everything to protect them. protect the domestic market. Therefore, the export of dragon fruit to this market is no longer as golden as in the past. Moreover, many countries now also develop dragon fruit, such as Cambodia has an area of about 12.8 thousand hectares of dragon fruit while 5 years ago, this country was only about 3,000 hectares. Therefore, our dragon fruit has many competitors.

On the other hand, it is very difficult for the dragon fruit regions of our country to develop sustainable production links, because the cooperatives are all thinking for profit, not for the purpose of the community. Therefore, when there is a problem of market risk, there is a strong situation that everyone does, everyone takes care of themselves. For dragon fruit, another important issue is that we currently have a large output, but the quantity of quality goods is small, so we cannot meet the needs of some markets.

nongnhiep.vn