Farmers tend to dragon fruit trees at the Thanh Thanh Dragon Fruit Farm.

Overseas markets are ripe for the picking, but Vietnamese dragon fruit farmers and producers need to meet international standards in order make the most of this opportunity.

By Viet Thang

Viet Nam's dragon fruit, also known as pitaya fruit, was grown for the kings of Asian countries. Even though the fruit was brought to Viet Nam by the French more than a century ago, it was introduced to the market only in the 1980s.

The European Union, the US, Russia, and some Asian countries are the destination markets for Vietnamese dragon fruit, with high demand from the EU market in particular. And the EU is helping Vietnamese growers to increase their export potential.

Difficulties

Despite the large export potential of Vietnamese fruits, foreign importers face barriers in buying fruits produced in the country, especially dragon fruit, due to quality issues.

Fruits and vegetables produced in Viet Nam that are exported to the EU are required to meet the quality standards of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). These standards are important, but Vietnamese enterprises find it difficult to meet them because most processing firms in the country are small and medium in size and the domestic agricultural production sector is not as well developed as those of other food exporting countries.

According to statistics from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Binh Thuan Province, which is the country's largest dragon fruit producer, the province has 23,000ha of dragon fruit with a yield of 550,000 tonnes per year.

However, only about 7,500ha follows VietGAP standards (Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices), and 222ha, GlobalGAP standards (GLOBAL GAP is an internationally recognised set of farm standards dedicated to Good Agricultural Practices).

The province has more than 206 dragon fruit trading firms, but only 23 of them have food safety certificates.

With regard to the export of dragon fruit to the lucrative EU market, Chairman of the Binh Thuan Dragon Fruit Association Bui Dang Hung said that local exporters still needed a legal framework to export their products.

Currently, the province has 206 dragon fruit trading firms, but only 50 of them have joined the association. Farmers looking for new markets tend to make their own deals with exporters and only ask for assistance to protect their rights from the association when they incur losses.

Faced with these obstacles to exporting dragon fruit to the quality conscious EU market, local wholesale purchasers have turned to China, subjecting themselves to prices determined by the Chinese traders at the border gate.

According to Nguyen Van Thanh of the Thanh Thanh Dragon Fruit Farm, 90 per cent of the fruit sold to China was traded at border checkpoints. However, all fruit growers and exporters always worry about the continuous fall in prices.

"The price fluctuation has affected both the long-term growing plans and the income of the local farmers," Vo Mai, deputy head of Viet Nam Gardeners Association, said. "Farmers should grow fruits in different periods to reduce stagnancy. The dried-fruit processing industry needs to be developed to provide diversified products for both home and foreign markets."

EU support

Dragon fruit was introduced to Viet Nam by the Europeans and now the wheel has come full circle and the EU is helping to promote export of the fruit from Viet Nam so that the country's agricultural production can expand globally.

Dang Huy Thanh, a technical expert in charge of the EU-funded project on dragon fruit cultivation, said that in the summer of 2014, the EU had launched a 300,000 euros (US$325,000) project to support the cultivation and export of dragon fruit in 15 co-operatives in Binh Thuan and 5 co-operatives in Long An.

The three-year project receives its funding through the European Trade Policy and Investment Support Project, EU-MUTRAP, and aims to assist cooperatives in southern Viet Nam to expand the market of dragon fruit to the EU and to develop a value chain for this fruit for its growers.

Workers select the best fruits for export at the Thanh Thanh Dragon Fruit Farm.

EU-MUTRAP, which has been running in several incarnations since 1999, aims to strengthen Viet Nam's integration into the global and regional systems, as well as facilitate the country's sustainable trade and investment in the long-term with not only the EU, but also the rest of the world.

Thanh noted that the goals of the project also included helping cooperatives become capable of marketing themselves and selling their products to new markets.

In addition, it aimed to assist in applying green production techniques and good agricultural practices that would help to improve the daily income of growers and cooperatives while boosting the value of pitaya fruit.

For three years 2014-16, the project has worked with a series of cooperatives in Long An and Binh Thuan, and invited them to seminars, especially those focusing on sustainable production.

He emphasised the importance of raising awareness of growers about green farming techniques and GAP, and the need to meet the strict demands and requirements of buyers of dragon fruit from the EU so that producers understand what they have to deliver.

In the long run this would pay off by increasing the volume of exports and generating new income for growers and their employees.

Thanh affirmed that they would also organize seminars on brand and image building for the product, marketing, building and improving the product value chain, green farming techniques, and GAP. These training classes would be combined with fieldtrips and seminars where experience can be shared.

The EU project is working in parallel with the activities of the Vietnamese authorities.

Mai Kieu, director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Binh Thuan, affirmed that the province would strive to expand its plantation cover to 25,000ha by 2020, with 90 per cent of the dragon fruit production following VietGAP standards with a stable yield of between 700,000 and 750,000 tonnes per year.

To produce and develop dragon fruit sustainably, the provincial administration would continue to instruct farmers to grow dragon fruit in accordance with VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards. It would also require exporters to carefully apply export standards, ranging from those of packaging to preservation, so that they meet the strict requirements for exports.

Earning from exports

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the acreage of dragon fruit has reached more than 28,700ha, with a yield of 520,000 tonnes. These plantations are concentrated mostly in Binh Thuan, Tien Giang and Long An, with Binh Thuan being the largest.

The unsung story is that farmers in the southern provinces, after years of struggling with the arid land in the region, have found a way to escape poverty by exporting dragon fruit globally.

Truong Minh Tung, who owns a dragon fruit farm in Tam Vu Commune in Chau Thanh District of Long An, said he decided to transform 300,000sq.m of his father's paddy field into a dragon fruit plantation.

After learning how to grow the fruit from elders of his family, Tung spent days and nights fertilising his soil and digging holes to erect concrete posts to grow dragon fruit. He gradually grasped the techniques involved in managing.

Having earned a good reputation, Tung started guiding farmers in the region on how to grow dragon fruit under VietGAP or GlobalGAP standards, helping them improve the yield and quality of their produce.

Now, Tung earns at least 500 million to 1 billion dong every year by growing dragon fruit.

In Binh Thuan, Nguyen Van Thanh, who owns the Thanh Thanh Dragon Fruit Farm noted that after fighting for years to earn hard money by growing rice, he decided to convert his entire 30ha of rice land into a dragon fruit plantation, which now brings him a profit of more than 1 billion dong a year.

Having learned about the EU project to support the cultivation and export of his dragon fruit, Thanh said he had now applied VietGAP and GlobalGAP to promote exports of his product, which could lead to higher yield and bring better income.

With average yield of 20 to 30 tonnes per hectare, dragon fruit growers make profit of hundreds of millions of dong, after excluding their expenses on labour, fertilisers and others.

This in turn boosts Vietnamese export returns and injects more money into the national economy.— VNS

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