In 2017, fruit and vegetable export of Vietnam reached $ 3.5 billion, 42.5% more than the same period. In addition to the traditional market, many strict markets such as Japanese, Australian, American, Korean... have officially opened for Vietnamese fruit. However, in fact, it is not easy to export to these markets.
Farmers are interested in growing pomelos to export. Picture: A farmer’s Grapefruit garden in Dinh Quan district.
Dong Nai is not short of fruits that are favored by strict markets such as: mango, dragon fruit, banana, pomelo ... But in many years, Dong Nai fruit market is still always unstable.
Dependence on Chinese market
Banana farmers are ready to harvest the bananas because of the banana export prices are not being cut off and wait for the “rescue” like in the last season. According to Nguyen Van Than, a farmer with many years of experience in planting bananas in Thanh Binh commune (Trang Bom district), farmers are now monitoring the weather, crops in China more than the situations in Vietnam. This time last year, the winter in China so harsh, although many farmers before losing money billions for bananas but many Dong Nai farmers still increase the banana area.
"This year, my family still planted nearly 3 ha of bananas. At the beginning, we were happy with the high banana price, but we worried as well since all the information we knew was just word of mouth. We look forward to a formal news channel to inform us about forecasted changes in the demand of Chinese market in specific seasons to avoid wasting bananas like in the past" said Mr. Than.
In the past few years, only when Chinese markets asked for imports, mango growers were able to sell at good prices. At the domestic market, Vietnamese mangoes hardly compete in price and quality compared to imported acacia mangoes. Mr. Nguyen The Bao, Director of Suoi Lon Mango Cooperative (Xuan Loc district) said: "Large and small markets in Dong Nai are flooded with Cambodian acacia mango because they are too cheap, meanwhile, domestic mangoes are still full in our farms. Many farmers are chopping off the 3 rainy seasons mango trees to grow acacia mango to follow the markets’ favor, and this kind of mangoes is less affected by the weather. The rest of the crop is large Taiwanese mangoes because Chinese market favors them. "
According to Mr. Bao, although the cooperative had participated in many trade promotion programs, met many enterprise delegations from other countries, even some Japanese experts on training and technical guidance for mango farmers following Japanese market standard, we had not yet expanded our consumption channels to countries whose standards we had not met.
Standardizing the material areas
Globe Farm Vietnam Co., Ltd (Ho Chi Minh City) is investing in banana material in GAP standard in Xuan Loc district. Representatives of the company said that the export of bananas to the Korean market grew very well. Beside bananas, many other fruits that Dong Nai area is in large are favored by many strict markets including Japan. However, due to the lack of raw materials and the difficulty in quality control, the company only exports bananas produced by enterprises.
Sharing the same comment, Mr. Le Tu Phuong Thanh, business director of Viet My International Investment Joint Stock Company (Ho Chi Minh City) said: "We have invested 50 ha of pomelo and durian in Tan Phu district and 50 ha of guava in Lam Dong province according to the clean production standard for export. We also organized a cooperative of planting healthy pomelos in Ta Lai commune (Tan Phu district) with the area of 10 ha. In the near future, we will bring fruit samples to test its quality and when we can standardize the raw material area, the export will be started.
According to Mr. Thanh, export opportunities are very big. However, the company has steady steps starting from standardizing raw materials because the export market requires extremely strict quality. Beside fresh fruits exports, Viet My will sign a cooperation agreement with investors in the field of processing for a truly solid output.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoang Thuy- Deputy Head of the Vietnam Trade Office in Sydney, said: "Australia has about 24 million people, but the import value is up to hundreds of billion dollars a year. After the free trade agreement was signed, Vietnam's exports to this country increased, especially agricultural products. Vietnamese fruits shall have investment planning for key areas and production chain before entering this market. According to Ms. Thuy, Vietnamese fruits have many opportunities to enter Australia, but enterprises must associate with farmers to have clean raw materials for export because the Australian’s demand is extremely strict.
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