VietNamNet Bridge – The Cuu Long River Delta has been taking drastic measures to heighten the efficiency of agricultural production. However, the small scale of production in the region has been hampering the efforts.
Dragon fruits are on sale at Metro Can Tho
Recently, more and more Vietnamese farm produce has been ‘going abroad’. Hoa Loc mangos have been going to Japan, Lo Ren Vinh Kim Star Apples to South Korea and Europe, My Hoa pomelos to many European and Asian countries. 
However, farmers are not happy because their products are being consumed and favoured by many countries in the world.
Deputy Chairman of the Lo Ren Vinh Kim Star Apple Cooperative in Tien giang province Le Van Son said that local farmers export products because they want to polish their images rather than because they aim to get profit.
Son said that farmers get the modest profit of 5,000 dong per kilogramme of fruits exported, while they earn 1,000 dong in profit for every kilogramme of fruits sold on the domestic market. However, the problem lies in the fact that the export volume is too small, not enough to bring satisfactory profit to farmers.
The cooperative exports only 100 kilogrammes of star apples a week to Russia, while it ships 7,000 kilogrammes to Hanoi.
Cho Gao dragon fruit has also been ‘going abroad’. Nguyen Thi Be Chin, Deputy Chairwoman of Cho Gao Dragon Fruit Cooperative, said that 250 kilogrammes of dragon fruit are being shipped to Russia and Germany every week, while nearly ten tonnes are being shipped to Singapore. Moreover, it provides some 1,000 kilogrammes to Metro supermarket.
My Hoa Nam Roi Pomelo has contracts to export 1,000 tonnes of pomelo, which is considered a big export volume in comparison with other fruits. However, the export volume is nothing if noting that the whole province of Vinh Long puts out 80,000 tonnes, and Binh Minh alone can put out 20,000 tonnes a year.
Thanh My Rice Cooperative in Tien Giang province is happy because ADC Company has been a responsible for the outlet of the cooperative, purchasing rice at 20 percent higher prices than the average market prices. However, in fact, the members of the cooperative do not earn much money from the cooperation programme because of the small rice growing area of 11.5 hectares only.
Limited production scale
In fact, farm produce in the Cuu Long River Delta has high quality and is being produced under the Global Good Agriculture Practice (GAP). Farmers there cannot sell products in big quantities not because of low quality, but because of low output.
Metro Supermarket is now consuming 400 kilogrammes of Cho Gao dragon fruit, and it wants to increase the volume. However, Cho Gao Dragon Fruit Cooperative just can meet half of the demand, because the cooperative now has only 32 households with GAP-certified growing area of over 30 hectares. With the capacity of 20 tonnes per hectare, the total output is 600 tonnes per annum, of which only 1/5 can meet the requirements for export or sale at supermarkets.
Similarly, only seven hectares of Vinh Kim star apple area has got GAP certificates. These can churn out just 105 tonnes per annum. Only 24 hectares of My Hoa Nam Roi Pomelo have got the certificate, which means that only 336 tonnes of fruit can be put out a year.
As said above, not all products can meet requirements for export. Exporters always have to collect products from other sources to fulfil their export contracts. Son from Lo Ren Vinh Kim said that in general, only one tonne of products can be selected from every 30 tonnes.
VietNamNet/TP
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