According to the Department of Crop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the North has 393,000 hectares of land for planting fruit, accounting for 39.73 percent with more than 7,900 hectares of VietGAP fruits mostly oranges, lychees, mangoes, longans.
Generally, areas under the fruit grown to VietGAP standards are just nearly 2 percent the country’s total land.
The harsh climate in the North and small-scale cultivating impede growing fruits in the North whereas the South where the trees fruit all year round.
Moreover, there has been no professional distribution system of giant enterprises for fruits from the North. Just a few farmers and cooperatives have signed production and consumption contracts with enterprises.
In order to help local fruits of various parts of the country to be put on supermarket shelves, a representative from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in the central province of Nghe An put forward a plan to strengthen promotion of local specialties and regularly organize event to honor good agricultural products to the Ministry.
Moreover, to make use of climate and weather for growing suitable fruits, local agricultural sector should convert land for growing trees with low economic efficiency into land for growing fruits.
Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural development in the northern province of Son La Nguyen Thanh Cong reminded enterprises and local administrations about domestic market besides exports of fruits.
He added that to exploit domestic market effectively, enterprises should promote the link in consumption between areas in the country. For instance, farmers in Son La Province start harvesting the mango while their peers in Dong Thap Province are free at the time beucase mango crop is over.
Moreover, Son La Province has temperate fruits while Dong Thap has tropical kinds.
In the next time, agriculture sector of Dong Thap will facilitate enterprises who seek for market while Dong Thap will also get access to information of market in the North. Different fruits will be sold in the market everywhere in the country to expand consumption.
More importantly, province leaders should warn farmers not to expand growing land when they have not signed contracts and the market has not shown positive sign. Enterprises are encouraged to invest in establishments to treat fruits after harvesting.
