Farmers in the northern province of Bắc Giang had a bumper crop with revenue of US$262.6 million. — Photo phapluatplus.vn

BẮC GIANG — Farmers in the northern province of Bắc Giang earned revenue of VNĐ6.1 trillion (US$262.6 million) from lychee this year, surpassing records in the past 60 years in terms of value.

The total revenue from lychee was VNĐ5 trillion in 2016, VNĐ5.3 trillion in 2017 and VNĐ5.8 trillion in 2018.

Farmers in the province have not had to bring their lychee to the market. Traders came to their gardens to buy the fruit.

Bùi Văn Cánh in the province’s Lục Ngạn District said they had a bumper lychee crop with high prices this year. There is now a lack of lychee to sell to Chinese traders as it is the end of the season.

The lychee output this year in the province reached more than 90,000 tonnes with record prices of VNĐ30,000-50,000, even VNĐ80,000 per kilo.

A farmer could earn profits of several hundreds million Vietnamese đồng for their lychee gardens. Some households planting lychee with organic methods enjoyed much higher profits as people were paying up to VNĐ200,000 for a box of 12 lychees with stamps of traceability.

Trần Văn Hành, a famer in Giáp Sơn Commune said it was easy to sell lychee this year. Their organic lychees were offered for sale for the first time with higher prices.

Cao Văn Hoàn, vice chairman of Lục Ngạn District People’s Committee, said the lychee quality this year has been the best so far. Therefore, they earned more despite lower output than last year.

This has been the first year the district applied pilot planting of organic lychee on an area of 20ha, providing clean and safe products. The application of a modern production process helped Lục Ngạn lychee increase selling prices three to seven times over those of previous years.

The provincial Department of Industry and Trade said around 50,000 tonnes of lychee were sold to China so far this year.

Lục Ngạn lychee was exported to 30 countries and territories, mainly to China with 90 per cent of the total and some demanding markets such as EU, the US, Russia, Canada and Japan.

The lychee is a well-known fruit from the northern province of Bắc Giang. — VNS