A milk apple orchard in Cần Thơ City’s Phong Điền District. — VNA/VNS Photo Thu Hiền

CẦN THƠ — The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta city of Cần Thơ will spend VNĐ58 billion (US$2.5 million) from now until 2025 to develop intensive farming of orchards and create brand names for fruits.

A new plan announced by its People’s Committee also envisages development of production codes for fruits, which would help promote brandnames and increase the competitiveness of the fruits to foster exports, focusing on the domestic market, production of fruit-related products for exports, and attracting tourists to orchards.

To achieve the targets, it has instructed localities to strengthen advocacy to link up farmers and establish concentrated fruit areas of at least 10ha and develop production codes, Nguyễn Ngọc Hè, its deputy chairman, said.

Local authorities should train their farmers in fruit growing techniques to improve efficiency, he said.

The city will focus on building flood prevention embankments, warehouses for fruit preservation and irrigation works.

It will create linkages among stakeholders in fruit production to produce in large quantities and with high quality to meet the requirements of both domestic and export markets.

It has instructed the Department of Industry and Trade and others to carry out trade promotion activities.

The city has nearly 24,000ha under fruits and an annual output of 170,000 tonnes.

Increasingly, its fruit farmers are adopting good agricultural practices (GAP) standards, with 477ha under VietGAP and 37 areas with a total area of 602ha getting production codes.

To get the code, a fruit growing area should be a minimum of 10ha and adopt VietGAP or other equivalent standards.

These, especially areas growing speciality fruits, have been offering high economic benefits to farmers in recent years.

Concentrated areas have been established for speciality fruits like milk apple, durian and Burmese grape in Phong Điền District, longan in Ô Môn and Thới Lai districts, and mango in Cờ Đỏ District.

There are collective brand names like Thới An Ido longan, Hạ Châu Nhơn Ái Burmese grape, Tân Thới durian, and Trường Xuân A milk apple.

The city has also developed tourism around its orchards, especially in Phong Điền, Bình Thuỷ and Thốt Nốt districts.

In Phong Điền, there are more than 30 of them.

Võ Thành Giúp, director of the Heritage Management, Tourism and Trade Promotion Centre in Phong Điền, said: “Tourists visiting Phong Điền are mostly from the country’s central and northern regions. The peak tourism season is summer when it is the main fruit harvest time.”

Phong Điền, Bình Thuỷ and Thốt Nốt districts have zoned agricultural areas in combination with eco-tourism development.

The city is seeking investment for its 40ha Phong Điền Ecotourism area to exploit the advantages of rivers and fruit orchards. — VNS