A Thai jackfruit orchard in Đồng Tháp Province’s Thanh Bình District. — VNA/VNS Photo Nguyễn Văn Trí

ĐỒNG THÁP – The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Đồng Tháp plans to increase the area under fruits cultivation to more than 35,000ha by 2025 with a focus on environment-friendly farming methods and developing value chains for fruits.

It also plans to enhance the means of origin tracing for the fruits and tourism services involving orchards in the period.

It hopes to have 928ha of orchards adopting Vietnamese good agricultural practices (VietGAP) standards and 53ha grown to GlobalGAP standards.

It has more than 33,000ha of orchards that will produce more than 377,000 tonnes of fruits this year, up 43 per cent in area and 45.9 per cent in output from 2015, according to its Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Mango, longan and citrus fruits are the key fruits and are grown in large, concentrated farming areas.

Nguyễn Phước Thiện, director of the department, said the rapid growth in fruit production has been a big factor in the province’s successful restructuring of its agriculture.

The income for farmers from the province’s key fruits is three to eight times higher than from rice, he said.

A Cát Chu mango orchard provides an income of VNĐ115 million (US$4,960) per hectare per year, while the figures are VNĐ261 million ($11,260) and VNĐ850 million ($36,700) for the Edor longan and the Xoàn orange.

Under the province’s agriculture restructuring plan, many farmers with low-yield rice fields have switched to fruits and adopted VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards and advanced techniques to produce quality fruits that are also exported.

Nguyễn Văn Hải in Tháp Mười District’s Phú Điền Commune has switched to growing Thai jackfruit one his one-hectare paddy and has three to four harvests a year. His 500 – 700 kilogrammes of fruit per harvest mean he earns VNĐ600 million ($25,900) a year.

The province, the delta’s largest mango producer, has more than 9,650ha under the fruit and an annual output of 127,000 tonnes.

Farmers here use advanced techniques to grow mangoes even in the off-season to and reduce the output during main harvest season to keep prices steady.

Since the province grows many different fruits with steady quality, many companies have invested in processing them.

There are 25 small and medium – sized companies that produce more than 60 types of processed fruits and vegetables. 

Of them 20 have been identified for the country’s ‘one commune – one product’ (OCOP) programme and are sold in supermarkets.

Thiện said based on the OCOP products, many localities in the province have chosen key fruits to restructure agriculture and develop value chains.

They have developed concentrated growing areas with value chains to reduce production costs and improve farmers’ incomes, he said.

The province has 11 co-operatives, 80 co-operative groups and 58 farmers clubs that have developed value chains for fruits.

There are 133 fruit-growing areas covering a total of nearly 6,000ha that have been granted production unit codes for export purposes. 

Most of these areas are under mango, longan, dragon fruit, jackfruit, and rambutan.  

To be granted a production unit code, each fruit growing area should be a minimum of 10ha, grow a single kind of fruit and to Vietnamese VietGAP or other equivalent standards. 

The farmers also have to carry out many other tasks like keeping a cultivation diary for traceability and follow regulations on pesticide use. – VNS