Removing difficulties in dragon fruit consumption

After many fluctuations and market price fluctuations, up to now, the whole province has about 25,800 hectares of dragon fruit, with an output of 560,000 tons/year. Notably, despite the decrease in area, over the years, the province's dragon fruit has had a brand, protected by the Geographical Indication " Binh Thuan " for dragon fruit.

The entire dragon fruit growing area in the province is granted a growing area code (MSVT) for export. In particular, dragon fruit products have been exported to 13 countries in the world such as: America, Canada, Europe, Middle East, India, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asian countries and mainly China (accounting for over 80%)...

The question is why the dragon fruit industry of the province "owns" these strengths, but recently has encountered many difficulties in consumption, causing many gardeners and businesses to "call for help"? According to Mr. Ha Van Chien - Head of the Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection (TT & BVTV) of Lam Dong province: In recent years, due to the difficult situation of consuming dragon fruit products, a part of the dragon fruit area has been converted by people to grow other crops, reducing the area and output. Along with that, most of the number of MSVT, packaging facilities (CSĐG) exporting dragon fruit have been transferred from the Plant Protection Department (now the TT & BVTV Department) to the locality (Department of Agriculture and Environment) for management.

Therefore, the information of the owner, address... of the local management agency is still not sufficient to serve the management and supervision of MSVT, CSĐG export. Meanwhile, currently, the majority of CSĐG dragon fruit export operates in the form of renting, renting warehouses and depends on the price of dragon fruit in the market, so the management and supervision work also faces many difficulties.

Last week, at the working session of Mr. Nguyen Hoang Phuc - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment with the Binh Thuan Dragon Fruit Association (Lam Dong province), many enterprises and cooperatives producing and consuming dragon fruit raised and proposed solutions to many difficulties and problems in dragon fruit consumption. Mr. Huynh Canh - Chairman of the Binh Thuan Dragon Fruit Association said: The dragon fruit industry still faces many challenges.

These are increasingly stringent quarantine and traceability requirements, high transportation costs, as well as fierce competition from Thailand, Ecuador and China. This requires associations and businesses to constantly improve quality, diversify products and build strong brands. Along with that, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment recently issued a Circular regulating decentralization and division of state management authority in the field of cultivation and plant protection. From July 1, 2025 to now, in the process of transitioning procedures, businesses are facing difficulties in exporting dragon fruit to Europe...

Present at the meeting, Mr. Tran Dinh Trung - Director of Thuan Tien Dragon Fruit Cooperative (Ham Liem Commune) shared: Authorizing export as well as supervising the MSVT managed by the People's Committee of wards and communes encountered many difficulties. Therefore, enterprises and cooperatives proposed that the functional unit recalculate the issuance of new MSVT after merging administrative units; revoke MSVT for establishments and enterprises that do not export. At the same time, focus on producing dragon fruit according to GlobalGAP standards; promote trade promotion of domestic and foreign dragon fruit markets.

To remove difficulties and obstacles and find solutions to promote dragon fruit consumption in the province, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Lam Dong province Nguyen Hoang Phuc assigned the provincial Department of Information and Plant Protection to promptly review the MSVT and CSĐG. On the other hand, he requested localities to promote the construction of a chain linking production to safe consumption of dragon fruit. The purpose is to increase the value of agricultural products, meet diverse export markets...