driguez, Minister of Agriculture, announced the implementation of a program to promote the cultivation of pitahaya, which seeks to increase exports through the diversification of the agricultural production in the Dominican Republic.Rodriguez said this tropical fruit from Asia, is highly competitive and has a high demand in international markets, especially in the east coast of New York.
In a ceremony to announce the program, organized by the Dominican Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Research (Idiaf ), he said that, "thanks to their economical high value, pitahaya crops were ideal to face the smallholding that characterized the agricultural properties in the country."
Other tropical Asian fruits promoted in the country for their propensity to export include: caper, carambola, green guava and poncere.
"This fruit is one of the options available to the Dominican Republic to diversify their export portfolio and increase the income of farmers," he said, noting a family could generate enough income to live well with ten plots of pitahaya.
The Minister said that they would start negotiations with the Agricultural Bank to obtain sufficient funding and to initiate a pilot project of this crop in two areas of the country, which would help them gain experience and reproduce the project at the national level.
He also stated that the Idiaf had eight different varieties of this fruit in their Fruit Station in the province of Peravia, which were available for all farmers interested in cultivating this crop.
