Experts in Vietnam are debating the best direction for the country's agriculture industry to go in; while agricultural resources are abundant, farmers remain poor. Therefore, some experts suggest turning to organic agriculture to earn money on the global market.
Dragon fruit, a favorite in many markets in the world, has been grown in Binh Thuan province for 20 years. Do Van Dung, director of Be Dung Trade, Service & Import/export Company, said 70-80 percent of fresh dragon fruit is exported to China, a very unstable market.
Though the export volume has been increasing steadily, farmers remain poor. The US and Europe have opened their markets to Vietnam’s dragon fruits. However, the high air transportation cost has hurt farmers.
Dung imported a drying system worth VND20 billion and wasted 20 tons of fresh dragon fruit before successfully creating dried dragon fruit slices.
He hopes that the product, made of clean, organic materials, will attract customers.
Vo Phat Trien from Viet Duc Food Technology Company also said developing farm produce from clean, organic materials is the best direction for Vietnamese companies.
He believes Viet Duc’s dried mango has been a favorite in Germany for 10 years because the product is organic.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Lam Vien, general director of Vinamit, a company that makes dried fruit, said when he participated in a trade fair in the US, some foreign partners told him that it would be better to make and sell organic products, saying these can bring high profits.
Vien is also the deputy chair of the Vietnam association of enterprises that make high-quality products from Vietnamese produce, created by small-scale agriculture.
These cannot compete with produce from other export countries which have big-scale production. Therefore, it would be better for Vietnam to conquer niche markets.
“Organic farm produce is what Vietnam should strive for,” Vien said, adding that processed organic farm produce can be sold at prices 50 percent higher than normal products.
