Scarce goods, late-season dragon fruit prices increase

In recent days, the price of white-fleshed dragon fruit has been purchased by export enterprises at around 20,000 VND/kg and red-fleshed dragon fruit has increased to 38,000 VND/kg. However, due to the effects of drought and water shortage, the supply is currently scarce and farmers have little to sell.

At this time, the off-season dragon fruit has come to an end, and the supply of ripe dragon fruit in gardens in the province is not much left. Therefore, the current selling price of dragon fruit has increased, from about 10,000 - 13,000 VND/kg about 10 days ago, to 20,000 VND/kg for white-fleshed dragon fruit. In particular, red-fleshed dragon fruit has increased from about 33,000 VND/kg to 38,000 VND/kg.

One of the reasons for the shortage of supply is the complicated situation of drought and water shortage in the province since the beginning of the year, so farmers have not handled the off-season lighting. Some areas have proactively irrigated but the lighting is not turned off at the right time, so the flowering and fruiting rate is only 30-40%. This is also the reason for the current repetition of the refrain "good harvest, low price, good price, bad harvest" of agricultural products in general and dragon fruit in particular.

According to the reporter, with the current high selling price, although the dragon fruit harvest is low, farmers still earn relatively good profits. Some export enterprises commented that at this time, Vietnamese fruits, especially dragon fruit, are being consumed strongly in the Chinese market. The reason is that at this time in China, there is almost no dragon fruit to harvest, so there is no "market flood", on the contrary, agricultural products are sold at high prices.

*Many dragon fruit areas are withering due to lack of irrigation water.*

According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Binh Thuan province, the province currently has 26,500 hectares of dragon fruit, a decrease of nearly 1,150 hectares compared to the same period in 2023. In the first months of 2024, the demand for domestic and export fruit is high, the price of dragon fruit is stable, at times it increases, so growers make a profit. However, in March 2024, many households continued to use off-season lights, but the weather was extremely hot and windy, so the ability to flower was not achieved, leading to low yield.

Faced with the current complicated weather conditions, the provincial agricultural sector recommends that farmers not expand their acreage, increase field sanitation, apply balanced fertilizers and focus on destroying disease sources to minimize brown spot disease on dragon fruit. Localities should focus on directing and guiding people to produce VietGAP dragon fruit, focusing on product quality.

K. HANG

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