Source: Vietnambiz.vn
Previously, the whole province of Long An had more than 11,000 hectares planted with Long An dragon fruit; in which, mainly concentrated in Chau Thanh district with nearly 9,200 ha. However, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, from 2020 to now, people’s consumption of dragon fruit has faced many difficulties, prices have continuously dropped, making growers lose money. Since then, people have left their gardens without care for a long time, some demolishing dragon fruit gardens to convert to other crops.
According to Chau Thanh District Party Committee Secretary – Le Quoc Dung, currently, the area of dragon fruit (free of disease and mild disease) of the district is only nearly 5,900 hectares. The whole district has nearly 1,900 hectares of severely damaged dragon fruit destroyed; in which, people have replanted dragon fruit 241 ha, switched to other crops 487 ha, and nearly 1,160 ha of land is vacant. In addition, Chau Thanh has about 1,320 hectares of old and seriously ill dragon fruit that need to be destroyed. Thus, the whole district has 2,480 ha people have to plant new dragon fruit gardens.
Mr. Le Quoc Dung said, facing the difficult situation of dragon fruit growers, the locality has advised superiors and implemented many solutions such as mobilizing people to actively keep gardens, take care of and repair dragon fruit trees; coordinate with specialized units to guide people to plant new crops, guide the technical process of sterilization and destruction of pathogens; guide the new organic growing process, meeting GAP standards. At the same time, the organization cooperates with businesses to create a sustainable link chain and build and register the planting area code to meet export conditions.
According to Mr. Dung, through a preliminary survey in 12/13 communes of the district, 82.6% of people with damaged or abandoned dragon fruit gardens agreed to replant new dragon fruits; 88.1% of people agreed to grow dragon fruit according to VietGAP process; 87.1% of people agree to join cooperatives to link along the value chain… From that, it can be seen that the need to restore local dragon fruit production is very high, people want to develop trees. dragon fruit towards sustainability.
Therefore, the locality proposed to the superiors to consider and have a policy to support people with preferential loans to replant 2,480 hectares of old and damaged dragon fruit. At the same time, functional departments and branches will strengthen support for people on the quality of seedlings, modern cultivation techniques and quality assurance for export to markets around the world.
