Despite dragon fruit prices leaping up strongly, Tay Ninh farmers are not keen. They only wish for a stabilized price level to escape the full-of-gambling scenario of "good harvest, dropped prices."

Dragon fruit prices leap high, incomplete joy

Recently, the market recorded that dragon fruit prices possess a strong upward tendency, touching the milestone of 20,000 - 27,000 VND/kg for grade 1 goods.

For a number of specialized dragon fruit cultivation areas within the territory of the former Long An province (now Tay Ninh province), stepping up high-tech agricultural models with an emphasis on registering growing area codes and packing codes has helped exports to demanding markets achieve many highly positive signals.

However, in reality in Tay Ninh, the joy of high prices is incomplete. Many farmers shared that this high leaping price level appears primarily due to supply source scarcity, when the fruits have not reached the ripening season and the volume of goods among citizens is not much left. The fact that prices surge abruptly but there are no goods to sell makes the actual profit of farmers amount to not much.

Instead of price waves rising high then plunging down without brakes like long until now, the largest desire currently of Tay Ninh farmers is a stabilized price level to be able to feel secure to invest and produce sustainably.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh - Hiep Thanh Dragon Fruit Cooperative - expressed: "Now only a stable price is needed, farmers have profit then people can live. Rather than this kind of precarious price, farmers are not keen, it is always a good harvest then dropped prices."

Why do farmers desire stabilized prices?

According to calculations of dragon fruit growers, the price level only needs to maintain stably at around 15,000 VND/kg to already be able to help dragon fruit growers live well. "The price level of 15,000 VND/kg, although not too high, farmers can earn a living," Mr. Thanh confided.

Conversely, if prices just trồi sụt (fluctuate up and down) erratically, it will be very difficult for farmers to hold on, particularly when entering the rainy season – the time of adverse weather, when dragon fruit is very easily infected with diseases, causing caring costs to rise high but the rate of achieving export standards is low.

Precisely because of the continuous precariousness of the market over the past years, the dragon fruit planting area in many localities in Tay Ninh has dropped sharply. Many households are no longer keen on this crop type and have proactively cleared it to convert to other crop types such as coconuts, jackfruit, guavas, mangosteens, or even returning to planting rice with the hope of seeking more stability for family economics.

"High dragon fruit prices are truly alluring, but thinking back to the moment it soared to 27,000 VND/kg, how many fruits did I have left in my orchard? If this price can still be kept in about 10 days, farmers will be excellent, but by that time, dragon fruit across the whole region ripens simultaneously, rushing to harvest to sell then the price will drop tragically down to only a few thousand a kilo. Calculating out, the money from selling during the high price batch is not enough to compensate for fertilizer and drug money, and electricity money for light-induction lighting during failed harvest batches," the elderly farmer Le Văn Chin (Tan Binh commune, Tay Ninh) shared.

Source: Bao dien tu Dan Viet