Despite owning massive raw material zones and growing exports, Dong Thap fruits still encounter multiple bottlenecks regarding logistics, linkage chains, and deep processing capacities to reach far.

Massive potential and bright spots

Dong Thap province currently possesses a fruit tree area of over 135,000 hectares (occupying more than 10.3% of the entire country), within which durian is over 39,000 hectares, jackfruit is around 26,260 hectares, coconut is 24,900 hectares, mango is over 16,800 hectares, pineapple is nearly 15,000 hectares, and the citrus tree group is around 14,100 hectares... By June this year, the province's fruit output volume reached around 1.3 million tons. Durian continues to serve as the prominent commodity sector with a 6-month output volume estimated at over 268,000 tons.

Multiple large-scale concentrated fruit production zones in Dong Thap have been formed, creating favorable conditions to synchronously deploy solutions regarding growing zone codes, quality standards, and logistics. Up to now, the entire province has been granted 3,496 growing zone codes for fruit trees with an area of 101,182 hectares serving export. Within this, importing countries have approved 3,452 codes; the remaining number is waiting for approval. The entire province also possesses 565 packing facility codes (496 codes have been accepted).

Dong Thap possesses over 2,400 hectares of fruit trees already granted VietGAP, GlobalGAP certifications or satisfying food safety conditions; the production area in an organic direction reaches around 847 hectares. There are around 133 fruit production and consumption cooperatives participating in linkages with enterprises inside and outside the province.

In the first 6 months of 2026, the province's fruit and vegetable commodity group export turnover was estimated to reach 77.53 million USD, up 1.76% compared to the same period. Within this, durian serves as the core item, occupying 30.56% of the total turnover, followed by dried fruits (10.25%), frozen mangoes (7.60%), and dragon fruits (5.26%). This structure demonstrates a positive trend in elevating the proportion of high value-added processed and frozen products.

Core bottlenecks

Alongside the potential and bright spots, Dong Thap's fruit commodity sector still contains multiple inadequacies and massive barriers, especially against exports. The situation of precarious prices, bumper harvests dragging down prices still recurs. Durians at certain times carried prices of more than 100,000 VND/kg, at times dropped down to merely tens of thousands; dragon fruits and jackfruits also at times merely remained at a few thousand VND/kg. Recently, Dong Thap's pineapple fruit also dropped in price from a stable level of 8,000 - 11,000 VND/kg down to merely 6,000 VND/kg, causing growers to merely break even due to supply exceeding demand and primarily selling fresh in the domestic market.

According to Mr. Vo Tan Loi, Chairman of the Dong Thap Province Durian Association, the largest inadequacy of the fruit sector in general, and durian specifically of the province, is the lack of standardized growing zones, and the situation of growing zone code and packing facility code frauds still occurs. Particularly, the province is lacking testing laboratories serving Cadmium inspection against durians exported to China. Having to rely on testing laboratories in Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho wastes plenty of time, leading to commodity congestion.

Another systemic difficulty is that farmers still manufacture on a small, fragmented scale, everyone doing their own thing, and developing areas spontaneously makes product quality uneven. Lacking tight linkage mechanisms between farmers and enterprises leads to the situation of breaking contracts. Farmers bear massive risks but enjoy uncommensurate benefits: when material prices go up, agricultural product prices on the market rise, farmers are merely permitted to receive under contracts, but when the market decreases, enterprises conversely impose decreased prices.

Besides, the capacity of cooperatives remains weak, small in scale, and slow to innovate. The entire province currently possesses 214 cooperatives and collaborative groups with more than 34,150 members, but the production area merely occupies 12.7% of the entire province, and the linked output volume via contracts has newly reached 30% of the cooperatives' total output volume.

In addition, cold logistics infrastructure, preservation warehouses, and deep processing capacities still remain very restricted. In the Dong Thap Muoi region, there does not yet possess any large-scale factory specialized in processing pineapples into exported products. Meanwhile, importing countries such as China, the United States, Japan, the EU... day by day regulate more strictly regarding food safety criteria, quarantine, traceability, and green development.

Shifting mindsets and sustainable solutions

Reality sets out an urgent requirement for Dong Thap to convert from an agricultural production mindset to an agricultural economy mindset, from solitary production to value chain linkages, from selling what one already has available to manufacturing what the market needs, and from manual labor to applying science-technology and digital transformation. Farmers do not merely serve as producers but must become professional subjects, knowing how to cooperate and master production data.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tung, Vice President of the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association, recommended that before the global supply exceeding demand situation, producers need to concentrate on elevating quality rather than chasing after quantity, while concurrently diversifying products and controlling well the Cadmium criterion to untie the barriers of importing countries. Sharing the exact same perspective, Mr. Bui Ke Binh, a pineapple-growing farmer in Tan Phuoc 1 commune, expressed that people have mastered science and techniques but desperately need enterprises to invest in deep processing factories to sustainably resolve outlets.

Recently, at the conference on developing core fruit commodity sector chains organized by the Dong Thap provincial People's Committee, Mr. Dang Van Tuấn, Deputy Director of the Dong Thap Department of Industry and Trade, admitted that the fruit commodity sector's export results of the province still have not been commensurate with potential. From that reality, delegates unified that constructing agricultural product brands must be executed synchronously from the root. The province needs to drive chain linkages, taking processing and distributing enterprises as the center, expanding official exports, investing in cold logistics infrastructure, and stepping up digital transformation and traceability.

Under orientations, in the coming time, Dong Thap will convert from solitary supports to investing under value chains, from constructing labels to developing brands, and from registering protection to managing, exploiting, and commercializing intellectual assets. The province is urgently constructing additional industrial parks and clusters, prioritizing attracting investments in deep processing sectors of fruits and seafood to fundamentally resolve outlets for farmers.

Dialoguing with enterprises at the province's core fruit commodity sector chain development conference, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Dieu, Vice Chairman of the Dong Thap provincial People's Committee, affirmed that the province's leadership always cares, creates maximum conditions, and will direct departments and sectors to resolve the earliest the petitions, untying barriers so that the business community feels secure to expand business production, accompanying to bring Dong Thap fruits to reach international statures.

Source: Bao Nong nghiep va Moi truong