Cold storage planning needed for large fruit area

When agricultural products, including durian in Dak Lak, face difficulty in consumption, experts advise to export peeled durians in the long term.

Dak Lak currently has 28,000 tons of durian ready to be harvested. Photo: PV.

Mr. Vu Duc Con - Deputy Director of Dak Lak Department of Agriculture and Rural Development: There are enterprises currently investing in cold storage.

Currently, Dak Lak province has 28,000 tons of durian and 12,000 tons of avocado that have not been harvested due to late ripening.

In these 2 products, we found avocado to be more difficult to consume than durian. The low selling price this year is natural due to social distancing. This price is still acceptable to farmers because it is above the production cost.

However, we still need influence and support from localities and units to accelerate the consumption of avocado and durian. Better consumption means higher prices and benefits for farmers.

In the future, through mass media, agencies, businesses, mass organizations, Dak Lak province wishes to receive support in domestic consumption of durian and avocado, through which Dak Lak durian and avocado can be known to many people, creating favorable conditions and fundamental premises for the following years.

Regarding cold storage, the province has reviewed the cold storage capacity of businesses and organizations. The plan in 2021 is to freeze about 15,000/100,000 tons. However, the complicated development of the pandemic has greatly affected the freezing, making it difficult to reach the 15,000 tons as planned.

Dak Lak is planning to ask businesses outside the province to support durian cold storage, but currently the transportation and processing stages are also difficult, so output is limited, especially transportation to cold storage in Tien Giang, Ho Chi Minh City.

Faced with such situation, bold and quick businesses have built a number of cold storages in Dak Lak. This will help improve the amount of durian frozen, increasing effectiveness at the end of this year's durian crop.

The freezing and cold storage does not only support durian products, but also for avocados as well as many other Dak Lak fruits such as bananas, up to 200ha.

The agricultural sector in Dak Lak wishes and calls on businesses to boldly invest in cold storage to organize the freezing of durians in particular and other agricultural products in the province.

Dr. Tran Minh Hai - University of Agriculture and Rural Development Managers II: Switching from selling fresh fruit to selling processed goods

If Dak Lak province, farmers, cooperatives or businesses want to create a combo of agricultural products with durian and avocado, it is necessary to establish focal points to collect as representative. This is an important link to promote the consumption process.

Currently there are said to be a lot of durians, but businesses can't find any when they try to purchase. I transferred 3 orders to Dak Lak, each order of about 200 tons of durian, but in the end, no one could accomplish it. Current practice shows that we have many agricultural products, but lack focal points to collect, transport and package according to the requirements of businesses.

In my opinion, Dak Lak needs to immediately build a map of the province's culture and soil to serve as a basis for localities to be able to move crops to meet market requirements.

We need to carry out remedial work, improve the quality of the existing production areas, try to meet the market standards, and resolve ambiguities in the local product chain information.

Working Group 970 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shows that, all agricultural products with VietGAP, GlobalGAP standards or with production log software, almost 100% of them can be sold to the people.

Electronic production logging is very simple, it creates transparency in the chain, the buyer will know how when was the last fertilizer application and spraying and of what type. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze so people can understand the requirements of the market so that we can overcome the weaknesses of the industries.

For example, in 2020, China imported 10 billion USD of fruit, and 2.3 billion USD of durian, which proves that the Chinese market is very large.

Meanwhile, our officially exported durian fruit to the Chinese market in 2020 is only 11 million USD. As of July 2021, it is 24 million USD, which is still a very modest proportion.

Especially, most countries export durian to China frozen, while we are mainly selling fresh durian. Therefore, I think that Dak Lak province should have policies to attract and promote the construction of cold storage units for various agricultural products, including durian.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuc, President of Bagico Bac Giang Company: Positioning new fruits with a standard market strategy

An agricultural supply chain is very extended. With the conditions and infrastructure of Vietnam, grown areas doesn't necessarily equate good infrastructure for purchasing and processing.

Even with durian, Dak Lak has an area of ​​over 12,000 hectares, second largest in the country, but in terms of preliminary processing and processing facilities, there are very few. Because in the past, trade has been convenient, and durians are developed first in the West, so businesses and factories that purchase durian are mainly concentrated in Tien Giang province.

Dak Lak has only developed durian strongly for the past two years, output is recent so traders are not interested, catching up is to be expected, because everything takes time.

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, it will certainly take a long time for State management and government agencies to notice the agricultural product chain and re-evaluate the importance of traders.

As in the past, whenever crisis occurs in any industry, public opinion is on the side of farmers because they are considered to be weaker and traders are perceived as criminals. In my opinion, this is an unbiased, unfair view that sometimes upsets the traders.

In my opinion, we must change the approach and communication about the chain, about agricultural products. As with the story of Dak Lak avocado tree.

The avocado tree is native to Vietnam, while not a past native tree, it is extremely suitable in Vietnam. Avocado trees can grow everywhere from North to South, every locaation is suitable for avocado tree to grow.

If avocado is considered a fruit, for Asians in general and Vietnamese in particular, it is not suitable because fruits are usually very sweet, sour or acrid, while avocado is very bland as a fruit.

On the contrary, avocado is the queen of food, because there have been many scientific studies on the good fat and fiber content in avocados for humans. Productivity and cost of 1kg of avocado are cheaper than 1kg of vegetables. According to the information I have, there are more than 200 dishes that can be made from avocado. Therefore, Dak Lak as well as other avocado growing regions must consider avocados as a food, a high-class vegetable, not a fruit for snack.

From the story of the durians, avocados, the agricultural industry must reposition, instead of seeking for a market, we must determine why people buy this type of product.

Our industry communication orientation is really lacking in information and ambiguous. Because with the right orientation, surely, each large avocado and durian growing area must have already been densely populated by frozen and cold storage warehouses, but the reality shows the opposite.