Training growers on dragon fruit traceability

The Vietnam Cooperative Alliance in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foundation Vietnam (FNF Vietnam) on September 25 held a training course on guidelines for getting certificate of ogigin for exported dragon fruit for local farmers.

According to Mr. Nguyen Phu Hoang, Chairman of Binh Thuan Cooperative Alliance, dragon fruit growing area in Binh Thuan has already hit 27,000 hectares, and farmers have gradually turned into professional production to meet the requirements of demanding markets. However, selling price of exported dragon fruit has not been stable due to the dominance of Chinese markets, and the fruit finds difficult to penetrate into other markets, such as: America, UK, Australia, etc. For that reason, this cource gives an important chance for local dragon fruit growers to improve and update their knowledge so that they can effectively practise in dragon fruit production and processing.

Doctor Pham Hung Tien- deputy head of FNF Vietnam emphasized that Binh Thuan is one of the localities with the largest dragon fruit planting areas in Vietnam, but many farmers still engage in out-of-date production patterns and therefore the products have suffered from unstable prices. The course helps dragon fruit planting households and cooperatives better understand different types of production links under value chains. After this training session, which includes software uptting and fact-finding experience, farmers can easily track down the origin of dragon fruit within their dragon fruit production chains.