Sustainable development of fruit growing areas

- Tuyen Quang has over 17,550 hectares of fruit trees, with an output of over 200,000 tons/year, including key fruit trees such as oranges, grapefruits and advantageous fruit trees such as bananas, longans, custard apples, persimmons... To promote the potential and develop sustainable fruit trees, the province has implemented many development solutions, expanding the area according to the planning, aiming to improve the quality and value of fruit tree products, ensuring sustainable development.

Focus on strong fruit trees

With suitable climate and soil conditions for citrus fruit trees such as oranges, lemons, and grapefruits, the province has planned citrus fruit growing areas concentrated in 3 districts: Ham Yen, Chiem Hoa, and Yen Son.

Xuan Van is a locality of Yen Son district with climate and soil conditions suitable for grapefruit trees. In recent years, the commune has focused on planning for concentrated, sustainable, long-term development, avoiding hot development with an area of ​​over 950 hectares of grapefruit, 88 hectares of oranges; 12 hectares of custard apples; 26 hectares of persimmons. Of which, Xuan Van sugar grapefruit has achieved 3-star OCOP, Soi Ha Xuan Van grapefruit has been granted a Certificate of Geographical Indication by the Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Science and Technology , and voted by the Vietnam Consumers Association into the "Top 10 famous brands and trademarks". Xuan Van seedless pomelos were also awarded a collective trademark protection certificate by the Department of Science and Technology. Good news for pomelo growers in Xuan Van commune, in the 2024 crop year, nearly 8,000 Soi Ha pomelos of farmers were exported to the UK market, all of which met the standards. This is an important premise for the province to have a methodical plan in developing key products and specialties, gradually affirming the brand and value of Tuyen agricultural products in domestic and foreign markets.

Delegates from the Northern midland and mountainous provinces visited the Soi Ha grapefruit garden for export to the UK market in Xuan Van commune (Yen Son).

Like many other localities, Ham Yen is known as the "kingdom" of orange trees with its own unique, delicious, and refreshing flavor. Ham Yen oranges have been favored by consumers and voted as a typical product, a famous agricultural product of Vietnam for many years. In 2020, Ham Yen oranges were granted a Certificate of Geographical Indication by the Department of Intellectual Property and were recognized by the province as a 4-star OCOP product. Currently, Ham Yen district has more than 7,200 hectares of oranges, of which orange trees account for nearly 80%, the rest are other orange varieties such as lemon oranges, Vinh oranges, and V2 oranges. The district's orange growing area is mainly concentrated in 15 communes and towns with more than 5,600 orange growing families. Thanks to orange growing, many families in Ham Yen have escaped poverty and become well-off and rich households.

Still challenging

Currently, the province has 2,199 hectares applying production according to standards and regulations, including: Orange 1,592 hectares; grapefruit 491 hectares, other fruit trees such as longan, pear, guava, apple, dragon fruit,... 116 hectares. Over 70% of fruit tree growing households understand and apply integrated pest management (IPM), integrated plant health management (IPHM); Apply information technology software for plant protection data management (PPDMS) in monitoring plant pests and synthesizing pests.

However, along with the growth in area and output, the province's fruit tree production is facing many limitations and challenges. Local varieties still account for the majority, the proportion of newly selected and imported varieties is not high. Many varieties have degenerated, have many seeds, reducing the competitiveness of fresh products, making it difficult for the processing industry. The application of technical advances has not been widely disseminated; the abuse of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides causes pollution of soil and water environments... Along with that, the scale of fruit tree production in the province is still fragmented, small-scale, dispersed, and there are not many large-scale concentrated fruit tree farms. In addition, most localities only develop fruit trees based on intuition, there is no planning for specialized fruit tree areas, and there are not many typical fruit trees with the brands of each region. On the other hand, post-harvest products are mainly sold fresh to traders. Therefore, the market for many types of fruit trees is unstable, prices are unstable, farmers often fall into the situation of having a good harvest but low prices.

With the goal of building sustainable fruit growing areas with high economic efficiency, the Department of Agriculture and Environment has proactively advised the Provincial People's Committee to direct localities to focus on forming concentrated key fruit growing areas and spreading out some fruit trees in the direction of ensuring productivity, quality, and food safety to improve efficiency and competitiveness combined with innovating market access methods. Pay attention to famous specialty fruit trees with competitive advantages in each region to reorganize production towards large-scale goods. At the same time, focus on investing in and developing sustainable fruit tree production, with production regulations according to clean processes, GlobalGAP, VietGAP, organic, registering growing area codes... contributing to expanding product consumption markets and increasing production value.

Many effective support policies

Recently, at the Agricultural Extension Forum @ Agriculture organized by the Vietnam Gardening Association in collaboration with the National Agricultural Extension Center in Tuyen Quang, comrade Nguyen Dai Thanh, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment informed that in recent years, the province has directed the specialized agencies of the department to coordinate with enterprises inside and outside the province to build fruit tree demonstration models according to the value chain; provide training and transfer of science and technology and promote information and propaganda work to replicate effective models of linking production and consumption of fruit tree products for replication.

The transfer and application of technical advances have had positive changes such as: Application of high technology in seed production; application of advanced irrigation technology, water-saving irrigation, additional pollination for fruit trees (grapefruit, custard apple), application of techniques for longan to flower in different seasons,... In addition, the province has also introduced a number of policy mechanisms that are being applied to support fruit tree production in Tuyen Quang province such as: policies to support the development of agricultural, forestry and fishery production; OCOP products and new rural construction in Tuyen Quang province in the period of 2021 - 2025; policies to encourage the development of organic agricultural production in Tuyen Quang province; support for the implementation of projects to develop production linked to the value chain...

Dr. Phan Huy Thong, Permanent Vice President of the Vietnam Gardening Association, said that Tuyen Quang is a locality with a lot of room to develop fruit trees, so focusing on developing key fruit trees and high-value specialties according to the advantages of each region will help farmers gradually increase their income and improve their lives. However, to ensure sustainable development, each person, business, and cooperative needs to focus on improving quality, building brands, and meeting the increasing demands of the market.

Source: https://baotuyenquang.com.vn/phat-trien-ben-vung-vung-cay-an-qua-214015.html