Minister calls for sustainable cultivation of durian and passion fruit

The cultivation areas of these two fruits are growing rapidly, especially since they were permitted for export to China through official channels.

According to Chinese customs, the country’s durian imports in 2021 surged 42.7% compared to the previous year, reaching 821,600 tonnes, with a value of 4.2 billion USD, a year-on-year rise of 82.4%.

To tap into this opportunity, some key durian and passion fruit growing localities in Vietnam have formed concentrated cultivation zones in conjunction with processing to create jobs and raise incomes for farmers.

However, the overheated growth of these two fruits is causing several problems such as the expansion of cultivation in areas without advantages and the removal of other crops to grow durian.

In the meantime, the growing areas and packaging facilities licensed by China remain very small compared to the total current growing areas of durian and passion fruit.

Such a situation greatly affects the sustainable cultivation of the two fruits and presents many risks concerning food quality, which could harm Vietnam’s fruit exports in the long term.

Therefore, localities need to review their growing areas to formulate appropriate development plans and strictly supervise the use of growing area codes and qualified packaging facilities.

In addition, functional authorities should instruct farmers to cultivate durian and passion fruit in line with good practices to ensure the quality for export.