Through the review of the agricultural sector, the area of dragon fruit trees in Ham Thuan Bac has now decreased from nearly 9,400 hectares to more than 5,800 hectares (a decrease of nearly 3,600 hectares compared to before).
The reason is that locally, most of the dragon fruit harvested in the district is for informal export to the Chinese market. However, in recent years, due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the consumption of fresh dragon fruit has encountered many difficulties when China implemented the "Zero Covid" policy for a long time, temporarily closing border gates with our country. Therefore, it has severely affected agricultural products participating in informal export, including dragon fruit, causing prices to drop sharply, causing many gardeners and farmers to suffer losses, unable to produce, having to cut down large areas and switch to other crops.
Faced with unstable prices and difficult consumption markets, a number of cooperatives and businesses in Ham Thuan Bac have researched and processed a variety of products from fresh dragon fruit. For example, in Ma Lam town, Hoa Le Clean Dragon Fruit Cooperative participates in processing various types of dragon fruit wine, dragon fruit juice, dragon fruit ice cream, dragon fruit candy, dragon fruit tea, dragon fruit jam, dragon fruit cookies, dried dragon fruit flowers, dried and soft-dried dragon fruit. With Bao Long Dragon Fruit Facility in Phu Long town, in addition to dragon fruit wine and juice products, it also processes dragon fruit syrup, dragon fruit malt, and dragon fruit kombucha. Ham Duc Dragon Fruit Cooperative focuses on processing white dragon fruit wine, red dragon fruit wine, etc.
In recent times, many relevant units of the district and the People's Committees of communes and towns have also paid attention, maintained close contact, and created favorable conditions to support the development of new products from dragon fruit. In particular, Hoa Le Clean Dragon Fruit Cooperative, Ham Duc Dragon Fruit Cooperative and Bao Long Dragon Fruit Facility have had many products achieving OCOP at the provincial level... It is known that Ham Thuan Bac has more than 10 products recognized as OCOP with a rating of 3-4 stars, mainly products deeply processed from fresh dragon fruit.
This August, the District People's Committee has also developed a plan to implement the One Commune One Product Program in Ham Thuan Bac. Accordingly, in 2023, the locality sets a goal of striving to have at least 6 more products recognized as OCOP with 3 stars or higher, at the same time upgrading potential OCOP products as well as re-evaluating OCOP products whose recognition has expired in accordance with regulations. Along with that, it will organize for entities to participate in trade promotion activities to introduce and promote OCOP products, connect supply and demand, expand consumption markets and aim for exports... According to the specific list, this year the whole district has 15 products participating in the evaluation and classification of OCOP products for the first time, and 4 products will be re-evaluated and re-classified. Of the products participating in the first evaluation and classification, 9/15 products are made from dragon fruit: White dragon fruit juice, red dragon fruit juice, dragon fruit wine, dragon fruit wine yeast, dragon fruit flower tea, dried dragon fruit flowers, dragon fruit jam, white dried dragon fruit, red dried dragon fruit.
In addition, in Ham Thuan Bac, there are currently 2 potential models for developing dragon fruit garden experience tourism: The model of growing new yellow-skinned dragon fruit of Trung Binh Cooperative (Ham Duc commune) with an area of 100 hectares and the model of growing Ecuadorian bird's nest dragon fruit with an area of 3 hectares (Hong Liem commune). In addition, the locality also promotes coordination with the Provincial Cooperative Union to implement the project "Binh Thuan dragon fruit sustainable production and consumption ecosystem". This is considered an opportunity to develop dragon fruit garden experience tourism, combining sightseeing and enjoying products processed from fresh dragon fruit of some cooperatives in Ham Thuan Bac...
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