@ farmers

We visited the lychee garden of Tran Van Lan's family in Nam Duong commune (Luc Ngan district). This 60-year-old peasant carefully opened a notebook recording the times for caring and fertilizing according to requirements for export to Japan. “In 2020, my family’s 3-ha garden produced lychees according to the process required by the Japanese market. With an output of nearly 40 tonnes of lychee, I earned more than 1.1 billion VND (48,000 USD)”, said Lan.

Vice Chairman of the Luc Ngan district People's Committee Nguyen The Thi (middle) introduces tourists to the early-ripe lychee production area in Nam Duong commune.

Lan shared that he has been living with lychee trees for more than 30 years. Last year, his lychee garden was selected for export to Japan, so the caring process became different. The use of fertilizers and pesticides must be in accordance with the requirements of the Japanese side and well documented. "Consumers have an increasing demand for "clean" lychees. Therefore, we had to change our mindset towards safe production to meet market requirements”, said Lan.

Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Luc Ngan district Nguyen The Thi said that the provincial and district authorities and local lychee farmers have been preparing for the past 5 years to produce lychees for Japan. "Next time, the district People's Committee and lychee growers here aim to produce lychees in an organic direction", Thi said.

For many years involving in crop farming, Dang Van Tang, head of the provincial Sub-Department of Crop Cultivation and Plant Protection, said that quality requirements from markets such as Japan and the US have helped lychee growers change the way of production to meet export standards. By 2020, the whole province had more than 15,300ha of lychees grown according to VietGAP standard, an increase of 1,000ha, and 298ha meeting GlobalGAP standard, up 40ha compared to 2019. As many as 16,000ha was granted codes for export to China. To serve the next lychee crop, the province's agricultural sector plans to increase the lychee cultivation area under VietGAP standard to 16,500ha. “The provincial Sub-Department of Crop Cultivation and Plant Protection continues to cooperate with enterprises to expand the number of growing areas to be granted codes for export to Japan, and at the same time improve the quality of lychees to meet the requirements. We coordinate with other ministries to build more facilities for export lychee fumigation and sterilization”, Tang said.

Selling lychees for farmers

Right from the beginning of the year, amid the complicated development of the Covid-19 pandemic, the provincial Party Committee and People's Committee have promptly instructed relevant agencies to develop a plan for lychee sale with three scenarios in response to the epidemic situation. “The lychee crop in 2020 brought more than 6.9 trillion VND (301.6 million USD) to lychee growers, exceeding expectations. One of the reasons for this success is the province’s proactiveness in lychee sale”, Tan said.

Purchasing lychees for export to Japan in Na Hem village, Ho Dap commune (Luc Ngan).

Tan shared that before the lychee crop, Bac Giang province coordinated with many ministries and agencies to actively work with the authorities of China (the market that accounts for 90 percent of the province's lychee export), proposing coordination in lychee consumption. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development appointed a Deputy Director of the Center for Industrial Extension and Trade Promotion to directly deal with problems in lychee consumption.

Nguyen Thi Huong in Cao Thuong township (Tan Yen district), who has nearly 20 years of working with Chinese traders, said that due to the Covid-19, her Chinese partners could not come to Vietnam. However, she still made transactions normally via Wechat.

Ngo Tuong Vi, Deputy Director of the Chanh Thu Import and Export Co., Ltd, said that the first batch of Bac Giang lychee (more than 1 tonnes) that this company exported to Japan on June 19, 2020 was sold out in a few hours. Japanese consumers appreciated the quality of Vietnamese lychee. In 2020, this enterprise shipped tens of tonnes of Bac Giang lychee to Japan, which were consumed conveniently.

During his recent visit to Luc Ngan - the largest fruit basket in the province, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong also spoke highly of Bac Giang's success in sale of agricultural products. "From Bac Giang province, it shows that if we organize production well and know how to tap local potential and advantages, provincial-level agricultural products will bring home hundreds of millions of USD and even billions of USD,” said the minister.

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