On February 25, Ia Mo Commune People's Committee, Gia Lai province said that regarding the case of watermelon purchase and sale contract dispute in the area, which is a civil relationship, the parties need to contact the court to have appropriate solutions according to legal regulations.
In recent days, walking along the border road of Ia Mo commune, it is easy to see scenes of many hectares of watermelons being thrown away; watermelons being rotten, damaged, and smelling bad. Watermelons are destroyed by buffaloes, cows, birds, and rats.
Ms. Tran Thi Nhung, residing in Hoai Nhon commune, Gia Lai province, said: "The amount of 7.5 billion VND deposited to buy watermelons on an area of about 500 sao is the common amount of money borrowed by many households, contributed to buy watermelons. At the time of commitment, watermelons had just sprouted buds, did not have fruit and the gardener committed that watermelons would have a yield of 2.5 tons/sao, but in reality it was only about 500 kg/sao".
When the harvest season came, seeing that the watermelon field had low yield, Ms. Nhung requested to renegotiate, proposing to change the form of buying "packages" to buying by kg at a price of 5,000 VND/kg, but the garden owner did not accept it.
Due to the prolonged incident, the harvest time exceeded, leading to hundreds of tons of watermelon fields being damaged and had to be discarded. Both sides did not harvest a single kilogram of watermelon.
Initial estimates by the garden owner, each sao with a yield of 2.5 tons, this area will harvest about 1,250 tons of watermelons. According to Mr. Lam Van Sau, a watermelon field owner, residing in Tay Son commune, Gia Lai, from November 2025, he and a group of households who are family members went to Ia Mo commune to rent 25 hectares of land at a price of 21 million VND/ha to grow watermelons for sale during Tet.
During the watermelon planting process, Ms. Tran Thi Nhung (resident of Hoai Nhon commune, Gia Lai province - representative of the trader group) worked and finalized a contract to buy the entire watermelon field.
However, by the harvest season, the buyer discovered that the actual watermelon yield did not meet the requirements, only about 500 kg/sao, while the initial estimate was about 2.5 tons/sao.
Mr. Lam Van Sau said: "We have invested a lot in watermelon fields, from renting land, seedlings to caring for more than three months... costing about four billion VND. In this case, we implemented according to the signed agreement between the two parties. If the buyer complains, we will sue.
For many years, the border area of Ia Mo commune has had many vacant land areas favorable for people to grow watermelons. People in the eastern Gia Lai and Quang Ngai areas often come to Ia Mo to rent land from local people to take care of and grow watermelons on a large scale.
