Mr. Su Quoc Loc - Director of Loc Mai Agricultural Cooperative, Trinh Phu Commune (Ke Sach District, Soc Trang Province) - said that the Cooperative has 23 member households growing purple star apples with a total area of over 42 hectares, of which over 80% of the area applies production according to VietGAP standards. The export situation of purple star apples to the US market in recent years has been very promising, the purchase price has been maintained stable at 30,000 VND/kg from the beginning to the end of the season.
According to Mr. Loc, the Cooperative also cooperates and supplies clean food stores and supermarkets in provinces such as Dong Thap, Tien Giang, Can Tho... The profit that gardeners earn is from 200 - 400 million VND/ha, 2-3 times higher than before exporting, so gardeners are very excited.
According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Soc Trang province, from the beginning of the year to now, the total fruit growing area of the province is 28,588 hectares, an increase of 1.4% over the same period. The province has established 108 growing area codes (604.07 hectares) of star apple, longan, mango, grapefruit, durian ha to serve export to markets such as the United States, EU, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, China... In addition, the industry has supported the issuance of 4 domestic growing area codes (pineapple, tangerine, plum) and is proposing the Plant Protection Department to consider 8 fresh coconut growing areas with an area of 314.2 hectares/310 households that meet the requirements of the importing country, eligible for issuance of export codes to the Chinese market.
Fruit production continues to develop, with stable output. Since the beginning of the year, we have linked up and consumed 1,139.51 tons of fruit (867 tons of grapefruit, 271.16 tons of star apple, 1.35 tons of longan) with businesses, of which 139.9 tons were exported, the rest were consumed in domestic supermarkets. Thanks to that, the income of gardeners has increased, and life has become more prosperous.
