Tinh Hiep Commune in Son Tinh District is home to 120 hectares of watermelon. This year, local farmers’ Hong Luong variety had a good harvest. At present, around 50 hectares of watermelon in the commune need to be harvested, but few traders are interested.
Nguyen Thi Tra from Xuan Hoa Village said that her family rented around 2,800 square metres to farm watermelon. This year, the field produced six tonnes of watermelon, but she was unhappy because no one wants to buy the fruit.
Around one fifth of Tra’s watermelon farm have spoiled while waiting to be purchased. Tra added that the remaining watermelon would be ruined in the next seven days. She could only sell a small number of watermelons at very cheap prices of just VND700-900 per kilo. Many households have just abandoned the watermelon in the fields instead of paying for harvesting and distribution.
Nguyen Thanh Manh from Phu Son Village said he sold one kilo of watermelon at just VND800, so he earned just VND2 million (USD86.95) for every 360 square metres.
Do Xuan Hung, vice chairman of Tinh Hiep Commune, said that authorities called on enterprises and organisations to buy watermelon but this did not help much.
Farmers in other districts in Quang Ngai such as Binh Son and Mo Duc are in the same situation. The provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development reported that in the Spring-Winter crop, around 756 hectares of watermelon would produce 22,000 tonnes.
Over the past years, the majority of Quang Ngai’s watermelon have been exported to China, but now due to Covid-19, exports would be severely affected.