Gia Lai is in the middle of the watermelon harvest season. But local farmers are facing difficulties to find outlets as watermelon prices have plummeted to just VND1,500 per kilo.
Vo Van Lanh, 41, hired 3.5 hectares of land to grow watermelon in Gia Lai for VND500 million (USD21,739). His plot needs to be harvested but he has not yet found outlets.
Watermelon growers in Vietnam are incurring huge losses due to a sharp price fall.
According to Lanh, most of the watermelon in Gia Lai is normally exported to China, but at present, the customs clearance at border gates with China are taking a long time due to the country’s tighter Covid-19 prevention measures.
"A number of local farmers have sold watermelon at VND1,500 per kilo. We expect to harvest 140 tonnes for 3.5 hectares of watermelon. So at that current price, we’ll make a loss of nearly VND300 million (USD12,931),” Lanh added.
Vo Van Chanh, 54, in the southern central province of Binh Dinh’s An Nhon Town, said that he is still looking for traders as he is going to harvest 3.4 hectares of watermelon. This is the largest drop in watermelon in more than 15 years.
In previous years, a kilo of watermelon was sold at VND5,000-7,000, but with at the current VND1,500 per kilo at present, his family would face huge losses, particularly production costs which are rapidly increasing.
Most watermelon growing areas in Gia Lai’s Krong Pa District are grown by people from Binh Dinh and Phu Yen.
Nguyen Thi Thu, a farm produce trader from Quang Ngai, said that sales of Vietnamese farm produce are struggling because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The customs clearance at border gates with China has remained slow.
Dinh Xuan Duyen, head of Krong Pa District’s Board of Agriculture and Rural Development, said that the locality is home to 1,000 hectares of watermelon in this year’s Winter-Spring crop would produce 40,000 tonnes.
To date, some 70 percent of local watermelon areas have been harvested.
