The price of dragon fruits sold at orchards has increased to 21,000 VND a kg since mid –December, the highest in the last 20 years, according to the Post-Import Plant Quarantine Centre No 2 under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The centre attributed the high price to a decline in output due to inclement weather and the customary high year-end demand in both local and export markets.
In Binh Thuan province, the country's largest grower of dragon fruits, farmers have over the last two months used light bulbs to stimulate blossoming of the dragon fruit cacti during the off-season, but the ploy has not worked.
Binh Thuan has more than 12,500ha of dragon fruit orchards, of which 2,600ha meet Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGap) standards. The province aims to have 100 percent of its dragon fruit cultivation area meeting VietGap standards by 2015.
The province now exports dragon fruits to the US, the EU and Asia, mostly to China, which accounts for 70 percent of the export quantity.
Dragon fruit export to the US increased sharply this month over previous months, the centre said.
The US is expected to import 800 tonnes of dragon fruit from Vietnam this year, an eight-fold increase over last year, it added./.