Dragon fruit is a delicious tropical fruit that is not familiar to Vietnamese; however, the dragon fruit sale tends to fluctuate from year to year. Dragon fruit sale has prices are up and down regularly. It is often stable for about one week, and change day in and day out. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Vietnam exported dragon fruit to 40 countries and territories including China, Thailand, and Indonesia in the year 2017. Moreover, the ministry said that the fruit was also entering new different markets such as India, New Zealand, Chile and especially Australia. With guaranteeing the conditions for exporting dragon fruit into Australia, Australia officially approved the dragon fruit export from Vietnam on August 24.
In 2018, according to a survey of dragon fruit sale in Binh Thuan province – the largest producer of this fruit, the local farmers are enjoying high prices and steady demand in this main harvest season. Tran Van Dong, a farmer in Ham Thuan Nam District’s Ham Minh Commune explained that because the harvest has declined this year, the demand of people exceeds supply. Therefore, the farmers here are making profits at current prices and decide not to grow a large quantity of dragon fruit from March to September (the main harvest season) in spite of increasing output in the off-season due to fears that prices will decline. Furthermore, the white-fleshed dragon fruit sale and the red-fleshed dragon fruit sale have some differences.
White-fleshed dragon fruit
1. White-fleshed dragon fruit sale
The white-fleshed dragon fruits’ price is quite as stable as the red-fleshed dragon fruits’ one. In the dragon fruit sale of this natural fruit season, the prices of white dragon fruit are very cheap that is called the lowest price of the year. In Ho Chi Minh city, the prices of dragon fruit that has good quality for exportation is no virus, bacteria, nice surface, red skin, green spines,… are about US $0.5 – $0.7 per kilogram of small size (300-450g per piece) and US $0.7 – $ 0.9 per kilogram of big size (more than 460g per piece). In the dragon fruit of the artificial season, the prices of white-fleshed dragon fruit are higher due to the fact that:
The cost of production is higher, especially the lighting cost of dragon fruit trees
There are not enough dragon fruits at the same time for natural reason and have a few kinds of dragon fruit available at this time of the year.
More festivals and holidays are organized in this time including Mid-autumn, Wedding season, Diwali, Thank giving, Christmas, New year, Lunar New year, …
Dragon fruit farm
2. Red-fleshed dragon fruit sale
In a comparison of white fleshed dragon fruit, the amount of red-fleshed dragon fruits is just about 10% and self-existence of it is just a half of the white one about 1 to 3 weeks. Also, the red-fleshed prices rise and fall crazily, according to demands statistic from near markets such as China, Malaysia, and Singapore. In contrast to white-fleshed dragon fruit, the red-fleshed dragon fruit prices do not depend on both natural season and artificial season but they depend on supply and demand. The cheapest prices of red dragon fruit are about US $ 0.80 per kilogram and about the US $4.00 per kilogram for the highest prices.
A man is taking care of his dragon fruit trees