Inherent potential

For Vietnam, passion fruit is considered a new crop, but it brings high economic efficiency. Despite having a late start, Vietnam's passion fruit exports are currently at the top of the world.

Particularly for Gia Lai, nature has favored this place with mild climate conditions, large and fertile land suitable for developing large fields of passion fruit. In recent years, passion fruit has gradually affirmed its position among farmers in the province. Farmers are also familiar with passion fruit cultivation techniques at present.

According to Mr. Luu Trung Nghia, Director of Gia Lai Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gia Lai is one of Vietnam’s key passion fruit planting areas. And thanks to its inherent potential, organizing cultivation and crop splitting is completely possible.

Aware of these advantages, in the online forum "Connecting agricultural products" organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Gia Lai on June 8, Gia Lai's agricultural sector presented a vibrant picture of the local agricultural sector, in which the development of fruit trees plays an important role. Gia Lai currently has approximately 21,500 ha of fruit trees in total, and passion fruit alone has approximately 4,500 ha. It is within expectations that by 2025 the area of passion fruit in the whole province will be increased to 20,000 ha, becoming the largest passion fruit growing area in the country.

To achieve this goal, Gia Lai advocates shifting the inefficient planting areas of cassava, sugarcane, cashew, and rubber to focus on growing fruit trees. Four types of trees will be planned by the province to become the main export group, including passion fruit, banana, avocado and durian.

The province has the policy to apply GlobalGAP standards in the production organization with an area of approximately 9,000 ha, focusing on two key crops passion fruit and banana. The province has also paid attention to positive solutions such as organic farming and water-saving irrigation procedures to develop fruit trees in a sustainable way.

When “big shots” join in

With the current average yield of approximately 40 tons/ha, each year Gia Lai has an output of approximately 160,000 tons of passion fruit. In order to meet the organization of purchasing, processing and consuming the above amount, some "big shots" in the field of passion fruit have come to this potential land.

Dong Giao Group came to Gia Lai relatively early, with the presence of Dong Giao Foodstuff Export Joint Stock Company - Gia Lai Branch (Doveco Gia Lai in short). Despite the raging Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, the unit still ensured to maintain good production and business activities, and stabilize input and output.

Accordingly, the company's output in 2021 reached 32,800 tons of products, mainly passion fruit products of all kinds reaching 20,300 tons and pineapple products of all kinds reaching 3,350 tons. Passion fruit is still considered the main product of the company at present.

“Doveco Gia Lai attaches great importance to the development of raw material areas through the forms of joint ventures, associations, and signing underwriting contracts with cooperatives and local people. Up to now Doveco Gia Lai has cooperated with the people and cooperatives to grow more than 6,000 ha of passion fruit in Central Highlands provinces,” Director of Doveco Gia Lai Dinh Gia Nghia said.

Red Pine International Joint Stock Company - a top "big shot" in Vietnam in the field of passion fruit seed production and distribution is also present in Gia Lai. In Ia Phang commune, Chu Puh district, Red Pine International JSC has set up a center to produce high quality plant varieties, mainly passion fruit varieties.

General Director of Red Pine International JSC Le Van Tuyen said that the company started construction of phase 1 in May 2021 with a scale of 12,000 m2 of polyhouses, put into operation in December of the same year. The unit’s capacity was 5 million passion fruit seedlings/year.

The construction of phase 2 has currently begun in order to increase the total area of polyhouses to 30,000 m2. The plan is to put into production and business operations by December 2022 with the ability to supply 11 million passion fruit seedlings/year.

Phase 3 will begin construction in December 2022, bringing the total area of polyhouses to 50,000 m2. It is expected to be completed in June 2023 with a capacity of supplying 16 million passion fruit seedlings/year.

Thanks to the synchronous participation, hopefully it will open up a new and bright opportunity for Gia Lai passion fruit in particular and the whole country in general.

Translated by Samuel Pham