Fruits and Vegetables in Vietnam - International Food Policy ...

south, and different varieties of longan are grown in the north and south. Bananas are also an
important fruit crop, accounting for 19 percent of the fruit area, but banana area remains essentially
unchanged since 1990. As will be discussed later, bananas are grown largely for home consumption.
Furthermore, the urban demand for bananas is not very income elastic, meaning that as consumer
incomes rise, demand for bananas is only moderately affected. Pineapple area has actually declined
over the 1990s, perhaps reflecting the collapse of the COMECON market for canned and fresh
pineapple around 1989-91. In contrast, the areas allocated to citrus and mango have grown at 18
percent and 11 percent per year, respectively (see Table 2-5 and Figure 2-2). These fruit crops
(longan, litchi, rambuttan, banana, pineapple, citrus, and mango) account for about 73 percent of the
area planted with fruits in Vietnam.
Figure 2-2. Growth in different fruit crops over the 1990s
Area (1000 ha)
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
Citrus
Banana
Mango
Chapter 2. Patterns and trends in fruit and vegetable production Page 2-3
Pineapple
Litchi/L/R
The trends in the volume of fruit production are very similar to the trends in fruit area: longan,
litchi, and rambuttan output is growing rapidly, as is production of citrus, while banana production
has been stagnant and pineapple output has fallen. It is worth noting that for all the major fruit crops,
the growth in area exceeds the growth in output (see Table 2-6). This indicates that yields have fallen
in all the major fruit crops over the 1990. Some of the reasons for this decline are discussed later. In
addition, the production figures highlight the collapse of pineapple production, which fell from 468
thousand tons in 1990 to 185 thousand tons in 1995. This represents a 60 percent drop in pineapple