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

For longan and litchi producers the main post-harvest problems were being unable to sell their
produce after harvest and the harvest technique. For banana producers, the main post-harvest problems were
transportation and handling. For pineapple and orange producers, the major problem was handling, whereas
for mandarin producers harvest technique and handling were the major problems. The major post-harvest
problem for dragon fruit producers is heat, while for mango producers, transportation and harvest technique
are the major problems.
For tomato and cucumber producers the major post-harvest problem was transportation, whereas for
cabbage producers the major problem was insect damage. Finally, for carrot producers the only problem
reported was that producers were unable to sell their produce after harvest.
8 Fruit and vegetable sales
The average value of sales of fruit and vegetables by the commercial growers in the sample is almost
VND 30 million. Very few of the sample farmers (less than 3 percent) had fruit and vegetable sales of less
than VND 1 million and 60 percent had sales above VND 10 million. This contrasts sharply from the results
from the VLSS in which just 13 percent had sales above VND 10 million (see ` Table 3-20). This
difference illustrates the fact that the IFPRI-MARD survey focused on fruit and vegetable growers that were
larger and more commercial than the average grower of fruits and vegetables (see Table 2-13).
The survey data also reveal that the growers in the sample are relatively specialized. One-quarter of
them earn over 90 percent of their total revenue from fruits and vegetable sales and 60 percent earn more
than half of their total revenue from these sales (see Table 3-21). Although the figures are not directly
comparable, these growers are significantly more specialized that the fruit and vegetable growers in the
nationally representative sample used by the Vietnam Living Standards Survey (see Table 2-14).
Fruit and vegetables are sold and processed in a variety of ways by producers. Producers both grow
and purchase fruit and vegetables to be consumed on-farm, sold as fresh product, or processed at home for
the fresh and processing markets. Overall, almost all the product (99 percent) is sold on the fresh market,
with a very small proportion is kept for home consumption or reserved for further processing 9 . Few
producers (just 23 of 1505) purchased some product, suggesting that fruit and vegetable growers rarely adopt
the role of traders.
There is generally an upper limit to home consumption as production increases. Table 3-22 indicates
that households generally consume 60-80 kg per year of each commodity (the average is 69 kg). The results
indicate that there is no significant home processing of mandarin, cucumbers and carrots (p