Early-ripening Phuong Nam lychees with poor harvest - high prices

Phuong Nam ward (Uong Bi City, Quang Ninh) has approximately 400 ha of early-ripening lychee cultivation. This is considered the largest lychee-growing area in Quang Ninh province. During the harvest season, the residents of Phuong Nam ward are busy picking heavily laden early-ripening lychees for traders who come directly to the gardens to purchase them.

While harvesting clusters of ripe, red lychees, Mr Pham Van Tri shared: "This year, the weather was unfavourable, so my family's lychee yield is lower than in previous years. However, the selling price of lychees is slightly higher than last year, so growers are less worried."

Mr. Tri's lychee garden spans about 1 ha, with nearly 300 lychee trees. With over 20 years of experience growing early-ripening lychees in Phuong Nam, to ensure the trees are always healthy, bear fruit in the right season, and produce high-quality fruit, Mr. Tri has implemented pruning techniques to remove sprouting branches and inner branches to concentrate nutrients for lychee flowers. This limits the impact when the lychee trees sprout and maintains each tree at a yield of 60 - 70 kg of fruit. Thanks to these methods, Mr. Tri's lychee garden is always lush, with sweet, large, uniform fruits that are rarely affected by stem borers. The harvested lychees are immediately bought by traders.

"At the beginning of the season, the price of lychees reached up to VND 60,000/kg, then gradually decreased and stabilized at around VND 40,000/kg. My family's garden sometimes harvests over 10 tons of lychees, generating an annual income of hundreds of millions of VND", Mr Tri said happily.

Mr. Bui Van Tra, Chairman of the Phuong Nam Ward Farmers' Association, stated that currently, the early-ripening lychee area in the ward spans about 400 ha, with an estimated annual yield of 2,000 tons and revenue of VND 50 - 60 billion. Of this, over 290 ha are applying the VietGAP production process.

"Recently, many traders have come to purchase early-ripening lychees from Phuong Nam for export to China. Accordingly, 300 tons of lychees have been sold at VND 40,000/kg (VND 10,000 - 15,000/kg higher than the 2023 lychee season). Additionally, small traders also come directly to the gardens to buy. Although the early-ripening lychee season in Phuong Nam has seen a poor harvest this year, the higher prices have somewhat ensured that farmers' incomes are still comparable to previous years", Mr Tra shared.

In 2013, early-ripening lychees from Phuong Nam were registered as a trademark by the Intellectual Property Office (Ministry of Science and Technology) and were included by the People's Committee of Quang Ninh province in the plan as one of the 17 concentrated agricultural production areas in the province.

In 2017, Uong Bi City approved the project for producing early-ripening lychees in Phuong Nam according to the VietGAP process, assigning planting area codes with a total investment of nearly VND 16 billion. This includes four objectives: food safety; safety for producers; environmental protection; and traceability of the product's origin.

Since August 2022, the Quang Ninh Plant Protection and Cultivation Sub-department has collaborated with OTAS Global Joint Stock Company to pilot a model for standardizing planting area data according to OTAS standards. This aims to support domestic consumption and export of early-ripening lychees at Field No. 6, Hiep Thanh area (Phuong Nam ward) with a scale of 30 ha, initially involving 100 households.

Authorities have measured and mapped the planting area, completed the centralized and scattered planting area database, identified prohibited pests, monitored pesticide residues, and provided specific advice and guidance to certified planting areas, packaging, and processing facilities on phytosanitary and food safety requirements of importing countries.

The OTAS system and standards ensure transparency in product traceability, meeting stringent phytosanitary conditions of importing countries. This is a crucial condition that creates opportunities for Phuong Nam early-ripening lychees to be exported, especially to European countries.

Phuong Nam early-ripening lychees have been cultivated in Phuong Nam ward (Uong Bi City) since around the 1960s, concentrated in planned areas such as Bach Dang 1, Bach Dang 2, Hiep Thanh, Phong Thai, Hong Ha, Hong Hai, Da Bac, and Cam Hong. The early-ripening lychee of Phuong Nam has thick, translucent white, crunchy flesh, thin skin, a bright red colour when ripe, a distinctive fragrance, and a sweet, mildly sour taste without bitterness, making it highly favoured by consumers.