The double sorrow of avocado 034

Avocado variety 034 from Bao Lam is considered a local agricultural product. This year's avocado harvest has not only failed due to poor yields and low prices, but also because farmers and traders have compromised the quality of the avocados.

Mr. Nguyen Van Dau, with his famous 034 avocado orchard, is well-known both within and outside the province in Bao Lam 1 commune.

Avocado harvesting season is currently underway. The avocado growing area in the communes of Bao Lam district covers approximately 1,200 hectares, of which about 500 hectares are monoculture and about 756 hectares are intercropped. The estimated avocado yield is 130 quintals/hectare; the total avocado production is expected to reach 13,500 tons. In Bao Lam 1 commune, the avocado growing area is now only about 196 hectares, a significant decrease compared to previous years. According to Mr. Dinh Sy Thien, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of Bao Lam 1 commune, the decrease in avocado acreage is mainly due to low prices; coffee and durian are fetching good prices, leading people to switch to avocado cultivation. This year's avocado crop has significantly lower prices than in previous years, and furthermore, the avocado trees were hit by rain and frost during flowering, resulting in a low fruit set rate.

Mr. Nguyen Van Dau, from Bao Lam 1 commune, is a renowned avocado grower in the province and nationwide. In 2009, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Bao Lam district selected his family's avocados to participate in the High-Yield, High-Quality Avocado Competition organized by the Lam Dong Center for Research and Technology Transfer of Industrial and Fruit Trees. The competition was held in Bao Loc City, and Mr. Dau's long avocados were assigned the code 034/09. At the end of the competition, the avocados with code 034/09 won second prize (there was no first prize), and since then, this avocado variety has been known as "034 avocado".

Mr. Dau said that avocado prices have dropped sharply this year. At the beginning of the season, they were priced at 30,000-40,000 VND, but now they are only 7,000-8,000 VND. In previous years, his 7 hectares of avocado trees yielded about 100 tons of fruit, but this year, due to weather conditions and low prices, only about 60 tons were harvested, impacting his family's income. Analyzing the price, Mr. Dau believes that the low price is due to the late harvest season, coinciding with the harvest of other fruits, giving customers more choices. Furthermore, a major factor is that traders and orchard owners are harvesting avocados before they are ripe enough; this results in uneven ripening and damage to the ends of the fruit, causing customers to turn away from the product.

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According to many avocado growers in the Bao Lam region, this year, at the beginning of the season, the price of avocados reached around 40,000 VND/kg, leading many traders to harvest even unripe avocados, resulting in much debate about the quality of the 034 variety. This issue has been the subject of much discussion on social media recently. For example, on the Facebook page " Lam Dong 034 Avocado Market," many people reported that avocados were damaged and rotten at both ends after ripening, forcing them to be discarded. Many comments suggested that this occurred because the avocados were still unripe, and the ripening process damaged both ends of the fruit. Many traders faced this situation and had to discard nearly 1 ton of avocados they had purchased, causing significant economic losses.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ty, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Bao Lam 2 commune, said: "Currently, the entire commune has about 300 hectares of avocado trees, which have brought considerable income to farmers in recent years. However, this year the yield is low, only about 10 tons/ha, compared to about 20 tons/ha in previous years, and prices have dropped sharply, causing difficulties for avocado growers. Avocado trees in the locality are mainly intercropped, and recently some households have cut them down to switch to other crops such as coffee and durian."

To ensure the development of avocado trees within the agricultural ecosystem, growers proposed building an avocado processing plant to extract avocado oil for export to other countries. To date, the avocado growers' wish has not been realized.

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Source: https://baolamdong.vn/noi-buon-kep-cua-bo-034-449409.html