Chau Duc district in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province has ideal topography and weather conditions for growing cocoa. At present, the local cocoa growing area has expanded to 600 hectares, with an annual yield of 2.4-3 tonnes per hectare.
Local cocoa beans have even been exported to foreign markets and found favour. This helps farmers now have more faith in the crop.
According to industry insiders, local cocoa beans have won over choosy global consumers, including those from Japan and Europe, thanks to organic cultivation procedures being broadly applied since 2017.
The Chau Duc district-based Thanh Dat Production Trading Service Company Limited has pioneered instructing local farmers on organic farming, and also guarantees to buy their cocoa beans.
Its efforts have paid off, with batches of “Made in Ba Ria-VungTau” cocoa beans exported to Japan since 2019. It didn’t just stop at raw beans exports, either. In December, 2020, organic chocolate from Ba Ria-Vung Tau province was exported to the country.
Green-skin pomelo is another famed crop of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, especially in Song Xoai commune in Phu My town. Some of the local pomelo farms have been assigned origin codes certifying their quality. As such, several batches of pomelo have been exported to the EU.
Ba Ria-Vung Tau province targets having 16,000 hectares of fruit orchards this year.
Many farms have been granted origin codes, which creates the conditions for their produce to reach global markets, especially fastidious markets like the US, Australia, Japan, and China./.
