The Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has announced that Vietnam’s passion fruit now can be exported officially to the Australian market. It already is exported to China.

According to the department’s director Huynh Tan Dat, Vietnam has great advantages in tropical fruits. Vietnam’s passion fruit is now exported to 20 markets as fresh fruit, frozen fruit, and fruit juice.

There are about 12,000 hectares of passion fruit growing areas in Vietnam, mostly in mountainous areas in the north and the Central Highlands, Farmers tend to expand the growing area of the fruit with yearly output at 200,000 tons.

In recent years, Vietnam has upgraded farming quality, organizing production in chains and ensuring traceability. There are two major varieties of passion fruit grown in Vietnam, including yellow Passiflora edulis and purple Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa.

Eighty percent of Vietnam’s passion fruit, fresh and processed, is exported where the demand is very high. Vietnam is among the biggest passion fruit producers and exporters, just after Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru.

According to Dat, the Plant Protection Department began preparing documents to negotiate with Australian agencies on exporting passion fruit to the market many years ago. After great efforts in negotiations for market opening and close cooperation of the two sides, passion fruit became the fifth Vietnamese fruit getting the go-ahead to Australia. The other four fruits were mango, longan, litchi and dragon fruit.

Dat said the department is planning to organize training courses to guide farmers in  strictly following the production process to satisfy the requirements of the importing country.

MARD has recently announced that the US has officially accepted Vietnam’s passion fruit to enter the market. The process of technical negotiations between Vietnamese and US agencies has finished, and it is now time to follow legal procedures to allow passion imports from Vietnam.

Prior to that, in mid-2022, Vietnam’s passion fruit officially got approval to enter the Chinese market. The opening of more foreign markets can bring great opportunities for farmers to expand their production scale.

In the last five years, passion fruit output and export turnover has increased by 300 percent. Passion fruit is always listed among the top 10 fruits with highest export turnover. Vietnam has suitable land and climate conditions for developing commercial passion fruit production. It is easy to grow and the time from planting to harvesting is short.

In 2023, Vietnam earned $222 million from passion fruit exports.

Tam An