The average price of the whole crop reached 19,800 VND/kg, basically the same price, and at times even higher than in years without the pandemic.

7 years ago, in 2014, also during the lychee season, the story of the "good harvest, low price, bad harvest, high price" cycle of farmers was mentioned again in the media. There was even negative information such as Chinese lychees "reversely imported", invading and competing with Vietnamese lychees right in the domestic market.

At the regular press conference of the Government in July of that year, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai denied the information about the infiltration of Chinese lychees, and at the same time gave an opinion to handle the consumption of Bac Giang lychees.

"Many people in the South do not know about lychee. If each of the 90 million people eats a few ounces, it will help farmers sell lychee," said Mr. Hai.

The Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade cited evidence that, thanks to promoting the import of lychee to the South, farmers have sold 60-70% of the lychee that in previous years had to depend on the Chinese market.

The spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Trade commented that, in addition to promoting "Vietnamese people using Vietnamese goods", Vietnam always strives to find solutions to diversify the market by negotiating and signing bilateral trade agreements.

The statement "each person eats a few ounces of lychee" at that time met with many disagreements because it sounded like a "joke" rather than a solution, although in reality, behind that statement was a direction to expand the domestic market for Vietnamese lychee.

In 2021, at the Government's regular June press conference held on the afternoon of July 1, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh praised Bac Giang province for selling more than 200,000 tons of lychee in the context of a very complicated pandemic.

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bac Giang still had a bumper lychee crop, with both good harvest and price. In particular, for the first time, domestic consumption output was higher than export.

Bac Giang had a successful lychee consumption season despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

"It can be said that Bac Giang lychee has both a bumper crop and good price, with good consumption with a revenue of about 6,800 billion VND. The province's new approach is not to talk about "rescuing" lychee right from the beginning of the season, because then the price will collapse, there will be no export, no sale.

Instead, we need to join hands and help spread the value of lychee. This is a lesson for lychee in particular and agricultural products in general,” said Bac Giang Provincial Party Secretary Duong Van Thai.

The recent outbreak coincided with the lychee season. Mr. Duong Van Thai said that, overcoming difficulties, Bac Giang lychee achieved “3 bests” this year. That is the largest output ever with 215,000 tons - higher than the initial forecast of 180,000 tons; best quality with 55% of output and planting area following VietGAP and GlobalGAP, official export to demanding markets such as Japan, France, Germany, etc.

In particular, the lychee selling price was stable from the beginning to the end of the season. In particular, the average price of the whole season reached 19,800 VND/kg, basically the same price, even at times higher than in years without the epidemic. In summary, Bac Giang farmers pocketed 4,274 billion VND in this year's lychee crop.

Previously, domestic consumption was only about 45 to 50% of total output, but this year it reached about 65%. The fact that domestic consumption is higher than export is the result of many solutions, including the fact that thanks to extremely effective new distribution channels, every Vietnamese person, no matter where they are, can "eat a few ounces of lychee".

This year is the first time that lychee has been promoted and sold on 7 major e-commerce platforms such as Sendo, Voso, Post mart, Tiki, Shopee, Alibaba, Lazada, helping consumers easily buy quality lychee at transparent prices and have it delivered to their doorstep.

"If last year, lychee sold on e-commerce platforms was only 7 tons, this year the output sold on these e-commerce platforms is over 7,000 tons, beyond expectations", said Mr. Tran Quang Tan, Director of the Department of Industry and Trade of Bac Giang province.

According to CafeF.vn