Poor harvest pushes Hai Phong toward quality-first lychee season

Marshaling resources for the decisive phase

This year's poor lychee harvest has compelled farmers to tend their orchards with exceptional care, managing soil moisture to prevent fruit cracking, pruning canopies to achieve uniform color, and timing pesticide applications precisely to avoid residue violations. Every technique and every decision made in the orchard is now tied to a larger objective: not selling lychees, but selling them at premium value, clearing the narrow gateways of demanding markets, and securing stable, long-term commercial relationships.

Export market requirements are growing increasingly stringent, with strict regulations governing food safety, traceability, growing area codes, and packing facility standards. If the quality and trustworthiness of Hai Phong lychees can be maintained, the fruit can still travel far, even with reduced volumes.

According to Luong Thi Kiem, Deputy Director of the Hai Phong Department of Agriculture and Environment, the city is channeling its full resources into the decisive period between now and the end of the season, with the dual aim of preserving product quality and laying thorough groundwork for the distribution and export of fresh lychees in 2026. Every stage from production to market has been integrated into a tightly coordinated chain.

Thematic conferences have not only served as problem-solving forums but also as practical learning sessions where growers, cooperatives, and enterprises can collectively revisit the increasingly exacting demands of import markets. Requirements covering growing area codes, packing facility registration, traceability, and production logbooks have all been translated into specific, concrete actions, each small in isolation, yet collectively determining a shipment's fate at the border.

Trade promotion activities have also been launched earlier than usual. We are organizing product introduction sessions not only to secure buyers but also to reserve a place for Hai Phong lychees on the consumption map, at a time when lower volumes are accompanied by heightened pressure to maximize value per unit.

Yet despite these efforts, Deputy Director Kiem acknowledged that significant challenges remain. Some growing areas have received their official codes but maintain them inconsistently afterward. Some farming households are still unaccustomed to record-keeping and traceability requirements. At the packing stage, many facilities operate seasonally and face shortages of warehouse space, equipment, and labor, making full compliance with technical standards a persistent challenge.

The pressure is compounded by the inherently concentrated nature of the lychee season, which arrives in a single intense window of one to two months. Early and main-crop varieties overlap, causing volumes to converge simultaneously and stretching the entire procurement, transport, and cold storage chain to its limits within a very short period. Meanwhile, each target market imposes its own distinct requirements regarding phytosanitary inspection and pesticide residue thresholds, standards that differ from one another and shift continuously, demanding that producers adapt with each passing season.

Deputy Director Kiem also pointed to deeper structural gaps that have yet to be resolved, including the lack of sufficiently effective methods to extend the on-tree ripening period and the continued limitations of post-harvest preservation technology. As a result, the seasonal pressure repeats itself year after year, falling squarely on the shoulders of both growers and businesses.

Tightening control over growing areas and packing facilities

Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Deputy Director of the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection, identified strict oversight of growing areas and packing facilities as one of the most critical levers currently available, noting that this oversight ultimately determines whether lychees can access international markets at all.

Hai Phong has considerable experience in organizing export-oriented lychee production, but that experience should not breed complacency. Decree No. 38/2026/ND-CP, which governs the import of soil-balled plants and the issuance of growing area and packing facility codes, does not introduce entirely new requirements, but it does codify and clarify in greater detail the technical procedures, documentation, traceability protocols, and responsibilities assigned to each link in the production chain.

"What was done before must now be done more rigorously, more systematically, and with a fuller evidentiary basis," Deputy Director Huong said. "Localities need to review all growing areas and packing facilities from the very start of the season, completing technical requirements and documentation before the peak harvest period begins. In the current environment, if an importing country calls for an inspection, whether in person or online, and the production side is not ready, the risk of being caught off guard is substantial, with the potential to stall exports entirely."

On food safety, Deputy Director Huong commended Hai Phong's track record over recent years, noting that the city has maintained a reasonably robust monitoring system with no adverse feedback recorded from import markets. Nevertheless, she emphasized the need to sustain food safety conditions as international standards continue to tighten.

"Major markets such as the EU and Japan are continuously updating their lists of prohibited active substances and lowering maximum residue limits to very demanding levels," she said. "This requires technical agencies to go beyond general advisories - they must stay one step ahead, update information promptly, and guide farmers to apply pesticides according to the four-right principle, ensuring both effective pest control and product safety."

Deputy Director Huong also recommended a market-by-market approach to technical guidance. Each growing area targeting a specific destination market should have its own tailored technical protocol from the outset of the season. Information about prohibited substances and market-specific requirements must be communicated early enough for farmers to proactively adjust their practices, rather than discovering risks only as harvest approaches. That is a solution addressing root causes, not one that scrambles to manage consequences after the fact.

She also noted candidly that distribution remains the link that ultimately determines the value of the entire chain. However well a lychee season is managed agronomically, it cannot be considered a success without market connectivity. Localities must therefore continue to drive trade promotion, expand sales channels, and tie distribution efforts to promoting the growing area's identity. Each lychee carries not only economic value but also a cultural narrative and a sense of local distinctiveness.

Hai Phong currently has 68 registered lychee-growing areas with 198 export codes, covering a total area of approximately 1,125 hectares. In an average season, the volume of lychees destined for premium and demanding markets, including Japan, the United States, and the European Union, ranges from 4,000 to 5,000 tons. On the post-harvest side, the city operates seven packing facilities holding 16 export codes, with a combined processing capacity of approximately 650 tons per day, broadly sufficient to meet the pre-processing and packaging demands of the export season.