In August, Vietnam’s dragon fruit industry was a mess, with farmers dumping huge piles of the produce into the streets after a bumper crop drove prices into the dirt.

“They have no choice but to dump the fruits to the street,” said one trader, talking about the struggling farmers of Binh Thuan Province where prices had bottomed out at VND1,000/kg.

But September has turned out to be a very different month as SGGP reports that dragon fruit prices have rocketed to as much as VND16,000-17,000/kg.

While the newspaper offered little insight into the change in price, it’s probably safe to assume that it’s at least partly due to the fact that the dragon fruit season is soon coming to an end.

It may also be that local distributers have diversified their customers following the diplomatic row between Vietnam and China earlier this year. Luong Ngoc Trung Lap, head of market research at Vietnam's Southern Fruit Research Institute said that 90% of the 1,000 metric tons of Vietnamese dragon fruit exported in the first half of this year went to China.

It looks like the images of cows feasting on piles of the delicious fruit are a thing of the past. At least for now.

[SGGP // Photo via Mike Fernwood]