Bennie Sijbom started growing dragonfruit in the Philippines with his wife. It has now become their lives work. Last year the 'Sijboms' received a prize from the town they live in. "We are the only grower in the province that have the lights on for four hours a night from November to May so we can offer fruit all year round."
Sijbom grows Moroccan Red Dragonfruit in the Philippines and has a total of 1,300 concrete posts for the fruit to grow against. He and his wife also look after the 2,500 post dragonfruit plantation belonging to another owner. Two people work on this plantation and Bennie takes care of the sales of the dragonfruit. He planted the plantation himself, as he also developed dragonfruit plantations for many others.
"We are members of the cooperation of dragonfruit growers and sometimes sell the dragonfruit collectively. This is often among the local population, but we also have customers in Manilla. The dragonfruit is transported by bus, where it is sold between Laoag City and Manila. We bring the product at night and the buyers pick it up the next morning," says Bennie. "We are at almost 100 hectares all together, and compared to Vietnam this is very small scale. If you want to export, it's in tonnes and it isn't simple to start this together.
"It's a dream of mine for our dragonfruit to be on Dutch plates. Our dragonfruit is sweet and very tasty and the ground type seems to be the reason. We make our own organic compost for the dragonfruit, in which the 'African night crawler' does the work to get the right fertilisation for the fruit. We regularly hear from people who have visited us and who live in various European countries, that the dragonfruit available there is different from ours. They miss our dragonfruit," concludes Bennie.
