The sound of the ducks in the coop flapping their wings and calling out in alarm woke Cu up. He jumped up, dangled his feet from the bed, groped for his slippers, and opened the door to look out at the duck coop by the pond, but then he stopped and sat still, suddenly remembering that he was sleeping at the An Cu dragon fruit purchasing and packaging warehouse.
It was almost four in the morning. These days, Cu was often awakened by a flock of ducks squawking in panic as rats entered the coop looking for newly laid duck eggs, even though he was sleeping in a warm, soft bed in a factory of several hundred square meters, not on a bamboo bed with creaking legs in a rusty corrugated iron house in the garden, with a corner of the house cluttered with pesticide sprayers, bottles, baskets, hoes, shovels, machetes...
Cu looked at his wife sleeping soundly, the faint scent of perfume made him awake. Every night before going to bed, his wife sprayed perfume around the room, on the mosquito net. She said, the smell of pesticides she had breathed in the dragon fruit garden for years still lingered in her nostrils, she wanted to get rid of it. Cu laughed, mocking his wife, he also wanted to get rid of his lungs that had been "eaten" by pesticides, perhaps no longer healthy.
Cu went to the kitchen to boil water and make tea. The dragon fruit packaging crowd eating late at night left bowls, pots and pans everywhere, making him feel fed up. He quickly put on his long pants, pushed his motorbike past the stacks of crates used to bring dragon fruit to the garden, and ran to the coffee shop at the intersection. It was past the full moon of the ninth lunar month, and this year the weather was cold early, and he shivered slightly because he was only wearing a thin T-shirt. The villas and two-story houses on the side of the road, clearly visible in the morning mist, were the burning desire of the couple An - Cu. Now, the two of them had achieved what they wanted after ten years of harvesting thousands of dragon fruit vines with good harvests and prices, but they wanted more. Although they were named An - Cu, they were not in a hurry to settle down. They set up a company to buy dragon fruit, package it, and install cold storage to preserve the products for export. They wanted to be garden owners and warehouse owners, dreaming of the day when they would have enough money to build a nice house in the countryside and buy a villa in Saigon.
More than two months until Tet, the dragon fruit gardens are brightly lit, the garden owners turn on the lights to stimulate the dragon fruit to flower and bear fruit in time for the Tet market. For three days of Tet, the fruit tray on the ancestors' altar cannot lack the dragon fruit with bright red skin and long, soft curved ears, so this fruit sells very well not only domestically but is also consumed mainly in neighboring countries with a huge population and Tet at the same time as ours. Thanh Long Co restaurant opens the earliest and is the busiest in town, all the customers have roots in dragon fruit. The garden owners chat about the changing weather so the lighting time should be extended or shortened, about many types of pesticides not being as effective as before because fungi and aphids are more cunning or because they have become resistant to the chemicals, some even suspect it is because of... fake chemicals. The buyers whisper about the yield of this garden last season being high, that garden being low, or which orchards are making big profits, which orchards are making big losses. Then some young men transported dragon fruit by wheelbarrow from the garden to where the small trucks were parked, noisily sharing the wages. Some small and large purchasing and packaging establishments, along with those selling cardboard boxes, straps, plastic bags, etc. This fruit, which is a relative of the cactus, has breathed life into a wide area of the countryside, bringing a prosperous life to many people, one could say a whole life change after they replaced the rice and potato plants in the fields with wooden and cement pillars for the dragon fruit branches to cling to.
An Cu's warehouse has been closed for a whole week because the dragon fruit crop has failed. Since buying a car, every morning Cu's wife often drives to the city, a few dozen kilometers away from home, to do business with her customers and the bank. Cu could not imagine that his wife could drive a four-wheeled vehicle. A few years ago, she did not even know how to ride a bicycle, and even if she had a vehicle, there was no road to ride on because she had to follow the undulating rice field to get to his house. Every time she drove him, he would admire her hands on the steering wheel, her fingers were plump and short like the bananas of the old banana bush in the corner of the garden, but very skillful. She also often drove her friends, who were garden and warehouse owners, to drink coffee at garden cafes because she thought the coffee in the city was better. Her friends, who were also his friends, were farmers who were lucky because of the easy-to-grow fruit varieties, suitable for the soil and weather of the land with little rain and a lot of sunshine, and favored by foreign markets, and had become rich. At that time, the area for growing dragon fruit was not large, dragon fruit was exported in bulk. In particular, the price of dragon fruit was very high, up to tens of thousands of dong per kilogram, while one kilogram had only two or three giant dragon fruits; while the price of one kilogram of rice was only a few thousand dong, so selling one kilogram of giant dragon fruit could buy more than ten kilograms of rice. Every household destroyed their fields to grow dragon fruit, ignoring the government's fines on the grounds that growing dragon fruit on rice land was breaking the planning, causing national food security. Refrigerated container trucks carrying dragon fruit to the northern border had buyers who had "taken the price" waiting, handing over money, making the deterrent directives of all levels of government turn into a pile of waste paper. The government ignored the card, the area of dragon fruit increased many times the number of agricultural development strategy planners sitting in air-conditioned rooms drawing up targets. Because farmers believed that whatever fruit tree sold well, they would just grow it, if no one bought it, they would dig up the roots, pull out the pillars, and plant another tree.
An and Cu opened their warehouse at a time when dragon fruit exports were no longer as lucrative as before. The price of dragon fruit fluctuated erratically. In the morning, the price at the border market was high, and warehouse owners competed to increase the purchase price to fill the container, but as soon as the trucks started moving, the selling price dropped. For each 20-ton container, the warehouse owner lost one or two hundred million, which became a daily occurrence. Not every shipment was a loss, but small profits, and continuous heavy losses caused many warehouse owners to hold out through one or two dragon fruit seasons, and had to sell or rent their warehouses, or accept orders to process goods for customers. The customers were experienced foreigners in the market with international agricultural product export chains. Vietnamese dragon fruit only needed to be transported across the border, and they would have new packaging bearing their brand name, and in addition to selling domestically, they would also export to other countries.
Cu is aware that foreign orchard owners control both the input and output prices of dragon fruit because they have an important consumer market, while other consumer markets are just small numbers. Many orchard owners, half-jokingly, but more seriously than jokingly, think that if this large market stops "buying" goods, the only way is to hang the red ripe dragon fruit on the branches and wait for it to rot. If more markets are not opened soon, dragon fruit exports will depend on the small trade route, and farmers will certainly have to work harder just to bring higher profits to others. These days, Cu is not being kept awake by the mice stealing his eggs, but the fear of failure makes him startled and scared. The same goes for An, Cu's wife. At night, she tosses and turns, sometimes mumbling in her sleep, and he has to wake her up.
For the past week, several hundred containers of agricultural products have been stuck at the northern border because the customs of the neighboring country has not allowed the goods to clear. Every few months, a border closure like this happens, and agricultural products quickly spoil, so the only way is to sell them off in order to salvage some capital.
- I'm so worried! With goods like this… we'll run out of capital one day!
An sobbed. Cu gently reassured his wife even though he was also confused.
- Try to sleep, let me think more...
Cu is negotiating with a partner to dissolve the company and transfer the An Cu dragon fruit orchard, but the deal has not been successful because the buyer wants him to keep a certain percentage of the shares. The roosters have crowed, but the couple cannot sleep peacefully because of the young men racing on the main road, revving their engines and making a lot of noise. While they are suffering, they suddenly become rich. Five or seven children of the dragon fruit orchard owners are competing to buy big motorbikes, gathering at night to race, making the village noisy. One of them is a former friend of Cu's son who died or became disabled because of a speed racing game with an old man in a black cloak, holding a scythe.
Near dawn, Cu fell asleep, dreaming of the old house in the garden with a rusty corrugated iron roof. When he heard that a farmer from a neighboring village had hung a light bulb on a dragon fruit pole to light up the duck coop, the dragon fruit coincidentally blossomed and bore fruit after the harvest season ended, thanks to the heat spread by the light bulb lit every night. Cu immediately experimented with the dragon fruit pole next to the duck coop, next to the pond in his garden, not just one 100-watt round bulb but four bulbs around the base of the pole. With enough heat, enough water and ash fertilizer, the dragon fruit pole bore fruit. From then on, Cu boldly applied the accidental invention of the unknown farmer in his dragon fruit garden. Like Cu, a whole area of dragon fruit growing brightly lit every night has brought a rich and prosperous life to many people, but recently, the golden age of dragon fruit growers and buyers seems to have passed. The price of dragon fruit fluctuates erratically, no longer soaring like the first few years, causing people to plant dragon fruit en masse. By now, everyone realizes that because the increase in dragon fruit acreage was not planned and supply and demand were not balanced, this fruit is no longer as profitable as before. Some people even had to cut down dragon fruit gardens and change crops...
Source: https://baobinhthuan.com.vn/cai-chuong-vit-125345.html
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