Coffee picking job in the Central Highlands

At the end of the year, thousands of workers from the delta go up to the Central Highlands to pick coffee for hire. Each day, the couple earns 500,000-800,000 VND, 2-3 times more than working in the fields in the countryside.

In the morning of mid-November, nearly 100 workers from Quang Ngai gathered at the Ha Mon - Ngoc Wang intersection, Dak Ha town ( Kon Tum ) waiting for the garden owner to hire them to pick coffee. Among the crowd, Mr. Pham Van Tho (44 years old, H're ethnic group), occasionally ran to the bus that had just stopped to look for relatives. Waiting for the fourth bus, he was overjoyed to see his wife carrying their two-year-old child getting off. He quickly drove his wife and child to Ha Mon commune to pick coffee in time for the morning.

Mr. Pham Van Tho takes his wife and children to the farm to prepare to pick coffee for hire. Photo: Kieu Loan

Anh Tho said his family only had two fields in Ba To district, Quang Ngai. The small fields were not enough to live on, so all year round the couple mainly worked for hire in Binh Dinh, Kon Tum, and Gia Lai . Because they picked few coffee fruits, at the end of the year, he and his wife were constantly called by garden owners in Ha Mon commune to pick them. Unable to find someone to look after their young children, he decided to take his whole family to the Central Highlands for the fifth time to make a living.

The day before, Mr. Tho drove his 11-year-old son (who was out of school) nearly 150 km to Dak Ha district to arrange accommodation. His wife and young child took a bus later. The whole family lived with 14 other workers in the garden owner's farmhouse. Every day, he and his wife and the workers got up at 4am to prepare food and water to go to the farm, picking coffee until dark. Mr. Tho's eldest son stayed at the hut to take care of the younger child.

Similar to the situation of Mr. Tho and his wife, at the end of the year, when the harvest season ends, thousands of workers from the delta provinces head to the Central Highlands to pick coffee for hire. There are H're couples who leave home at night, leaving their young children to be cared for by their grandparents.

Along Highway 24, groups of 5-10 motorbikes with Quang Ngai license plates carrying a lot of belongings, follow each other to Kon Tum. Some groups stop to rest on the side of the road after a long journey or wait for vehicles that get lost behind. Their final destination is Dak Ha district - the coffee capital of Kon Tum province, with an area of ​​over 1,500 hectares.

About 3 km from the garden where Mr. Tho and his wife are harvesting, in the middle of a 4-hectare coffee plantation in Ha Mon commune, Mr. Dinh Van Dat (38 years old) and his wife are taking advantage of the opportunity to finish picking their crop so they can take a break for lunch. Under the scorching sun, the dark faces of the H're couple are dripping with sweat, their shirts soaked.

Mr. Dinh Van Dat and his wife harvest coffee in Ha Mon commune. Photo: Kieu Loan

Next to them, five couples were also working hard to pull up the tarps and move on to picking other trees. Each row, two people, pulled two tarps around the base of the trees to prevent coffee from falling out when picking. When they finished the row, they picked up the leaves and trash and threw them away, collecting the coffee cherries and putting them in bags.

At exactly 12 o'clock, everyone gathered under the coffee tree to have lunch. Each couple brought their own food, mainly rice, bamboo shoots, and dried fish. After about 30 minutes of rest, they continued their work.

Three days ago, they found a coffee plantation with lots of fruit and easy to pick. Every day, Mr. Dat and his wife harvested 700,000-800,000 VND, earning 700,000-800,000 VND. "After deducting expenses, my wife and I earn about 20 million VND per month," Mr. Dat said, adding that this is a large amount of money that is hard to earn in the countryside. This time, he and his wife are trying to save money to take care of their children and shop for Tet.

Mr. Dat said that a week ago, when the fields were empty, a friend in the village invited him to go to the Central Highlands to pick coffee. That night, he and his wife packed their clothes, blankets, and mattresses into a backpack and drove away at night, leaving their two children, aged 6 and 4, with their grandmother.

The midnight journey through Vi O Lac Pass, Mang Den, the seasonal workers drove straight to Kon Tum before dawn. After waiting for a while at the Ha Mon - Ngoc Wang intersection, Mr. Dat's group was hired by the garden owner in Dak Ma commune, Dak Ha district, to pick coffee on a contract basis, for every 100 kg of coffee, the workers received 100,000 VND. However, that garden had few fruits, the terrain was steep, pulling the tarp was difficult, their income was still 500,000-600,000 VND a day.

Workers gather at the Ha Mon - Ngoc Wang intersection waiting for the garden owner to hire them to pick coffee. Photo: Kieu Loan

After harvesting the garden in Dak Ma, the group returned to the "labor market" to continue waiting for another garden owner to hire them. They "migrated" from one field to another, from Kon Tum to Gia Lai, even Dak Lak. The journey to make a living for the workers in the highlands lasted for weeks, months, and some groups even lasted until the end of the coffee season.

Mr. Doan Van Chuong (62 years old, living in Ha Mon commune) said that his family's coffee plantation has had 4,000 trees since 1995. Every year, when the harvest season begins, he usually hires 8-15 workers, and the harvest lasts nearly a week. In previous years, due to the epidemic, it was difficult to hire workers. However, in the past two years, starting in November, many workers have flocked to the Central Highlands, making it easier to find people to harvest.

In 2022, the Central Highlands will have more than 600,000 hectares of coffee, accounting for nearly 90% of the country's coffee area, providing 1.77 million tons of coffee, with a huge demand for picking workers. According to the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Kon Tum, when entering the harvest season, in addition to local workers, more than 4,000 workers from neighboring provinces, mainly from Quang Ngai, will come to the area to pick coffee for hire, with more than 2,400 people in Dak Ha district alone.

Kieu Loan

Source link: https://vnexpress.net/nghe-hai-ca-phe-thue-o-tay-nguyen-4675200.html