Many Chinese buy earthworms to use as traditional medicine to treat cardiovascular diseases, making hunting and electric stimulation of this animal increasingly serious.
Earthworm electric shock has been around for about a month in the provinces of Hoa Binh, Bac Giang, Son La, Tuyen Quang, Bac Giang... The hunters use a jackhammer consisting of two sharp sticks connected to a battery or a power battery. large enough to dig into the ground, causing all worms within about a square meter to come up.
The captured worms are removed organs, dried and sold to clues sent to China for about 600.000 VND per kilogram.
In China, earthworms are called earth dragons (earth dragons) and have been used as ingredients in traditional medicine for nearly 2.000 years. Chinese Pharmacopoeia It is said that earthworms have the use of "clearing heat, calming, laxative, diuretic".
The phenomenon of electric shock to hunt earthworms also broke out recently in some localities of China to sell to traditional medicine processing establishments, according to a report in July 7 of the Vietnam News Agency. Xinhua.
Electricians say that more and more patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in China need to use earthworms as medicine. The increased demand has caused hundreds of thousands of tons of earthworms to be hunted by electrostimulation in this country.
Dried earthworms, the main ingredient in many traditional Chinese medicines. Image: Xinhua
Worm hunters use the Dia Long machine, which consists of a battery connected to two sharp sticks, similar in Vietnam. Luu Lien Tam, a farmer in Thuong Khau, Henan province, who has more than 20 years of experience in catching worms, said the worm infestation usually blooms in the spring, when the earthworms come out.
At that time, the sound of the Earth Dragon machine resounded throughout the rice fields, vegetable fields, parks, river banks, even in the forest. Many people watching modern worm-catching technology said that "legs numb" because of electricity.
In the hot summer, with less rain, the worms burrow deeper into the ground, but there are still groups of people carrying the Dia Long machine to jack the worms. They are often active at night, carrying lights, buckets, and boots. A friend of Luu Lien Tam lamented that she "recently searched around the house and couldn't find any worms".
Worm catchers not only appear in Henan, but also in Suzhou in Anhui province, Xuzhou in Jiangsu province, mountainous areas between Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, primeval forests in Guizhou, Yunnan, high forests su in Hainan.
Dia Long machine users can catch hundreds of pounds of fresh worms every day and then clean the internal organs and dry them. For every 10 pounds of fresh, one kilogram of dry is sold for about 180-240 yuan ($25-33), depending on type and quality.
More than 20 years ago, when Luu Ngoc Lien was new to the profession, she used a hoe to dig up worms, cut open her stomach with a razor blade, and then dried it on a brick yard. At that time, the price of dried worms was about 20 yuan/kg.
"One day, they can dig 20 kilograms of worms, but they don't earn much, so few people do this job," said Ms. Liu.
But in the past 20 years, the price of earthworms has increased tenfold. In 10, dry earthworms once reached 2021 yuan/kg ($275), as market demand skyrocketed.
The city of Bozhou, Anhui province, is known as the "medicinal capital of China" and is the largest market for Chinese herbal medicine in the world. Mr. Chen, a trader in Bozhou, said he buys natural earthworms from Guangxi, Sichuan, Anhui, and Henan, and then sells them to pharmaceutical factories.
According to data in 2021, more than 57% of earthworms sold on the market are used for pharmaceutical factories, about 28,5% are imported by traditional medicine pharmacies, the rest are used for export. exports and functional foods.
China has 40 medicines containing earthworm ingredients, typically medicines for coughs, headaches, chest pain, and swelling pepper tablets. The base that uses the most earthworms is a pharmaceutical company in Shaanxi, which manufactures cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drugs, including capsules that allow the heart to be inserted into the brain.
The Cardiovascular Diseases Report published by China last year found that two out of every five deaths in the country in 5 will be due to cardiovascular disease. The incidence of cardiovascular disease in China is also steadily increasing, with an estimated number of patients at 2021 million.
"The population is aging rapidly, the demand for cardiovascular drugs is increasing, and the demand for earthworms has continuously increased in the last 10 years," said Co Hai Bin, a data analyst at the platform. Oriental medicine Thien Dia Van Do, said. “The data shows that the demand for earthworms in the pharmaceutical market will increase from 400 tons in 2010 to 675 tons in 2020.”
A representative of a drug manufacturing company in Bozhou, Anhui said that compared to 10 years ago, the amount of earthworms used for pharmaceutical production has increased by 70-80%. The company mainly produces pills and granules for hospitals and pharmacies. The company also advertises that only natural earthworms are used, not farmed ones.
Edition Chinese Pharmacopoeia According to the 2020 report, four types of "earth dragons" used to produce drugs are Pheretima aspergillum, Pheretimavulgaris, Pheretima guillelmi, and Pheretima pectinifera. The cultured worm Eudrilus eugeniae is not used in traditional Chinese medicine, but mainly for the aquaculture industry.
Sun Zhenjun, professor of ecology, Agricultural University of China, who has more than 30 years of research on earthworms, said that the four natural earthworm species in this country have "too strong wildness" that they cannot be reproduced. breeding or farming on a large scale, despite the high demand.
This is why the Dia Long machine was born, when more and more people rushed to catch worms for economic benefits. Professor Ton said he started paying attention to the arrival of the worm machine in 2013, when the price of earthworms was up to 150 yuan/kg (US$21).
Ms. Luu said that she gave up the manual worm digging method, switched to using the Dia Long machine because of its "high efficiency", and even switched to trading this machine. Traders believe that hunting earthworms is "the way to get rich in the countryside", calling earthworms "gold born in the countryside".
Electric stimulator for hunting earthworms. Image: T
But hunting earthworms by electric stimulation also has serious consequences for biodiversity and ecological environment. In the areas of Guangdong and Guangxi, due to overexploitation of earthworm resources in recent years, the source of worms decreases year by year.
Wanquan, a worm hunter in Xuchang, Henan province from 2021 moved his area of operation to Xueshan town, Weining district, Guizhou province, where there are many worms because of the "good environment, many hills" .
Van brought the Dia Long machine to Tuyet Son, giving it to the locals for free so that they could go to the mountain to hit the worms, bring it back and sell it to themselves. Van also hired them to cut open the abdomen, wash and dry the worms.
Ly Ai, prosecutor of Uy Ninh district, said that he had never seen such a large movement of hunting earthworms. From mid-2021, traders with worm jacks flocked to Uy Ninh, causing concern to people and forest rangers.
Later that year, Uy Ninh District Procuratorate decided to save earthworms by suing people working in the worm hunting industry on the grounds of "ensure the public interest".
In early 2022, Ly Ai visited many localities in the district to collect information for lawsuits related to earthworm hunting. However, this prosecutor said that efforts to "rescue the worms" are difficult without the cooperation of the people.
"They think that there are worms everywhere on the ground, so it won't affect anything," Ly Ai said. "During the investigation, many people told us that the law does not prohibit it, so the authorities have no right to stop them from catching worms."
Ly Ai and colleagues reviewed the Law on Wildlife Protection, the Law on Environmental Protection, the Law on Agriculture, the Law on Land Management, etc., but “did not find any specific regulations prohibiting the hunting of earthworms. . This species is also not on the list of animals in need of protection.
Uy Ninh Procuracy invited relevant departments such as police, environmental protection, forestry, and agriculture to hold a workshop, but could not come to a final conclusion on how to handle this activity.
"Representatives of agencies all said that there has never been a place to handle worm cases and give forms such as fines, detention or confiscation of tools," Ly Ai said.
While the authorities are looking for a solution, Professor Ton is concerned that the decline in earthworm resources will have a great impact on the soil.
“If everyone rushes to hunt for worms, the quality of the land will be affected. Fields without worms will not have loose, nutrient-rich soil to grow food,” he said. "This affects not only earthworms, but also other organisms in the soil such as insects, mites, spiders."
He said that in addition to hunting, the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and herbicides also increases soil pollution, reducing the number of natural earthworms. Earthworms growing in these areas are at risk of heavy metal contamination and cannot be used as traditional medicine.
“In fact, all sectors have responsibilities and obligations to protect biodiversity. We often think that protecting biodiversity is the responsibility of a certain agency,” said an expert with many years of experience in the field of environmental protection.
He warned that if the industries using earthworms are not aware of this, the field of traditional Chinese medicine will be blocked from developing.
An earthworm drying facility in Weining, Guizhou province. Image: Xinhua
Van Tuyen also heard about the harmful effects of using electric jacks to hunt worms. This trader recently went to Shaanxi to find a new source of earthworms, but plans to open a farm to raise earthworms in the future.
"If there is a day when the government bans the use of electric shocks to hunt worms, I will immediately stop," Van Tuyen said. "We have to find another way, because earthworms are a scarce product."
Hong Hanh (Follow Xinhua)
