For many years, farmers in the province have always faced the situation of "good harvest, low price, good price, bad harvest" due to the lack of connection between businesses and producers. Most people still have to consume agricultural products at wholesale markets at low prices.
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| At Tuc Duyen wholesale market ( Thai Nguyen city), people often have to stay up all night waiting for traders from other places to come and buy vegetables, at "free" prices. |
Every good season is a "rescue"
Currently, Mrs. Tran Thi Luyen, 58 years old, in Cay hamlet, Huong Thuong commune (Thai Nguyen city) still has to struggle to transport vegetables to sell at night at Tuc Duyen wholesale market. Her family has nearly 1 hectare of vegetable field, and is harvesting kohlrabi and cabbage.
Ms. Luyen shared that the historic flood in early September had damaged the entire vegetable area in the village. The price of green vegetables was also at a record high, and cabbages, which were nearly 30,000 VND/kg, were still scarce. Therefore, she and most households in the village quickly seized the opportunity to plant kohlrabi and cabbage early in the hope of selling at a good price, avoiding the situation of being in season at the end of the year when the price was so cheap that they still could not sell, and many households called for "rescue" but were unsuccessful, so they had to leave their fields unharvested.
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However, this vegetable crop did not meet the growers' expectations. The weather was favorable, with few pests and diseases, and all green vegetables had high yields. Farmers planted and harvested them all at the same time, so the supply exceeded the consumption capacity, leading to a sharp drop in vegetable prices. The price of green vegetables at Tuc Duyen wholesale market at this time was low, with leaf mustard from 2,000 VND - 2,500 VND/kg; turnips and kohlrabi 4,000 VND - 5,000 VND/kg; cabbage 3,000 VND - 4,000 VND/kg.
Investing nearly 20 million VND in seeds, medicine, fertilizer, etc., Ms. Luyen calculated that if she sold all of the nearly 10,000 cabbage and kohlrabi plants, she would earn about 35 million VND. After deducting expenses, there would be nearly 15 million VND left, which was the labor cost of 3 people for nearly 2 months.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Tu, 40 years old, specializes in selling vegetables at Tuc Duyen market: The cheaper the vegetables, the harder it is to sell. Many people stand selling all night to earn a few tens of thousands of dong, and that includes spending the whole morning cutting and bundling the vegetables, not to mention the many days of care required to harvest them.
According to Ms. Tu, no organization has ever called for the “rescue” of Thai Nguyen agricultural products, but in fact, many calls for “rescue” have been posted on social networking groups to small traders and consumers. Products that need to be “rescued” include various green vegetables, tomatoes, cucumbers, green bananas… most notably pumpkins and grapefruits during harvest season.
Not out of the cycle of planting and cutting
Once earning hundreds of millions of dong each year from more than 1,000 Thai jackfruit trees and more than 300 dracontomelon trees, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien, Doi Che hamlet, Phuc Triu commune (Thai Nguyen city) decided to cut down all of the above trees.
According to Ms. Hien, choosing the right variety, the fruit quality is very good, there are jackfruits weighing up to 20kg, but in recent years, consumption has been very difficult, previously 20,000 VND/kg, now only under 5,000 VND, no one buys.
The same goes for star fruit. When she planted it, it sold very well, but when it was time to harvest it, she didn’t know who to sell it to. When the season came, hundreds of ripe jackfruits fell off every day. To save time cleaning the garden, Hien posted a notice giving away free jackfruit and star fruit to anyone who wanted to come to the garden and pick as many as they wanted. “Even if they were given away, it wouldn’t be expensive,” Hien lamented.
"The expensive compete to plant, the cheap compete to cut" is a common situation, not only for short-term crops such as vegetables but also for perennial crops. In Yen Ngua hamlet, Lau Thuong commune (Vo Nhai), nearly 80 households grow fruit trees. Ten years ago, Vinh orange trees brought high economic efficiency, the whole hamlet planted more than 12 hectares, some households earned hundreds of millions of VND/year. After that, households destroyed them to plant longan, Dien grapefruit, and recently continued to cut them down to invest in growing custard apples.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu, Head of Yen Ngua Hamlet: When the season comes, oranges and grapefruits are piled up and sold at a low price, but no one buys them; longans cannot be sold, so people switch to growing custard apples because the district is supporting the promotion of custard apple products.
In the fruit growing area of Khe Du hamlet, Phuc Thuan commune (Pho Yen city), longan has an area of about 80 hectares, is famous for its delicious taste and is very popular with consumers, the selling price can be up to 30,000-40,000 VND/kg, many households earn hundreds of millions of VND each year. After a few crop failures due to the weather, seeing that pink banana trees are profitable, many households have replaced them with longan.
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| Although the price of green vegetables is cheap, people in Tuc Duyen vegetable village (Thai Nguyen city) still have to start a new crop with the hope that when harvested (on the occasion of Lunar New Year), green vegetables will sell for a higher price. |
In fact, at first, many households earned tens to hundreds of millions of dong per year from Tet bananas, but "the happy days were short-lived". For the past two years, bananas have been very difficult to sell, with the purchase price being only 2,000 dong/kg, causing almost all banana growers to suffer heavy losses, and many households have begun to consider abandoning bananas to grow other crops.
Mr. Nguyen Anh Khoi, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Phuc Thuan Commune: When people rushed to plant banana trees, the commune also stepped up propaganda, advising people to consider carefully before changing the crop structure. However, people still followed the "market price", and "competed" to plant any tree that had a good price.
The paradox is that while many localities continue to expand grapefruit acreage in the hope of increasing income, in Trang Xa commune, a large grapefruit growing area of Vo Nhai district, due to difficulty in consumption and very low prices, only about 2,000 VND/fruit, grapefruit trees have also begun to be "neglected". Previously, grapefruit was grown instead of corn, but now people either cut down grapefruit to return to growing corn.
Loss due to large investment
The startup model applying high technology to clean agricultural production was deployed by Mr. Vu Manh Toan, 32 years old, Thong Nhan hamlet, Linh Son commune (Thai Nguyen city) in 2018. Including nearly 2,000m2 of greenhouse, all stages of fertilization, humidity measurement, irrigation are completely designed automatically and controlled according to strict technical processes.
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Graduated from the Department of Vegetable, Fruit and Landscape Technology at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, Toan had 2 years of internship in Israel under the student training cooperation program. With his professional knowledge and accumulated experience, he convinced his family to invest more than 500 million VND to renovate 4,000m2 of mixed garden land to install a modern, automatic greenhouse system. The main crops include: leafy vegetables, cucumbers, melons, gerberas...
At first, sales were favorable, with profits after deducting costs reaching 150 to 200 million VND/year. However, in the following crops, the products were difficult to sell, and the purchase price was low, so Mr. Toan applied for labor export. Currently, the model has stopped production since 2021.
According to Vu Dinh Toan's family, investing capital and expertise in production to make quality products is within the family's ability, but finding a market for consumption is too difficult. For example, vegetables and fruits grown using high technology, if brought to the market, are far inferior to conventional products, so they cannot be sold even at the lowest price. If there is no stable and sustainable consumption market and investment in production is certain to result in losses.
(To be continued)
Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/kinh-te/202411/phat-trien-truoc-tieu-thu-sau-ky-1-nong-dan-cam-dao-dang-luoi-10a0372/
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