Bustling night rice harvest

Faced with unpredictable weather conditions, the agricultural sector has advised farmers to harvest early to ensure rice quality and minimize damage caused by natural disasters. Farmers everywhere are taking advantage of the harvest time.

Busy

At 8pm at Thanh Phuoc field, Huong Phong, Hue city, old farmer Le Sec walked back and forth on the dike, mentally calculating the number of bags of rice dumped from the truck. In the field, his children and grandchildren joined forces to carry the rice onto the truck to be transported back under his command.

This year, Mr. Czech’s family grows 4.5 sao of rice. Because the harvester is scheduled to work continuously during the harvest season, he accepts harvesting rice at night. “No one in the family has eaten yet, so when they call to cut, they just throw it out into the field. With the machine, we save effort and money. We can do other things during the day,” he said.

One sao yields about 50 bags of rice. Khang Dan variety sells for 7,300 VND/kg. Roughly calculating the income is more than last year. Tonight, Mr. Czech's family will concentrate all their efforts, and it will take two days to dry and sell.

More than 100m from Mr. Czech's field, Mr. Phan Huu Tuyen ran back and forth with a bag to add water and shine more lights for the harvester crew. His family grows 11 sao, including 7 sao of Khang Dan and 4 sao of HT1 fragrant rice. His wife has a heart condition, so he takes care of the entire crop by himself, and only hires one more worker to help at peak times. This year, he harvests in a rolling manner, selling as he harvests. For the past week, he has had to work at night to keep up with the schedule because people in the neighboring area have already planted a new crop.

Pointing at the ripe rice that had not been harvested yet, he boasted: “These few sao of HT1 variety look quite good. The yield is much higher than last year. This is the variety I grow for food. Every year, my family eats nearly 1 ton of rice, and I also share it with my children and grandchildren who live far away because this variety is delicious, fragrant, and not boring. Last year, the price of fertilizer and materials was high, and the crop was bad. After harvesting, everyone was happy, both the owner and the workers, even though they worked late into the night. This year, God has made it up to me,” Mr. Tuyen laughed.

The busiest is probably the team of harvesters. Thanh Phuoc Cooperative has two of them and they operate continuously at a price of 120,000 VND per sao for members. Mr. Phan Huu Nghiep, the leader of the harvester team of Thanh Phuoc Agricultural Cooperative, has started his sixth night shift since the beginning of the season.

The cooperative has 2 harvesters, each with 3 people operating and repairing them. During the harvest season, the machines take turns cutting according to the members' registration. These days, the men are in the fields at 6am and only stop at midnight. "We work continuously for 15 days and 15 nights like this. The nights are cool, the machines rarely break down, and we save on materials. Moreover, when the harvest season comes, we have to work at full speed to keep up. If the fields are flat and the rice doesn't fall over, we can work quickly. If the fields are difficult, harvesting takes a long time and the machines are prone to break down," said Nghiep.

According to Mr. Phan Van Dai, Director of Thanh Phuoc Agricultural Cooperative, the whole area grows 65 hectares of various types of rice. People follow the crop change schedule so they mobilize machinery and labor to harvest.

“Fresh rice, real money”

The scene of harvesting rice is bustling, but the scene of packing and weighing rice for sale is equally bustling and noisy. On Vo Van Kiet Street, which extends towards Thuan An, the electric lights are bright, many farmers are eating while collecting rice for packaging.

Today, the four mothers and children of Mrs. Hoang Thi Kinh, 67 years old, in Duong Mong, Phu My, along with her younger brother and child, dried, packed, shook, and held dozens of bags of rice from 5am until 9pm waiting for traders to come and buy. Drinking a sip of water to cool down in the early summer heat, she said that "eating on rice, sleeping on rice" since birth, she has tasted all the hardships of farming.

The whole family is a traditional farmer, cultivating dozens of acres, and every year she harvests rice until night. In each crop, her family harvests more than a thousand bags of rice. The whole group of women carry and calculate noisily. The men in the family go to the fields with the cutting machine and bring the rice back around 11-12pm. The women help dry the bags and do wholesale transactions. Last year's crop was bad, with a loss of tens of millions of dong. This year, her family has only harvested more than 1.5 tons of rice, with a yield of approximately 350 kg.

Ms. Dang Thi Trang, Mrs. Kinh's daughter-in-law, works on 5 acres with her husband's family. When the season comes, she stops selling fish and harvests rice. For several nights, she leaves her children with her grandmother to cook, brings a tarp to her mother-in-law, and helps carry and weigh the rice. Her sisters-in-law and her all help the family. Whatever they harvest, Mrs. Kinh sells it all to traders to save on transportation and storage costs.

When the pile of rice had gathered nearly a hundred bags, Mrs. Kinh gave the order to rest and wait for the truck to weigh it. Mrs. Kinh confided: “Luckily, there are many people in the family, each person takes care of a job. My family keeps an eye out for bad weather to avoid losing or spoiling the rice. I heard that last year, a man in Chiet Bi market had a heart attack and died while collecting rice in the rain. The saying “one sun, two dews” is nothing to this job. One grain of rice is a hundred grains of sweat.”

While Mrs. Kinh's family organized a large force, Mr. Nguyen Van Dang's family collected and weighed rice by themselves. His family planted less than 1 mau and sold 1.5 tons of Khang Dan rice. The yield was 3.5 quintals per sao, more than last year. The rice was sold at 7,100 VND/kg. Selling during the day helped reduce worries about prices and weather. "People around here sell rice at night because they have made an appointment with traders. Fresh rice, real money, very happy o", Mr. Dang shared happily.

Ms. Duong Thi Ngoc Tuyet, owner of Binh Tuyet rice milling facility (Phu Ho, Phu Vang) drives back and forth to Thuan An to buy rice. Before dinner, she and her husband and children take advantage of the time to buy rice, loading rice onto trucks to transport back. This week, her family also buys rice at night from fields around the area, even as far as Phong Dien. They get home around 9-10pm, and unload rice until 1-2am. “For the past 10 days, my facility has been buying rice at night. This year, the harvest is good, the prices are good, the people are happy, I am also happy. I start driving at 5pm, from afternoon to evening, dozens of households have bought rice. I have to come home for dinner after finishing work, I have to save time for the people so they don't have to wait,” Ms. Tuyet said.