Gia Mien is one of the most difficult communes in Van Lang district. In recent years, this land has been known as the "capital" of red mushrooms. Red mushrooms only grow naturally under the roots of old cheo trees, and they must be curved and reddish-brown. The Tay - Nung people call this tree co bjoc piao. What's even more strange is that not all cheo trees have mushrooms, but only old trees, growing in damp, dense places, old enough, rotten enough, and shady enough to have a chance to sprout.
According to local people, mushrooms used to grow abundantly. People who went to the forest brought back loads of mushrooms, but they couldn’t eat them all in time, and couldn’t preserve them, so they had to bring them back to raise livestock and poultry. However, due to the nutritional value and traditional medicinal uses of mushrooms, in the past ten years, this mushroom has been considered “red gold” because of its high economic value.
The process of harvesting red mushrooms is not easy, because you cannot pick mushrooms just because you see them. The pickers have to wake up early in the morning and enter the forest when the dew still covers the tree roots. If you pick the mushrooms before they open their umbrellas, they will be bitter; if you leave them too long, they will rot like sponges.
“A whole year of farming is not equal to one season of red mushrooms. This type of mushroom is very precious, but hard to find because it is available some years and not in other years. Mushrooms usually grow from around the 3rd to the 10th lunar month, but some years later and only grow once every one or two months; usually each year mushrooms grow from two to four or five times a year. The characteristic of mushrooms is that they grow very quickly but also quickly wither, sometimes they grow tonight and are spoiled by noon the next day” – Mr. Linh Van Toan, Coc Nhang village shared when leading us into the forest, where his family has a few cheo trees that have produced mushrooms for about ten years now.
Each mushroom only lives for 1-2 days. If you are slow, the mushrooms will spoil and cannot be harvested anymore. That is why people often say: "Seeing mushrooms is like seeing gold" because each batch of mushrooms grows for only 5-15 days. When in full bloom, the whole forest glows red under the canopy of old cheo trees. But only those who have forests and cheo trees can pick them.
According to the leaders of Gia Mien commune, the whole commune currently has nearly 150/557 households with forests of cheo trees for mushroom harvesting. Over the years, members of Linh Van Toan's family and many other households have memorized every bush and patch of moist soil that can grow mushrooms and regularly observe, when they detect signs of mushrooms growing, they wait for the right time to pick.
According to the people in the commune, this year there is little rain so the mushrooms grow later than usual. The first mushroom growing season this year is at the end of May, lasting 5 days until the beginning of June. During this season, many households with large mushroom growing areas harvest about 50 kg of fresh mushrooms in one day. One kg of fresh mushrooms costs about 200,000 to 300,000 VND.
Due to the perishable nature of mushrooms, many households have invested in home mushroom drying ovens to extend their shelf life and increase their value. Accordingly, after being picked, the mushrooms will be washed immediately, dried for 6-7 hours, then packaged and sold to buyers. About 5 or 6 kg of fresh mushrooms produce 1 kg of dried mushrooms. Some years (like this year), the price of dried mushrooms reaches more than 2 million VND/kg.
From that value, the villagers have included the exploitation of red mushrooms in the village covenants and regulations. "Each person's forest is their own", and it is not allowed to enter other people's forests to steal, if discovered, it will be handled according to the village convention. Protecting natural resources such as red mushrooms is not only preserving a product, but also maintaining discipline, a cultural feature of the community here.
Despite its high economic value, red mushrooms are becoming increasingly rare. Part of the reason for the scarcity of mushrooms is due to old farming habits, where people burn fields to make land, unintentionally destroying the mushroom roots. In addition, many people pick mushrooms by pulling out the roots to get them quickly, or accidentally damaging the natural growing area.
Mr. Hoang Van Hung, Chairman of Gia Mien Commune People's Committee said: To preserve and conserve this precious resource, we regularly propagate and mobilize people to protect the forest, not burn fields to preserve the cheo tree. At the same time, we guide people to harvest red mushrooms properly to both earn income and preserve this precious resource for future generations.
Mushroom picking is not a year-round "job", but it is a hope, an opening for people to move towards an ecological development model. Ms. Lo Thi Kim Oanh, Deputy Head of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Van Lang district shared: Red mushrooms are a rare natural product, distributed in many communes such as Gia Mien, Thanh Hoa, Bac La... For many years, we have researched and tested the propagation of red mushrooms but were unsuccessful because this species depends on the characteristics of the natural ecosystem, terrain, soil and especially the cheo tree, a tree species that only grows sporadically in nature and cannot be grown industrially. Therefore, we are currently grasping the reality, researching the direction of sustainable mushroom exploitation to orient and avoid exhaustive exploitation that affects the forest environment.
It is undeniable that in recent years, red mushrooms have contributed to helping Gia Mien people overcome difficulties. The economic values obtained from the "red gold" in the deep forest are gradually changing the lives of the people. If in 2020, the average income per capita in the commune was 17 million VND/person/year, up to now, this number has increased to 28 million/person/year; in the period 2020 - 2025, the poverty rate in the commune decreased by an average of 7% annually.
Amidst the worries of making a living, red mushrooms grow quietly as an affirmation that: if preserved, miracles can sprout from poor land. For many people here, red mushrooms are not only a product, a dish, a precious medicine - but also a hope, a motivation for them to stick with the forest, to preserve the precious resources that nature has bestowed on Gia Mien land.
Source: https://baolangson.vn/vang-do-giua-dai-ngan-5049676.html
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