During the 3 months that Thuy went to school, they fought for 3 months…

Sell ​​veggies, beg to get on the floor!

“Back then, I didn’t send my wife to school for clean vegetables because I thought I could produce and sell it when it was full of vegetables outside, only 2,000-3,000 VND/big batch. I also told my wife if you can sell, please get down,” Hoang Van Hung said, laughing as the face of his wife, Ms. Hoang Bich Thuy – head of Gua Organic Vegetable Group, Cu Yen Township, Luong Son , Faced District, Hoa Binh Province. She said that at that time she only knew how to be patient, go to school and take care of the chicken, chicken, vegetables and rice at home, so that her husband gradually changed his mind.

The story began in 2014 when Thuy and 6 neighborhood sisters asked to go to school over organic vegetables. As she studied, she learned, but when the teacher told her to find a field to practice, everyone refused to push it for fear of not succeeding, so she took her own country as a model. People whisper, why not plant rice to eat rice, but grow vegetables? What will turn yellow when growing vegetables without chemical fertilizers, how to sell?

Eventually the pilot field was also successful, her teacher had to let her husband buy it for 10,000 VND/kg to encourage her because it was still the transition period to organic, not certified organic yet. When they saw that she could grow vegetables, they all formed a group of organic vegetables in the hamlet of Gua with 7 members and collected land on Mr. Rot’s field to produce together.

When he had the PGS organic certification, Mr. Hung and another male member of the team went to Hanoi on a motorbike with 28 kg of vegetables and 12 kg of melons to find the crops. Have a few store names, but do not know the exact address, ask the traffic police, shake your head, ask passers-by, also shake your head. While walking, they opened the map, but still got lost, by noon and evening they were so tired that they kept looking for a tree to sleep in, holding the phone in their arms for fear of being robbed, and their feet rested on the motorcycle for fear of theft. So it took them two and a half days to find a couple of addresses, exactly 1 million for gas.

On the second trip, he and his wife were riding a motorcycle with 300 pounds of vegetables, but this time they got lost anyway. Hungry, eat a slice of pie bread and then ask for directions. When all the vegetables are sold at VND 10,000/kg, all tiredness seems to go away. It turns out that clean vegetables are valuable too, Hung says happily.

So she raked the grass during the day, fertilized the vegetable fields, harvested at night, packed by 11-12 at night, so that by 3 a.m. he had traveled more than 40 km, moved to Hanoi and delivered to the warehouse of a clean grocery store. . When he went to sleep he didn’t dare stop because the delivery deadline was fixed, when he came back sleepy his eyes dropped, sometimes he had to stop the car for a while to sleep and then drive again with more than 5 left stayed o’clock in the morning to rush to work, welders, builders.

She got up at 4 am to collect vegetables to take to the market in Luong Son district or to send to Hoa Binh city. For 3 years they only slept 4-5 hours every night only after the clean grocery store rented a new truck. Also thanks to the production of organic vegetables, he was able to visit an agricultural exhibition at Hoang Quoc Viet Street in Hanoi (Agricultural Trade Promotion Center), buy the first suit of his life, and ride motorcycles both husband and wife. flew for the first time while visiting the model in Hoi An (Quang Nam).

2 years later, Mr. Hung actively discussed with his wife to open an organic farm with all kinds of pigs, chickens and ducks. “The chickens that people raise calculate how many kilograms of processed bran it takes for 1kg of meat, but I don’t count, just feed them corn, cassava, rice and home-grown vegetables. The chickens they raised in the barn for 35-40 days were sold, couldn’t walk, wouldn’t even let them out, they just stood there shaking, and the chickens I raised for 6-7 months ran all the time Day, climbed mature fruit trees, ”said Mr. Hung. .

“Many relatives told us that it would be difficult to sell organically like that, only if companies came to sign a contract they would believe it. People must live, but who must die? Many vegetables in Hanoi are boiled in water, they are dark green, vegetables are dark, but our vegetables are green, vegetables are green because they are grown on clean land and clean water,” said Ms. Hoang Bich Thuy, head of Vegetable Group Gua Bao hamlet organic.

They are all grandmothers, old people in the fields

Thuy confided, “Both breeding and organic farming are difficult, and if you don’t persevere, it’s easy to give up. I always think that making safe products is important for my family first and then for the community. Currently our 2 organic vegetable groups have 20 members with a total area of ​​2ha. My relatives lobbied for production and I was the one-stop shop to transport them to consumption. With the retail price of 15,000 VND/kg, members need to deduct 1,500 VND/kg, of which 500 VND is used to pay the management fee, and I get 1,000 VND but have to pay for the purchase of bags and bills.

Twice I was paid by the buyer for not paying, each time 10-15 million VND, now this time 50-60 million VND has not been claimed for several months, they call, they don’t answer the phone, they call Zalo to block them. Meanwhile I still have to pay for vegetables because I’m the leader of the group at the front under the pole. 2 clues, so now it’s only 1.30-50kg per day on average, the remaining output is still quite questionable in terms of output.”

In the afternoon Thuy and I went to the fields to meet farmers from the organic vegetable production group in the hamlet of Gua. There are 12 people in a group, 4 have become grandmothers, 8 have become grandparents, the youngest is the leader of the group aged 44, the eldest is Ms. Hoang Thi Nghia 77 years old – a retired teacher who works for her children, in order not to have to give up wild 1.5 sao.

Ms. Ha Thi Men, a 69-year-old member of the group, said, “Organic production provides both clean vegetables for the family and a salary of VND1.5-2 million/month. When they go to the congress, the women wear muong skirts, the sisters wear vegetable skirts, they are very happy, but there are times when there is no stock, no salary, very sad. Grandma was here to take care of the plants while he stayed at home to cook and clean. In the summer she went to the field at 5-6 in the morning to work, at 8 o’clock when the sun rose she came back, and at 3 o’clock in the afternoon she continued to work until evening.

The vegetable meal I made was very comforting, but during the wedding ceremony for her grandchild, she was the head of the delegation to bring the bride, but this meal, the plate of fried beans and peas, was so delicious, it was crispy and crunchy, After eating half the plate she was poisoned and presumed dead. Now the child is quite big, but she is still scared when she sees vegetables in the market. Vegetables in the family group only fertilized with well-composted manure, sprayed with pesticides with homemade garlic, chili and ginger.

It’s too easy to grow vegetables normally because it’s all chemical fertilizers, spray pesticides, but it’s like women sometimes jump to destroy all vegetables, green worms can’t catch up, bite cabbage like silkworms eat away. Organic production needs to grow everything in the right season, such as B. Water spinach, which is out of season now, but they grow freely, picking hundreds of tangles every day.

After weighing the vegetables, each member enters their quantity of goods that day to add up at the end of the month and calculate the money.

In their free time, the group shared sugarcane, starfruit, and bananas to eat, and when they were thirsty, water from a well was available to water vegetables clean enough for them to drink on the spot. The wind cheered, bringing the story between them more and more salty each time.

The youngest member of the group is Mrs. Thuy who always has hands and feet, sometimes she mows grass for 3 cows, takes them to the barn when she returns to the farm to bathe 10 pigs, feed 50 ducks and 200 chickens eat, then go home. Dinner that evening was in a cozy setting with organic cooked chicken and a feast of vegetables with 4 types of lettuce, basil, collard greens, mustard, 2 dipping sauces including egg and tomato sauce, egg and vinegar sauce.

The vegetable plate ran out before the meat plate, causing the owner to constantly go to the kitchen to replenish. Organic vegetables grown on the mountainside, the hot ones are really hot, the bitter ones are really bitter, the sweet ones are really sweet, the aromatic ones are really fragrant, and all are rich. After consuming the aroma, its aftertaste lingers on the base of the tongue and lips forever.

Ms. Thuy said sometimes there is a PGS coordination committee to suddenly inspect the fields, but the group is always sure of their cultivation method, so members have a deep sleep every night without nightmares. And that night I slept at her house to breathe in the clear mountain air in the morning and help temporarily forget the worries of a resident of the particulate capital.