“Swindle” with God

A Nhon city (Binh Dinh) is known as the “capital” of the central region. This place has thousands of households growing apricot trees for Tet covering an area of ​​145 ha, supplying the market with more than 1.6 million pots of apricots every Tet season. Over the years, ornamental apricot cultivation has not only helped to alleviate poverty among the rural population, even spawned many “barefoot billionaires” thanks to apricot cultivation, but also created jobs for farm workers.

According to gardeners who grow ornamental apricot trees in the city of An Nhon, there has never been a year when the weather has “caused problems” for the apricot trees like this year. The weather was warm, and the erratic rain and sunshine made the apricot trees bloom brightly, even though they hadn’t picked their leaves. The color of yellow flowers did not bring joy to growers, but the hearts of gardeners also wither, because when the flower buds have bloomed, they cannot be sold until Tet. Fortunately, it has been cold for a long time in Binh Dinh for the past 10 days, the cold has “kept” the next packets of buds from blooming, the garden owners who grow apricots are excited, because these are the “rescue” buds The apricot pods escaped the loss of income during the Lunar New Year of the Year of the Rabbit 2023.

“In the last days of November of the lunar calendar, the weather was long and warm, and suddenly it was sunny and rainy, so the apricot orchards bloomed at the same time. When it is sunny, it rains again, or when it rains, it is sunny again, causing the apricot flower buds to bloom brightly, painful to look at. If this situation continues, ornamental apricot growers will lose Tet this year. Consumers are buying pots of apricots to play tet, but the buds have all blossomed, no one will buy them. Fortunately, it has gotten cold in the last 10 days…” said Mr. Le Tan Bo, who is planting about 8,000 pots of apricots of all ages in Hao Duc Village, Nhon An Township (An Nhon City).

From his 8,000 pots of apricots this year, Mr Bo has only selected 1,500 pots of apricots aged 4+ for sale, the pots will still be ‘reared’ in subsequent years so he can enjoy Tet when he is free, goes. In previous years, around November 27-28 of the lunar calendar, Mr. Bo picked apricot leaves to allow the flowers to bloom in time for Tet, but this year, due to the warm weather, he didn’t pick the leaves until December 2.

Because Mr. Bo’s apricots have grown well this year, the buds are very thick, many successive generations of buds, so he sold 1,100 pots in early December, the remaining 400 pots just picked leaves and finished on December 6th (targeted on December 28, 2022). This year, 3-year-old Mr. Bo sells an average of 1.5 million VND/pot, 4-5 year-old will sell 3 million VND/pot tomorrow. According to Mr. Bo, the apricot price this year is higher than last year’s 100,000-200,000 VND/pot.

Peak season of apricot leaves

According to Mr. Le Tan Bo, this year’s salary for apricot leaves is higher than last year at 30,000-50,000 VND/work. If last year the work was only 150,000 VND/person/day, this year it increased to 180,000 – 200,000 VND/person/day, but you need to pay a deposit in advance. .

A Nhon city produces more than 1.6 million apricot pots, where as many as Nhon. A community has 1,500 households with about 1.2 million pots, where there are as few as the Nhon Phong community, there are 300 households with 200,000 pots. With so many pots of apricots at once, the labor shortage is inevitable, while rural labor is becoming increasingly scarce. Young males have been concentrated in industrial zones, so the power of the apricot leaves is mostly directed at middle-aged female workers. The time of picking the apricot leaves is also just in time to complete the sowing of the winter spring rice crop, giving female workers more jobs to earn money for Tet.

In the “neighboring” communities with villages specialized in growing ornamental apricots, women form groups, each group of dozens of people specialized in picking apricot leaves for the Nhon An and Nhon Phong apricot grains. Ms. Le Thi Tham in Phuoc Hung community (Tuy Phuoc district, Binh Dinh) is the “manager” of 20 sisters in the village who specializes in commissioning the entire apricot orchard to collect leaves when needed. Every year, towards the end of the 11th lunar month, gardeners who grow apricot trees in Nhon An township shout “deposit” on the day Mrs. Tham draws troops into the garden to collect apricot leaves.

“We are used to working, so when the apricot leaf harvest comes, we have to eat rice and go to the garden from early morning to late at night to work, have lunch in the garden, rest for a while and then back to the go to work . My group was given an order and was forced to complete the leaf harvest requested by the gardener on time, after that garden received the money once and then hauled it to another garden also committed to the schedule.

Since the gardeners harvested apricot leaves at the same time, they could not do much in one harvest, but thanks to the difference in the time of selling apricot leaves on the North market compared to selling apricots on the South market, the money earned is enough to buy jam . Let me eat tet,” Tham shared.

According to gardeners who grow apricot trees, the characteristic of the apricot tree is that the tree flowers when it loses all of its leaves, so picking up leaves helps stimulate flowering. In addition, picking leaves helps the cheese tree to have a beautiful shape, as well as the base (root) of the tree, and helps customers feel the beauty of the apricot tree.

“Every time the leaves are harvested, I ask the workers to use a sharp bamboo stick to tape all the fallen leaves around the base to keep the apricot tree clean, so that traders both in the south and the south of the north are happy to buy apricots from.” me,” said Le Tan Bo, who grows about 8,000 apricots in Hao Duc Village in Nhon An Municipality.

In recent years, An Nhon Town’s revenue from Tet holidays has averaged VND 80-90 billion/year. Notably, at the end of the apricot harvest in spring last year, flower sales revenue for farmers in An Nhon city reached a record more than VND150 billion. At that time, along the National Highway 1 bypass through the city of An Nhon, many gardeners started growing apricots in empty yards along the highway to offer to customers.