Although the work of going to the forest to pick bamboo shoots is hard, it brings a daily income of millions of dong for many people in the highlands of Thanh Hoa province.
At noon on the last day of August, Ms. Vi Thi Nhien (41 years old, in Poong village, Tam Chung commune, Muong Lat district, Thanh Hoa province) was sweating, her head was in a basket of bamboo shoots, and she struggled to cross the slippery slope from the cover . forest to the highway to sell to traders.
Forest bamboo shoot season starts from June to September of the lunar calendar every year. The best time for bamboo shoots is July, when the field has not yet been harvested, the whole family of Mrs. Nhien goes to the forest early in the morning to pick bamboo shoots to earn extra income.
“Half a day in the forest, 3 family members can pick 1.5 quintals of bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots are picked by traders at home or along the highway. Fresh bamboo shoots are currently sold for 8,000 VND/kg, today. My whole family earned more than 1 million VND,” Ms. Nhien said.
Ms. Nhien shared that wild bamboo shoots appear a lot in areas near streams with high humidity. The job of picking bamboo shoots is simple but very difficult. Wanting to break a lot of delicious bamboo shoots requires experience and health to cross dense forests and many high, slippery slopes.
In the same group of people picking wild bamboo shoots with Ms. Nhien, there was Mr. Vi Van Thiep (45 years old, residing in Poong village). Mr. Thiep is a veteran in the profession. Since he was young, he followed his parents into the forest to get bamboo shoots, so he knows each forest and each dangerous terrain thoroughly.
“The deeper we go into the forest, the more bamboo shoots there are. To pick bamboo shoots requires hard work. There were times when picking took half a day, each time we had to bring rice balls and drinking water,” Mr. Thiep said.
According to Mr. Thiep, there are many types of wild bamboo shoots, but the main ones are sand, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots and bitter bamboo shoots. Among them, bamboo shoots and bamboo shoots are priced at 8,000-10,000 VND/kg; dry bamboo shoots, bitter bamboo shoots 15,000-20,000 VND/kg.
As an experienced person, after each trip to the forest, Mr. Thiep harvests 60kg of bamboo shoots. However, because the price of bamboo shoots at this time was still cheap, Mr. Thiep did not sell it, took it home, peeled it, removed the old bamboo shoots, put them in the pot to boil and then dried them.
“Packaged dried bamboo shoots can be preserved for a long time. When the price is right, they can be sold at a price many times higher than fresh bamboo shoots,” Mr. Thiep said.
According to Mr. Thiep, 20kg of fresh bamboo shoots will dry 1kg of dried bamboo shoots. With small stripped bamboo shoots, if it’s sunny, it only takes 2-3 days to dry, while bamboo shoots for pieces (pork tongue bamboo shoots) must be dried for 5-7 days.
Mr. Vi Van Thuat, Party Secretary and Head of Poong village, said that in the bamboo shoot season in the village, only the elderly and young children, the rest of the healthy people go to the forest to collect bamboo shoots.
However, work is not always convenient, in the “sacred forest, poisonous water” place, there are many accidents that are always lurking such as landslides, thorns, cuttings that make limbs scratched, bleeding …
“In the past, people used to set up shacks in the deep forest for a whole month to collect. However, in the dangerous forest, they could not take care of family and children, so now people get up early to pick bamboo shoots and return in the morning. day,” Mr. Thuat said.
According to Mr. Thuat, although bamboo picking brings high income, local people are always aware and have plans to protect the forest, following the general convention of not releasing cattle into areas with wild bamboo shoots.
In addition, when picking bamboo shoots, do not pick them completely. 2-3 buds must be removed from each bamboo shoot bush to create conditions for the bamboo shoots to develop into a tree and continue to grow in the following generations.
“For people here, bamboo shoots are not only a food that has been stored for a long time, but also a product that provides the main source of income for the family during the rainy season. At the end of each bamboo shoot crop, every house can produce at least a few. tens of millions of dong, a lot of houses are also 50-60 million dong,” added Mr. Thuat.
($1=24,000 VND)
Photo,Video: Internet (Vinlove.net)