From the end of 2018 to the present, in addition to the plummeting price of pepper, thousands of hectares of pepper in the province of Dak Nong are infected or die white. In this context, farmers not only fall into debt, even tendency, failure … because of the pain called pepper.
>> Part 1: Following the fever … “black gold”
Burden of debt
In fact, after pepper epidemic died, prices were low so many households could not afford to pay bank loans. The clearest evidence is that for many months now, on the way to the famous barns in Dak Song and Tuy Duc districts … there are many people, even the once-billionaires have also posted signs for sale. selling land, selling houses … The difficulty is covering people to plant pepper.
Pepper garden of Mr. Viet's family was completely wiped out
Back at the pepper garden of Nguyen Van Viet's family, residing in Nam N’Jang commune (Dak Song), we witnessed thousands of pillars were completely wiped out. Mr. Viet choked: “When the rainy months of 2018 ended, this is also the time when 16,000 pillars of the family withered and no longer exist. A few months later, about 16,000 household pillars also died completely white. My family met a bad luck already, more than 8 billion poured into the river and into the sea. If the bank now “squeezes the debt”, my family will only have empty hands left. “
Similarly, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy, from Dak N’Drung commune previously borrowed 900 million banks to plant more than 2 hectares of pepper. According to calculations, 2 hectares of pepper after 3 years of production will bring Ms. Thuy hundreds of millions, debt will also reduce, life will be better. However, in 2018, Thuy's pepper tree was unfortunately infected and died. By the time of repaying the bank, Ms. Thuy had no other choice but pity to accept selling a billion-dollar house, and a lot of land to repay the bank. Only her house more than a year ago, Ms. Thuy built more than 1 billion dong, now plus a few hectares of land, but sold 1 billion forever to buy. After selling all the assets to repay the bank, her family had to leave to live with her elderly parents.
Thuy was sad: “Because of the desire for high prices, my family borrowed billions of dollars to invest in pepper. After several years of hard labor, the profits were nowhere to be found, now my family has only two empty hands and has to leave the country to follow the elderly parents. ”
Through calculation, trillions of dong of people investing in developing pepper trees have been poured into rivers and sea
Another case is Ms. Pham Thi Hong Van's family, in Quang Tan commune, Tuy Duc district previously mortgage 1.5 hectares of agricultural land, 2 residential land lots to borrow 1.2 billion dong from the bank. develop 4,000 drainage posts. During the pepper disease outbreak in 2018, nearly 3,500 pepper posts of Ms. Van's family were infected and died out.
Van pity: “Growing trees without fruit picking days, Van lost the ability to repay both interest and principal to the bank. How many assets and capital my family focused on developing for pepper now have dissipated and lost. ”
According to statistics, by April 2019, across Dak Nong province, over 1,827 hectares of pepper were killed; over 2,698 ha of infected pepper (1137.7 ha of mild infection, 815 ha of medium infection, 566.2 ha of serious infection). Through calculation, the cost of people investing in one hectare of land costing more than VND 500 million. With the aforementioned area of dead and infected diseases, the amount of people in the whole province of Dak Nong was lost up to trillions of dong.
Expect “lifebuoy”
At this time pepper prices fell deeply, the problem of disease has not shown any signs of stopping … farmers like being “chased pepper” to the end.
Falling into a very miserable situation, Ms. Pham Thi Hong Van, from Quang Tan Commune (Tuy Duc) wishes: How much capital, even money borrowed from my family, put all of it into the pepper tree. Now, when the pepper tree dies, my family only has empty hands. The loan I had borrowed from my family was overdue for several months and was not yet repaid. I want the State to study the plan, help our people freeze the debt and extend the debt. With this, our family has avoided the empty-handed, had the opportunity to reinvest, started working from scratch. The bank also avoids bad debts.
Also related to pepper, Mr. Nguyen Van Thang of Dak N’Drung commune (Dak Song) borrowed VND 900 million from the bank to take care of 11 hectares of pepper during the fortune-telling period. The harvest this year, Mr. Thang collected 15 tons of pepper. With such income, Mr. Thang is not sufficient to repay the bank debt.
Mr. Thang analyzed, 15 tons of pepper my family earned 675 million. However, the cost of hiring laborers to collect 15 tons of pepper costs over VND 200 million. In addition, in 1 year, the care and fertilizer for 11 hectares of pepper also cost the family about 350 million VND. Working hard to take care of 11 hectares of pepper all year round, the greatest luck for my family is that the pepper tree does not die but the income is very sad, about 120 million VND. This income of my family is not equal to that of a hired employee. According to Mr. Thang, to maturity the bank, he had to borrow more than 900 million with an interest of 4 million a day. After 2 days of completing the procedures for maturity, Mr. Thang pity pay 8 million hot interest.
Mr. Thang said that not only him, but many other households want the bank to have a more open mechanism for maturing. For example, there is no need to pay the principal but only interest. By this time, most people do not have cash in hand, have to borrow many places, even borrow outside to fill the bank maturities, potentially many risks.
Pepper prices were low, disease outbreaks occurred, many people had to hang signs to sell land and houses …
In another perspective, Mr. Nguyen Van Hanh, in Dak N’Drung commune was sad: “Recently, my family had borrowed from outside to refinance bank debt. However, the bank realized that the collateral was no longer as secure as before, the revenue was not enough to pay the debt, so it refused to continue lending or borrowing at a much lower level. From here, my family had to sell fields, cars … to finish the bank debt and a “hot” part of the outside loan, but would not suffer the consequences later. “
Concerning this issue, banks have been basing on the situation to grasp the real situation and find solutions to help the people. However, at present, the debt rescheduling and debt freezing for people are not meeting the actual needs. On the other hand, on the bank side has its own business philosophy. Most banking systems agree that they are money businesses based on profitability and capital adequacy. Depending on the value of the assets, the ability to repay debts of the people, the bank will make a decision on the lending limit within the allowed limit. Therefore, when the price of pepper reaches the bottom, or it dies, the lending level is reduced or not eligible for on-lending.
This shows that local authorities and functional agencies need to take part in surveys, statistics and assessments of pepper industry and production situation in order to have a mechanism to support farmers in time and avoid the situation. default, bankruptcy. Even when the farmer comes to the end, he has to borrow money from the outside. In this way, the farmer can overcome difficulties and get out of the severe crisis of capital and production means.
There should be plans for interest rate support, debt freezing and debt rescheduling for people
Mr. Le Viet Sinh, Vice Chairman of Dak Song District People's Committee, said: Since 2015, pepper in Dak Song district has experienced rapid growth from 8,000 hectares to 15,000 hectares, becoming the “kingdom” of pepper in Dak Nong province. It is worth mentioning that, during this period, most of the people had poured all their capital, mobilized brothers and relatives, even mortgaged assets borrowed from banks … massively developed pepper plants. Now, besides the death of pepper, the plummeting price does not brake (more than 40,000 VND / kg) has caused many people to suffer, no money to pay debts.
In fact, on average, one hectare of pepper brings about 3 tons of seeds. With the current price, 3 tons of pepper bring people about 130 million. However, the cost to produce 1 kg of pepper costs about 32,000 VND, so 3 tons of pepper costs nearly 100 million VND for investment and labor. Therefore, only households who do not have bank loans will have a little surplus. And for those households who have borrowed money from banks to invest in pepper production, they will certainly suffer losses, not enough to pay bank interest. Once the production is not enough to pay the bank interest, it means that people will give up, do not have money to invest in maintaining the field. Stopped that pepper trees only need 1 year abandoned people without care will be dissipated, there is no way to save.
In the face of the above reality, over the past time, Dak Song district has proposed all levels and functional agencies to calculate the plan to support people with interest rates, to have a debt freezing and debt rescheduling plan for people seeking ways to recover. production and installment payment of debts to avoid zero hands for pepper.
