Hundreds of hectares of pepper gardens of people in Dak O commune continue to be infected and then wither away.
Dieu Pré’s family, from village 2, helplessly watched as pepper slowly died.
Recorded in the border commune of Dak O, which is a large pepper-growing area in Bu Gia Map district (Binh Phuoc), many farmers said that they did not harvest the crop, did not know how to “spend” to take care of this New Year.
We were led by Mrs. Nguyen Thi Nga, Vice President of the Farmers’ Association of Dak O Commune, into the pepper garden of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Ly’s household living in village 9. Stepping into the back garden, in front of our eyes was a vast pepper garden. Only the base of the dry wood and the living tree remains. The dry pepper wires are still firmly attached to the stem, there are pepper posts that still have leaves but the leaves are turning yellow with wilting.
Contact with the garden owner, Mrs. Ly choked and said that the pepper garden was infected and died very quickly. Every time I look at the pepper garden, I can’t help but feel impatient, in the last few months of the year, thousands of pillars have died standing. Sitting under the pepper tree, Mrs. Ly rubbed her red eyes and said: “My pepper is infected and dead. My house only has 1.2 hectares of land, all invested in growing pepper, now it’s dead and I don’t know what to do. My son was forced to work as a hired hand to earn a living to feed 6 people. Now I just hope that the bank can freeze the debt so that my family can do business and pay the debt gradually. But now the bank collects the debt from my family and I don’t know what to do.”
Sad, shocked, that’s what when we witnessed Mrs. Ly’s entire 2,000-pillar pepper garden burned to death and bare. It can’t be helped that the entire capital of the family has been invested in pepper plants. Hundreds of millions of dong invested in pepper trees, pepper is almost dead, now in danger of empty-handed. In which, the amount of 1.8 billion dong borrowed from the bank was due to be paid. No longer the main source of income, forcing her son to work as a hired hand to earn a living, next to the house, there is a sign for sale of land.
Like Mrs. Nguyen Thi Ly’s household, the household of Mr. Dieu Pré, the S’tieng ethnic group in Bu Bung hamlet, is also in a state of crying and laughing when it is slowly dying and dying. Mr. Dieu Pré and his wife are working hard to pick peppers that have not yet ripened, but the trees are yellowing, the seeds are dry, and fall due to infection.
All the clusters of flat and black pepper, Mr. Pré said, in 2017, his pepper garden only died sporadically a few dozen pillars, but this year, the number of dead pillars reached more than 2,000 pillars out of a total of 4,200. His family as well as other gardeners still take care, fertilize fully, even focus all their capital to save. However, the number of dead pepper pillars has not shown any signs of stopping, while the investment capital has to borrow more than 1 billion VND from the bank about to be paid, causing the family a headache.
According to statistics, Pré’s family’s pepper garden fell ill and died on nearly 50% of the garden area. Currently, the infected pepper garden is still dying, so now the family just wants the authorities to have a way to support the family to rebuild the garden, plant coffee or something to pay the debt gradually. .
“In the past, because the purchasing price of pepper was still high, in 2014-2015 the family decided to invest more than 700 million VND to plant a new one. Last year, there was little death, so I thought I didn’t die as much as this year, so I continued to invest over 100 million VND to buy fertilizer and medicine. But now pepper continues to get sick and die quickly,” added Mr. Pré.
The households of Mrs. Lam Thi Huong and Mr. Nguyen Van Son in village 10 are also in a state of uneasiness because she currently owes the bank 2.5 billion dong, which is about to be due. In 2010, at a time when black pepper was very expensive, her family planted a trial of 300 pillars, seeing that pepper was growing well, her family continued to expand the area.
In 2013-2014, she invested nearly a billion dong to plant 3,000 new pillars. Not stopping there, the area and number continued to increase to 6,000 pillars. Unfortunately for Mr. Son and Mrs. Huong’s family, in 2017 more than 1,000 pillars were infected and died. After that, in 2018, nearly 5,000 remaining pillars of her family fell ill, died quickly, and died slowly, robbing almost everything. I don’t know how to calculate more when the whole pepper garden is estimated that if not dead, it can earn billions of dong per year, this year has almost died.
Currently, most of the dead pepper area Huong’s family has cut, collected and burned to grow other crops such as durian and avocado. Ms. Lam Thi Huong said: “Our pepper has died so much, now we don’t know what to do. Despite using many treatment methods, pepper died continuously and in series. As for the loan from the bank, it is not possible to pay it on time, so my family hopes that the authorities and departments will have solutions to support the families who have died to reinvest, and then slowly pay the bank.” .
The mass death of pepper has left people in a state of shock.
Present at the “hot spot” of dead pepper – Vice Chairman of Dak O Commune Farmers’ Association Nguyen Thi Nga said: “Watching dead pepper gardens makes me so sad. On the side of the Commune Farmers’ Union, we also regularly visit people’s homes to visit and recommend ways to prevent diseases. This year, the number of infections and deaths has increased too quickly.”
Not only Mrs. Ly, Mrs. Huong, Mr. Pré fell into the situation of almost losing “both lead and fishing” investment capital, but also many households in the commune were in the same situation. According to statistics of Dak O commune, currently in the commune, there are about 958 households with infected and dead pepper areas. The number of households “indebted” by the bank that is about to be due and unable to pay has not yet been specified.
Chairman of the People’s Committee of Dak O commune, Tran Van Linh, said that in the past 2 years, the commune has experienced mass destruction. Currently, the commune has directed the villages to summarize the entire damaged area to report to the district leader Bu Gia Map, the district Agriculture Department, the Plant Protection Station to continue to guide people on how to prevent apart from. In addition, the commune also proposed to the district, the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development to extend the debt for people when they are due, mainly people who borrow to grow pepper. The commune has mobilized the mass organizations to focus on clearing dead bodies, suitable areas that can be converted to crops.
The harvest season has come, but the epidemic has been raging and robbed the people of the hope of changing their lives from pepper trees in the border area of Dak O commune. The “bitter” pepper makes effort, sweat and tears continue to dissipate, in addition to the large debts that will miss the bank’s appointment. Some households had to sell their land to pay their debts. Now, the people who grow pepper who have been damaged by the disease only hope that the local government and banks will extend their debt to have time to stabilize their lives and production.
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