Beware of scams and buying "strange" agricultural products on online "flea markets"

After the fever of purchasing "strange" agricultural products such as: leeches, golden apple snails, earthworms, buffalo hooves, dried lychee leaves... by foreign traders, up to now, the situation of purchasing black stink bugs, insects that are harmful to crops, has started to flourish again in online "flea market" groups, with even posts of purchases by people in the province.

Inflate value

The trading and buying of black stink bugs on social networking sites is taking place in many provinces and cities from the South to the North. Just type the keyword “Buying black stink bugs” on social networking sites, a series of posts advertising and buying stink bugs will appear.

Specifically, in the group “Thu Mua Bo Xit” with up to 14 thousand members, a Facebook account named VDL posted the article “Is there anyone buying in Phu Tho?”, just a few seconds later, a series of comments appeared asking for prices and buying from traders in the province and neighboring provinces.

There is a situation where groups of people have formed to exchange and trade black stink bugs, including people from Phu Tho province.

To get information, the reporter contacted a trader who was in need of collecting goods and was quoted a price: "At this time, I buy bordered stink bugs for 3.5 million VND/kg dry, borderless bugs will be 6.8 million VND/kg, if you have goods, send them to me by post, I will collect them to sell to Chinese traders to buy."

From collectors, catchers, and breeders of stink bugs who commit to having as many as they can, to traders from across provinces searching for goods... the transaction price of this item has sometimes reached a peak of about 10 million VND/kg of dried stink bugs and 8 million VND/kg of fresh stink bugs.

In addition to black stink bugs, traders also buy other types of insects such as: dung beetles for 2 million VND/kg, three-striped caterpillars for 3 million VND/kg, cicada corpses for 3 million VND/kg... However, black stink bugs are the most sought-after insects, purchased at the highest price.

A trader posted a purchase offer for black stink bugs at home on a group for 1 million VND/100 grams dried, 800,000 VND/100 grams fresh.

When the sources searched and pushed up the price of black stink bugs, not all people were sober enough to realize that the nature of this buying and selling trick was that bad people were using the trick of buying and selling in small quantities to create trust, then increasing the purchase price, requiring a larger quantity of more than 1,000 bugs so that people had to collect them for a long time.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the subjects will resell the stink bugs they bought from people at a higher price than the purchase price to make a profit or trick people into making a deposit and then cut off contact and block all related social media accounts.

Unforeseen consequences

In previous years, when Chinese traders rushed to buy leeches, the transaction price was pushed up to 5 million VND/kg of dried leeches. Phu Tho was one of the places with a source of leech buyers, causing a leech farming movement, leading to the situation where farmers in the area abandoned their farming to hunt leeches to "get rich" because the profit was dozens of times higher than farming. After a while, when farmers had accumulated a large amount of leeches, these "traders" suddenly stopped buying, pushing farmers into a dire situation.

Or recently, traders bought earthworms at 1 million VND/kg of dried worms and 70,000 VND/kg of fresh worms, causing people to rush to buy electric shock machines to catch worms. There have been continuous cases of worm theft in fruit gardens in some districts such as Thanh Son, Yen Lap, Tan Son, Ha Hoa... seriously affecting the soil environment, leading to ecological imbalance, affecting the growth and development of crops.

Regarding the phenomenon of Chinese traders purchasing black stink bugs, claiming to prepare medicine, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thuy - Chairman of the Provincial Oriental Medicine Association said: "Regarding the application of medicinal materials, there has been no research showing the benefits of preparing black stink bugs for use in Oriental medicine. Therefore, people should not try to use any insect species as food or medicine without research and recommendations from the authorities. The exploitation of insects is often a spontaneous act that will lead to many consequences later on."

Black stink bugs are pests of rice and vegetables.

Comrade Phan Van Dao - Head of the Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said: "Black stink bugs are pests of rice and vegetables, so there is a high risk of outbreaks on crops in case people breed them or release large quantities into the environment during the purchasing process.

Illegal transportation, breeding, storage or dissemination of harmful organisms (black stink bugs) is prohibited under Article 13 of the Law on Plant Protection and Quarantine No. 41/2013/QH13. In case of violation, it will be handled according to the provisions of Article 19 of Decree No. 31/2016/ND-CP, dated May 6, 2016, stipulating administrative sanctions for violations in the field of plant varieties, plant protection and quarantine.

In addition, during the process of processing and preserving black stink bugs, environmental pollution occurs at purchasing facilities. During the process of buying and selling black stink bugs, traders collect all the goods, then inflate the price to the peak and sell the seeds or stink bugs to the market for profit. When the goods are sold out, they stop purchasing, causing economic losses to people who have started breeding or collecting goods but have no place to sell them.

The high price and shortage of "strange" agricultural products - specifically stink bugs - has caused people to rush to catch them.

Faced with this situation, on July 11, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development issued Document No. 1086/SNN-TT&PTNT, sent to departments and branches: Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Market Management, Provincial Police, Provincial Farmers' Association; People's Committees of districts, cities and towns on proactively preventing and being vigilant against the tricks of buying and selling black stink bugs; strengthening propaganda for people about the risks and harms when participating in buying and selling organisms harmful to crops; continuing to inspect, review and detect organizations and individuals participating in buying, selling and breeding black stink bugs causing environmental pollution to promptly have plans to prevent and handle according to the provisions of law, not allowing the collection, breeding and trading of black stink bugs to take place in the area, causing the risk of economic loss.

The fact that “strange” agricultural products are being sold at sky-high prices makes everyone want to get rich. Although there have been many lessons learned from similar agricultural product trading tricks in the province. Therefore, to avoid “losing money and getting sick”, people need to be very alert and vigilant about the act of buying black stink bugs. When detecting cases of buying, selling, and transporting black stink bugs in the province, it is necessary to report to the authorities for timely prevention and handling.

Bao Thoa

Source: https://baophutho.vn/canh-giac-manh-khoe-lua-dao-thu-mua-nong-san-la-tren-cho-troi-online-215187.htm