On a late August afternoon, Ms. Vi Thi Nhien (41 years old, in Poong village, Tam Chung commune, Muong Lat district, Thanh Hoa province) was sweating profusely, carrying a basket of bamboo shoots on her head, struggling to climb the slippery slope from the edge of the forest to the national highway to sell to traders.
Bamboo shoot season starts from June to September of the lunar calendar every year. The time when bamboo shoots are most delicious and plentiful is in July. Taking advantage of the time when the fields are not yet ready for harvest, Mrs. Nhien's whole family goes into the forest early in the morning to pick bamboo shoots to earn extra income.
Bamboo shoot picking brings income to people in the remote areas of Thanh Hoa (Photo: Hanh Linh).
"After half a day in the forest, three family members picked 150 kg of bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots are bought by traders at home or along the national highway. Fresh bamboo shoots are currently sold for 8,000 VND/kg, today my whole family earned more than 1 million VND," said Ms. Nhien.
Ms. Nhien shared that wild bamboo shoots appear a lot in areas near streams and high humidity. Bamboo shoot picking is simple but very hard work. To pick many delicious bamboo shoots, it requires experience and strength to cross dense forests and climb many steep, slippery slopes.
The number of bamboo shoots that people picked after half a day of hard work in the forest (Photo: Hanh Linh).
Joining the group of people who went to pick bamboo shoots with Mrs. Nhien was Mr. Vi Van Thiep (45 years old, living in Poong village). Mr. Thiep has many years of experience in the profession. Since he was a child, he followed his parents into the forest to pick bamboo shoots, so he knows every forest and every difficult terrain.
"The deeper we go into the forest, the more bamboo shoots there are. Picking bamboo shoots requires hard work. Sometimes it takes half a day to pick them, and each time we have to bring rice balls and water," said Mr. Thiep.
According to Mr. Thiep, there are many types of wild bamboo shoots, but mainly bamboo shoots of the genus Sat, Buong, Nua and bitter bamboo shoots. Of which, bamboo shoots of the genus Nua and Buong cost 8,000-10,000 VND/kg; bamboo shoots of the genus Sat and bitter bamboo shoots cost 15,000-20,000 VND/kg.
Groups of people climbed the slope into the forest to pick bamboo shoots (Photo: Lo Quyen).
As an experienced person, after each trip into the forest, Mr. Thiep harvests 60kg of bamboo shoots. However, because the price of bamboo shoots is still cheap at this time, Mr. Thiep does not sell them, but brings them home, peels them, removes the old bamboo shoots, boils them in a pot, and then dries them.
"Dried and packaged bamboo shoots can be preserved for a long time. When the price is good, they can be sold at a price many times higher than fresh bamboo shoots," said Mr. Thiep.
According to Mr. Thiep, 20kg of fresh bamboo shoots will produce 1kg of dried bamboo shoots. With shredded bamboo shoots, if the weather is sunny, they only need to be dried for 2-3 days, while with bamboo shoots in pieces (pork tongue bamboo shoots) they need to be dried for 5-7 days.
Traders come to the house to buy harvested bamboo shoots (Photo: Hanh Linh).
Mr. Vi Van Thuat, Party Cell Secretary and Head of Poong Village, said that during bamboo shoot season, the village is full of only the elderly and children, while the rest of the healthy people go into the forest to collect bamboo shoots.
However, work is not always smooth, in the "sacred forest, poisonous water" there are many lurking accidents such as landslides, thorns, bamboo roots that cut and scratch limbs, causing bleeding...
"In the past, people often built huts deep in the forest to stay for a whole month to harvest. However, living in the forest is dangerous and they cannot take care of their family and children, so now people wake up early to pick bamboo shoots and return home the same day," said Mr. Thuat.
Bamboo shoots are cheap so people don't sell them but dry them (Photo: Hanh Linh).
According to Mr. Thuat, although bamboo shoot picking brings high income, local people are always aware and have plans to protect the forest, complying with the general convention of not letting buffaloes and cows into areas with wild bamboo shoots.
In addition, when picking bamboo shoots, do not pick them all. Each bamboo shoot bush must have 2-3 buds left to create conditions for the bamboo shoots to develop into plants and continue to grow in the following batches.
"For the people here, bamboo shoots are not only a long-term food reserve but also a product that brings the main source of income for the family during the rainy season. At the end of each bamboo shoot crop, every family can save a few tens of millions of dong, and every family can save 50-60 million dong," Mr. Thuat added.
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