Nghe An In July and August, people in Ky Son district go into the forest to pick naturally growing bo bo fruits, or harvest cultivated plants, and sell them for 5,000-7,000 VND/kg to make medicine.
On an early August afternoon, Moong Thi Van, 43, a resident of Huoi Tu commune, Ky Son district, and her two daughters carried baskets, sacks, and machetes into the forest 2 km from their home to pick bo bo. This is her family's seasonal job every autumn.
The forest of dozens of hectares in Huoi Tu commune has many bo bo trees growing under the canopy of timber trees. The tree is about 2 m high, the leaves are 10-40 cm long, when picking, you have to use a stick or a knife with an anchor hooked into the branch to pull down, cut off the part with the fruit. The bo bo fruit is round, 2-3 cm in diameter. People often separate the fruit immediately and put it in a bamboo basket to take home.
Bo bo trees grow abundantly in natural forests in Ky Son district. Photo: Hung Le
For the past two weeks, every time she went into the forest, Ms. Van always brought rice and food. At noon, she spread out a sack and sat with her two children in the middle of the forest to eat and rest for a few dozen minutes, then continued working. With the large-spreading, fruit-laden bo bo trees, the three of them harvested together. On average, each person picked 20-30 kg of bo bo a day.
"Picking bo bo from the tree is simple, but carrying it home is quite difficult, because the mountain roads are steep and you have to move across rivers and streams, so you need to concentrate and keep your balance. If you accidentally slip and fall, you can easily get injured, and all the fruit will fall," said Ms. Van.
The people in the Nghe An highlands only grow rice once a year. During their free time, they often work as construction workers or porters. Some go to the South to earn a living. Van and her children go to the forest to pick bo bo to earn extra income.
Mr. Mua Ba Chu, 52 years old, residing in Tay Son commune, said that in addition to picking fruits from natural forests, people also take advantage of bare hills to plant 1-3 hectares of bo bo trees per household. From the time of planting seedlings to fruiting is about 2-3 years, after the harvest season the old trees will dry and new shoots will develop, the life cycle is 6-7 years.
"My family grows 5 hectares of bo bo. This year's harvest is good, one hectare yields 300 kg of fresh fruit, expected to bring in about 20 million VND in income," said Mr. Chu.
People in the highlands of Nghe An separate bo bo seeds in early August. Photo: Hung Le
After picking, people wash them, put them in a special pot and boil them for 15-20 minutes, then take them out to cool, peel them and take out the seeds. In addition to family members, some households also hire people, paying nearly 200,000 VND per day.
After peeling the shell, the bo bo seeds are dried in the sun for 3-4 days. When it rains or there is no sun, people often dry them on a wood stove. Every 10 kg of fresh bo bo seeds after peeling and drying can produce 3-4 kg of seeds.
Every day, traders drive motorbikes into villages in Ky Son district to buy bo bo. A kilogram of fresh fruit costs 5,000-7,000 VND, dried seeds cost 40,000-50,000 VND. "Every day I buy about 500 kg of dried bo bo seeds. The goods are brought to Que Phong district to be gathered according to orders from partners," said Ms. Lo Thi Thanh, 32 years old, a trader in Huoi Tu commune. Bo bo is shipped to the North to be used as medicinal materials by partners.
Millet seeds after being shelled. Photo: Hung Le
The whole Ky Son district has more than 1,000 hectares of bo bo, of which the protected area is 672 hectares, the trees are propagated by people on more than 250 hectares, concentrated in communes such as Huoi Tu, Tay Son, Na Ngoi, Nam Can, Nam Can... In 2022, the total output of bo bo seeds in the district reached 722 tons, bringing a good income to many families.
In addition to Ky Son, bo bo also grows naturally and is widely planted in the districts of Tuong Duong, Que Phong, and Quy Chau. In 2015, the authorities had a project to plant, protect, and preserve this plant in the above districts, with an area of hundreds of hectares. This is considered a poverty-reducing tree for the people of Nghe An highlands.
The plant is also called coix seed, coix seed, coix seed, rice seed; some regions call it rice beads. According to Oriental medicine, coix has a sweet and mild taste, has the effect of clearing heat, nourishing the lungs, and is often used to treat inflammation of the digestive tract, diarrhea, appendicitis...
This medicinal sorghum seed is different from sorghum seed - also known as millet or sorghum - which people used as food decades ago.
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