Gia Lai province currently has over 13,500 hectares of pepper, mainly concentrated in the districts of Chu Se, Chu Puh, Dak Doa... At this time, people are urgently harvesting pepper.
According to records, the price of pepper harvest this year is high, if at the beginning of the season it was 80,000 VND/kg, now it has reached more than 90,000 VND/kg. Along with that, pepper productivity also increased by about 20-30% compared to last year, making people extremely excited. However, some garden owners have to run around to find workers, although they are willing to pay higher wages than previous years, there are still not enough workers to harvest.
Gia Lai farmers harvest pepper
Present at the pepper garden with a total of 4,000 pillars of Mr. Tran Vinh Phong's family (Hoa Tin village, Nhon Hoa town, Chu Puh district, Gia Lai province), we noticed a few workers were brushing each pepper fruit that had fallen onto the canvas.
Mr. Phong said that after Tet, the pepper garden had ripened simultaneously. This year, the weather was favorable so the pepper grew well, with a yield of about 3kg of dry pepper per pillar. However, finding workers to pick pepper was difficult due to a shortage of labor. Not to mention that gardeners had increased wages to 200,000 VND/day compared to 180,000 VND/day last year.
According to Mr. Phong, the reason is that most of the young workers in the locality are working in companies and factories outside the province. After the Tet holiday, they have to return to work. Meanwhile, seasonal workers in the locality are flocking to Dak Lak and Dak Nong provinces to work for hire because of higher income.
"I had to contact everywhere to get 9 pepper pickers. Last year's pepper garden of 4,000 pillars required 300 workers to pick, but this year it only took 250 workers. Due to the lack of workers, my family decided to use tarps spread under the roots to pick quickly and minimize the loss of ripe pepper on the ground when we can't pick it in time," said Mr. Phong.
This year, pepper prices and productivity bring good news to farmers. However, the problem of harvesting labor is a difficulty for gardeners.
Not only Mr. Phong's pepper garden but also other pepper gardens are in a state of labor shortage. Not far away, the family of Mr. Lu Quoc Dinh (residing in Hoa Binh village, Nhon Hoa town) said that with 3,000 pepper pillars, each year the family needs 20 workers to harvest within 1 month. However, despite increasing the salary to 250,000 VND/day with support for drinking water and lunch, he can only hire 9 local workers.
"There are many families around my house who need to hire workers. However, it is difficult for people to find enough workers as desired even though wages have increased this year. Therefore, I have to encourage and support workers so that they can work with peace of mind during the harvest season," said Mr. Dinh.
Some peppercorns are bright red.
According to the reporter's research, in the pepper harvest season in Gia Lai, this year the cost of hiring workers to pick pepper is calculated per day, fluctuating at 200,000-250,000 VND/day. On average, 1 hectare of pepper in the harvest season requires at least 20 to 30 workers to continuously pick for about 40-60 days.
Mr. Hoang Phuoc Binh, Vice President of Chu Se Pepper Association, said that pepper is a plant with high economic value but requires a very strict planting and care process. If pepper is allowed to ripen and fall naturally, it will greatly affect the growth of the plant, thereby reducing productivity, quality and potentially causing disease outbreaks in the following years. Therefore, pepper must be harvested manually.
To solve the labor problem, some gardeners have joined together to exchange labor with each other.
"Faced with the shortage of workers, people should proactively seek local workers or ask local authorities to connect them. In addition, for pepper gardens that are adjacent to each other and have difficulty hiring workers, they can join together to work together, exchanging labor to harvest the first ripened garden to ensure the quality of the pepper," said Mr. Binh.
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