Life hard for local pepper farmers

Ho Chi Minh City – Local pepper growers are encountering many difficulties due to the falling price and a severe shortage of manpower during the ongoing harvest season.

A farmer in Binh Phuoc Province harvests pepper - PHOTO: PHU LI

The pepper price has decreased by VND20,000 to VND44,000 (US$1.9) per kilogram, well below the production cost of some VND50,000.

Thus, the pepper price has plunged for the fifth consecutive year, from VND220,000 per kilogram in 2014.

Although Vietnam remains the world’s largest pepper exporter, with more than 230,000 tons shipped to other countries last year, the country's competent agencies seem to have been unable to find effective ways to prop up the price.

Duong Van Thanh, a farmer with more than 3,000 pepper trees in Tan Tien Commune, Bu Dop District, Binh Phuoc Province, said he is striving to maintain his farm in the hope of seeing higher pepper prices in the next one to two years.

However, others have converted their pepper farms to other crops.

In addition, the lack of labor during the harvest season has set local pepper farmers on edge.

Nguyen Van Nhan, who has nearly 4,000 pepper trees in Thanh Hoa Commune, Bu Dop District, planned to harvest pepper right after the Tet holiday, but he has not been able to hire enough workers to do the job.

He and his wife have to harvest the pepper themselves, even at night. However, they have completed harvesting only 400 pepper trees so far.

In localities with large pepper plantations such as Binh Phuoc, it is hard to hire other farmers to harvest the pepper as they have to harvest it on their own farms too.

As a result, pepper garden owners have had to raise the wage to VND180,000-200,000 per working day from VND150,000-170,000 last year to attract laborers.