Joy from early winter crops

Farmers earn high profits

After more than 2 months of planting and caring, 3 sao of cabbage of Mrs. Pham Thi Oanh in Luy Duong village, Gia Luong commune (Gia Loc) has started to grow. It will take more than 10 days for this cabbage field to be harvested, but traders have already placed orders for 8 million VND/sao. Mrs. Oanh shared: "Growing early winter vegetables is hard work, but it also brings the main source of income for our family because vegetables bring in many times more income than rice. Although selling early, after deducting expenses, I still earn a profit of 4.5 - 5 million VND/sao of cabbage."

In the vegetable area of ​​Hung Dao commune (Tu Ky), farmers have also started harvesting early winter vegetables. Ms. Nguyen Thi Mien has more than 1 hectare of kohlrabi. Currently, the first kohlrabi fields have begun to yield harvest. Traders buy the whole kohlrabi field at 3,000 VND/root. Each sao of field, farmers plant about 2,500 roots, with this price, farmers earn 7.5 million VND. After deducting expenses, the profit is about 4 million VND/sao.

Earning a profit of 4-5 million VND/sao of early winter vegetables is a joy for many farmers. However, for traders, it is not necessarily the same. According to some traders, vegetable consumption is not as favorable as many years ago. Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoa, a trader in Hung Dao commune, said: "Since the beginning of the season, I have bought about 20 hectares of kohlrabi from farmers in the commune and neighboring localities. At this time in previous years, the weather has turned cold so consumption is very favorable, but this year is different. Each kohlrabi root is bought for 3,000 VND, but the warm weather has caused many small or cracked tubers, forcing them to be discarded."

Planting the next crop

According to the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection, this year, Hai Duong farmers planted more than 6,500 hectares of early winter crops, an increase of nearly 1,000 hectares compared to the same period last year. Early winter crops are usually planted from mid-August to early October on harvested summer-autumn vegetables or early tea rice, mainly cabbage, kohlrabi, cauliflower, zucchini, pumpkin and some leafy vegetables.

Early winter vegetables are usually harvested in late October and early November and have higher value than main crop crops. Hai Duong is one of the major vegetable growing areas in the Northern region and supplies vegetables to many provinces and cities.

Having just harvested the first early crop of kohlrabi, Mr. Nguyen Van Thuan in Le Loi commune (Gia Loc) quickly prepared the land to plant the next crop of cauliflower. The weather was favorable, so in just 1 day, he completed the preparation and planted the next crop of vegetables. He said that if the winter vegetable crop is planted very early, in addition to the main crop of vegetables, farmers can also plant an additional crop of vegetables to serve the consumer market at the end of the year. Thus, normally in the winter crop, farmers will be able to plant 2-3 crops of vegetables. In addition to the early winter vegetable crop, the pre-Tet vegetable crop also often brings high income to farmers. However, the weather at the beginning and end of the winter crop is erratic, so farmers often have to bear many risks, with care costs ranging from 3.5 to 4 million VND, one and a half times higher than the cost of caring for the main crop of vegetables.

According to Mr. Le Thai Nghiep, Deputy Head of the Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection, this winter crop, the weather is basically favorable, so the area of ​​early winter vegetables is larger than in previous years. The selling price is relatively high, so farmers are excited. This is a favorable condition to encourage people to continue expanding the area of ​​winter crops, especially cold-loving vegetables to meet market demand. Farmers need to promote the application of technical measures in production to reduce costs, increase productivity and efficiency per unit of cultivated land area, improve quality and control pesticide residues... At the same time, continue to implement many solutions to find output markets for agricultural products.