The mystery of the man who hoarded hundreds of tons of lychee leaves for foreign markets.

While the lychee season in Luc Ngan is only in its middle stages, many businesses are already considering buying lychee leaves to ferment and sell to foreign traders.

Contrary to many public speculations at the time that Chinese traders, after buying up all the lychee fruit, would then "sweep up" even the leaves and branches of lychee trees in Luc Ngan, Bac Giang, and take them back to their country.

The purpose of buying lychee leaves remains a question for many, and it also causes confusion and suspicion. Even the people living in lychee-growing regions, when asked, shake their heads, saying they don't know the reason.

Those who transport lychee leaves to sell to dealers these days say that, with lychee harvest in full swing, all family members are focused on picking the fruit, so they haven't had time to... gather the leaves.

Almost every family had to hire 4-5 extra workers to pick the lychees. The homeowner's only job was to transport the lychees to the wholesalers for weighing and selling.

The family of Mr. Nguyen Van Quy, in Chao Mao hamlet, Phuong Son commune (Luc Ngan district, Bac Giang province), owns more than 100 lychee trees. The total area of ​​lychee cultivation owned by his family is more than one acre of hillside land.

This year the lychee harvest is abundant; each lychee tree in his family's orchard yielded around 100 kg, which is 20-30 kg more per tree than last year.

One morning, four workers gathered to pick and bundle lychees... but they only managed to harvest from 4-5 trees, yielding two baskets for two trips.

With fabric prices ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 VND/kg at purchasing agents, Mr. Quy's family earned nearly one million VND from a basket of fabric weighing over 100 kg.

Pointing to the vast lychee orchard stretching from the edge of the red dirt road connecting Phuong Son and Quy Son communes, Mr. Quy said: "Look, the orchard is covered in fallen lychee leaves. After harvesting all the fruit, we only have time to sweep up the leaves and sell them to lychee leaf collection points."

Traditionally, people have assumed that traders would buy fresh lychee leaves in bundles and then resell them to exporters (mostly Chinese traders).

"They buy them, soak them in water to let them rot, and then sell them. That's why selling dried lychee leaves fetches a higher price."

Currently, one kilogram of lychee leaves costs 1,000 VND. Instead of burning them, many people collect them and sell them to earn extra money to buy fertilizer and pesticides to reinvest in their lychee trees.

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The machine presses the fabric sheets into bales for packaging.

In Quy Son commune (Luc Ngan district), the locals are familiar with the large-scale collection point for lychee leaves belonging to the family of Mr. NVH, a resident of the commune.

After buying the lychee leaves, Mr. H. gathered them on a large, empty plot of land spanning thousands of square meters. It took him quite a long time to collect several tens of tons of leaves.

Currently, Mr. H.'s pile of lychee leaves is nearly one meter high and stretches for several tens of meters. All of it has decomposed, almost rotting away, just like how farmers compost green manure to fertilize their fields.

Mr. H. said: "The process of composting lychee leaves until they rot is not complicated or difficult. The leaves are piled up, then watered and pumped in for composting. They naturally decompose and break down. At a certain stage, when they reach the composting stage according to the buyer's criteria, they are packed into plastic bags and shipped by... container."

For fresh lychee leaves, if not composted, they must be chopped into small pieces, watered to speed up decomposition, and then packaged in the same way.

To cope with hundreds of tons of lychee leaves that had rotted due to being left to decompose for too long, Mr. H. had to hire a dozen workers, who lived and ate at his family's home.

"We're not exporting lychee leaves to Chinese traders; the buyers are actually Japan. They're researching growing clean vegetables and fruits in greenhouses. They probably use the composted lychee leaves to produce bio-fertilizer or organic fertilizer for their plants," Mr. H. said.

To prove his point, Mr. H. showed me a catalog entirely in Japanese, which featured images of the processes involved in growing and cultivating various vegetables and fruits.

“In Luc Ngan, there are three or four large-scale factories that buy lychee leaves, compost them, and then package them for export to Japan. My family's business is only of a moderate scale,” said Mr. H.

The Japanese side invested in a cutting, pressing, and compressing machine for Mr. H.'s family to pack decaying fabric leaves into plastic bags. Each tightly compressed plastic bag weighs 25 kg.

Speaking to VietNamNet, Mr. Nguyen Manh Ha, Head of the Economic and Infrastructure Department (Luc Ngan District People's Committee), confirmed that those who buy lychee leaves report to the local authorities and the District Farmers' Association so that the Association can inform the lychee-growing households.

"The purchase of lychee leaves does not affect the production and development of the special lychee variety in Luc Ngan, because the yield of lychee trees even increases every year. No one would be foolish enough to strip all the leaves from the lychee trees to sell."

Mr. Ha explained: a lychee tree, if stripped of all its leaves, yields about 10kg. The selling price of lychee leaves is 1,000 VND/kg, which is insignificant compared to the price of one kilogram of lychee fruit.

When asked why traders only buy lychee leaves and not leaves from other trees, Mr. Ha commented: "Perhaps it's because lychee leaves contain a lot of organic matter and high humus content... so they buy them to produce clean fertilizer."

Thus, the speculation and unfounded rumors of many people suspecting that Chinese traders were coming to buy lychee leaves to... wipe out lychee trees have been dispelled!

According to Vietnam.net