Be careful when buying leeches in Que Phong!

(Baonghean) - These days, in the fields of some communes in Que Phong district, many people bring nets to the fields to catch leeches and sell them for 300,000 - 340,000 VND per kilogram. Adults catch 2-3 taels of leeches a day, earning 70,000 - 100,000 VND.

Why do Que Phong farmers rush to the fields to “hunt” for leeches? It’s simply because someone is buying leeches, so they go and catch and sell them! But what do people buy leeches for? Will it cause any consequences? No one knows! Ms. Mai, a grocery seller along the main road through Chau Kim commune, said: A few days ago, a man who said he was from Ha Tinh province came to ask me to buy leeches for him, but I didn’t know what they were buying leeches for, so I refused.

People of Chau Kim commune (Que Phong) catch leeches in the field.

The leeches are caught and put in cloth bags and sold for 340,000 VND/kg.

Farmers in Chau Kim commune said that in the past, sometimes strangers came to stand at the intersections in the commune, buying leeches for the people. But recently, the person who has been collecting leeches is Mr. Luong Van Dai in Huu Van village. We went to Mr. Dai's house but did not see any buying and selling and his family replied that the family does not buy or sell leeches. When we called Ms. Vi Thi Thuy, Chairwoman of Chau Kim Commune People's Committee, Ms. Thuy said she did not know that people in her commune go to catch leeches to sell... That is, people just catch leeches, but they are not proactive in selling them; people just "suddenly come to buy", sell for money, and leave everything else to chance!

However, we have “witnessed” the fact that people in Que Phong go to catch leeches to sell… The problem is that, for a long time, in our province, there has been a phenomenon of some strangers coming to order leaves, roots, strange wood… causing people to rush into the forest to collect them and sell them to traders. What do they buy those things for, how much? No one knows. We only know that when people buy them, we go find them and sell them to them, get money to spend… and the consequence is often a big impact on production, while these items are not exported through official channels.

Through the mass media, the authorities have advised people not to rush after immediate profits to do things with unclear purposes, affecting agricultural production and human psychology. Thereby, the local authorities need to grasp the situation, when there are phenomena such as buying leeches in Que Phong in the commune, to have solutions to propagate for people to be vigilant, proactively avoid unnecessary consequences./.

Hoang Nguyen