Medicinal plants - 'medicine' to cure poverty in Que Phong

(Baonghean) - Recently, as medicinal plants have become increasingly valuable, Que Phong district is promoting the advantage of developing medicinal plants for the purpose of hunger eradication and poverty reduction.

Nursery of 3,000 pots of yellow tea seedlings at Pu Kem Chang, Dong Van commune (Que Phong). Photo: NK

Mr. Vi Van Viet - Head of Cham village, Hanh Dich commune, regardless of the hot summer afternoon sun, took us to visit the newly planted cinnamon forest of Mr. Lo Van Duc's household (Cham village). It is called a newly planted forest, but when we arrived, we saw the shade of old cinnamon trees providing shade for the newly cleared forest areas to plant new trees.

In Ban Cham, 40 households were supported to plant new medicinal cinnamon trees, with a total of 120,000 trees planted on the day of launching the recovery of medicinal plants with high economic value (April 14, 2017), Mr. Lo Van Duc's household was supported to plant 320 new cinnamon seedlings. Although the seedlings were newly planted, they quickly took root in the land of perennial cinnamon, so the newly planted seedlings and planted forests for more than 1 month were over 30-40 cm tall.

Village chief Vi Van Viet said that when Cham village was chosen as a place to develop cinnamon trees, the villagers were very excited to receive the new trees. Because planting new cinnamon trees, on the one hand, is to restore the medicinal plant that is famous far and wide, on the other hand, it is to help people find a way out of poverty when the whole village has 81 households, of which 50 are poor.

The yellow tea flower tree is being developed in Que Phong, with dried yellow tea flower products worth 2-3 million VND/kg. It is a natural medicinal plant that is concentrated in the mountainous areas of Que Son, Muong Noc, Chau Kim, Dong Van communes,... but due to its high economic value, the yellow tea flower tree has created a need to bring the tree from the forest to hill gardens, home gardens and is being successfully hybridized.

At Pu Kem Chang hill garden, Dong Van commune, we witnessed with our own eyes the nursery of 3,000 yellow tea seedlings regularly cared for by Mr. Lang Van Cuong and his wife, Ms. Lo Thi Tuyet. Mr. Cuong said that every year in April and May, yellow tea sprouts new leaves, and after 2-3 years the old leaves fall off. It starts blooming in November, and the flowers last until March of the following year. The golden yellow flowers have a glossy waxy appearance, and feel semi-transparent. The flower diameter is 5-6cm, cup or bowl shaped, with diverse and beautiful flower shapes. Yellow tea is a plant that contains the richest nutritional components in nature, and has very precious medicinal value.

Mr. Lo Hung Cuong - Deputy Head of the Economic Infrastructure Department of Que Phong district said that in addition to cinnamon trees and yellow tea trees, Que Phong district is also home to many other medicinal plants such as ginseng, purple cardamom, bon bo, and blind man... Que Phong has natural advantages with a forest area of ​​144,999 hectares, forest coverage of 76.7%, with a typical ecosystem typical of the Northwest region of Nghe An and the North Truong Son.

Que Phong forest areas have a secondary tropical rainforest ecosystem, diverse in animal species and forest vegetation; including rare medicinal plants in nature such as: Codonopsis pilosula, ground ginseng, cap tun, bon bo, cinnamon, cardamom, yellow flower tea, and wormwood,... which have been collected and used by ethnic minorities in the district as medicine for treatment and sale to the market, in order to increase income and improve daily life. Yellow flower tea tree produces tea flowers with an average fresh price of 300,000 - 500,000 VND/kg; when dried, the average price is from 2,500,000 - 3,500,000 VND/kg. Our country has over 3,900 medicinal plants, of which Nghe An has 962 species and Que Phong district has more than 372 species.

Cinnamon tree in Cham village, Hanh Dich commune (Que Phong). Photo NK

Since the products made from medicinal plants have become increasingly valuable, Que Phong district has become a locality with outstanding advantages in natural medicinal plants and medicinal plants have found new varieties. Currently, the price of fresh yellow tea flowers is 300,000 - 500,000 VND/kg; when dried, the price is from 2,500,000 - 3,500,000 VND/kg. Dang sam plants are sold in Thong Thu, Dong Van, Hanh Dich communes and expanded to other communes in the district with a selling price of only 350,000 - 500,000 VND/kg. Bon bo plants are naturally distributed and concentrated in Nam Nhong, Tri Le, Chau Thon, Nam Giai communes. Every year, people collect and sell them to traders for 17,000 - 25,000 VND/kg depending on the time.

Currently, in Kim Son town, there are a number of businesses and business households investing in building facilities to process essential products from medicinal plants such as: cinnamon essential oil products, golden flower tea drying ovens, processing packaged golden flower tea products... The products are made on a small scale but have a large consumption. Therefore, there can be high expectations when investing in equipment, machinery, and technology to produce Lipton golden flower tea.

Comrade Lu Dinh Thi - Secretary of Que Phong District Party Committee said that the Resolution of the 21st District Party Congress for the period 2015 - 2020 identified the development of medicinal plants as an important direction. In 2016, Que Phong District People's Committee also developed a Project to develop medicinal plants with high economic value for the period 2015 - 2020. Implementing the Project to develop medicinal plant production is necessary, contributing to changing the crop structure in communes in the district towards commodity production is extremely important, helping to improve the production level of the people, applying new science and technology, new crops; contributing to stabilizing production and hunger eradication and poverty reduction. At the same time, there is a source of medicinal plants to use as medicine to treat diseases according to folk experience, oriental medicine of hospitals in and outside the district./.

Duc Duong