Nghe An: Precious medicinal herbs fall in price miserably

(Baonghean.vn) - Realizing that the Solanum procumbens plant is sought after by many traders at sky-high prices, many households in Hamlet 4, Quynh Van Commune, Quynh Luu have hired workers to dig up the roots in the forest and plant them in their gardens. After several years of good harvests and high prices, people are now "half-dead" because the price of this precious medicinal herb has dropped dramatically.

Solanum procumbens was planted on a large scale in Hamlet 4, Quynh Van Commune in early 2015. Initially, only a few households planted this medicinal plant, but after just over a year, 60 households in the hamlet planted it, with a total area of ​​over 1 hectare. Seeing traders looking to buy Solanum procumbens for medicinal purposes at high prices, households in the hamlet went to the forest to cut Solanum procumbens to sell. After a while, the number of wild Solanum procumbens gradually decreased due to overharvesting, and people dug up the plants to plant in their gardens. This is a precious medicinal plant that is effective in treating liver diseases and detoxifying the body.

In 2015, the price of Solanum procumbens was high, and people in Hamlet 4, Quynh Van earned a net profit of more than 400 million VND/ha.

Currently, more than 1 hectare of the third crop of Solanum procumbens is ready to be harvested, but because the price is low and they cannot make enough money, people have had to abandon the Solanum procumbens.

According to Mr. Nguyen The Uu - a specialist in purchasing medicinal herbs of Solanum procumbens in Hamlet 4, Quynh Van: In 2015, the average price of Solanum procumbens was 80,000 VND/kg, sometimes even reaching 100,000 VND/kg. However, it has now dropped to 15-20,000 VND/kg. To get 1 kg of dried Solanum procumbens, people have to grow 100 kg of fresh plants, then have to work hard to collect branches, cut them into pieces, and dry them in the sun, but now the price is too low, traders are no longer coming to buy.

Ms. Le Thi Huyen said, my family grows 1 sao of Solanum procumbens, the cost for land filling, buying seeds, and plastic is about 6 million, the first year was profitable but in the second year Solanum procumbens was unsold and no one bought it, now my family is planning to destroy it and go back to growing vegetables like before.

Dried Solanum procumbens is unsold and is filling people's houses.

Mr. Le Van Ba ​​- Chairman of Quynh Van Commune People's Committee said that for the past 2 years, Solanum procumbens has taken root in the garden land with high economic efficiency. The Commune People's Committee is also urgently completing the procedures to request recognition of the medicinal plant growing village in Hamlet 4 to have a mechanism to encourage people to develop the area, and at the same time find a stable output for Solanum procumbens. However, before it could be completed, the price of Solanum procumbens has dropped dramatically, selling 2kg of fresh Solanum procumbens is only enough to buy a pack of instant noodles, causing people to panic, many households intend to destroy the Solanum procumbens area to return to growing vegetables as before.

The lesson from the story of "everyone doing their own thing" has shown that not only vegetables but also precious medicinal herbs have to share the same fate.

Nhu Thuy

(Quynh Luu Radio)