Good income side job in sugarcane raw material areas

It is currently the peak season for sugarcane leaf peeling in raw material areas. Most sugarcane field owners have to hire workers to peel the leaves in time for the season. Photo: Thanh Phuc

From 4:30 a.m., Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu in Tan Long commune (Tan Ky) got up, quickly ate a bowl of cold rice and prepared to go to the field with her sisters.sugarcane leaf peeling team. It was sunny and it was the “peak farming season” so the sugarcane owners urged the women to speed up their work so they had to go to the fields early. They equipped themselves with headscarves, 2-layer cloth masks, thick cloth gloves and even knee-high nylon boots. The job seemed simple, just using their hands and sickles to strip off all the old sugarcane leaves from the trees, but “only by doing it can you know” the hardship, the fatigue of this job.

The rows of sugarcane are thick and dense, blocking the path. The leaf-peeler must use a hook to cover the front of the plant with all the leaves, then carefully use his hands to strip off the remaining leaves from the base of the plant until the base of the plant is clean and the sugarcane stalks are smooth and shiny.

The airy, clean sugarcane fields after being stripped of leaves help the sugarcane plants receive better light, grow quickly and accumulate sugar well. Photo: Thanh Phuc

On sunny days, under the thick canopy of sugarcane leaves, the air is stuffy and hot; on rainy days, the sugarcane fields are muddy, the ground is muddy, and water drips from the leaves above. The sugarcane plants are twice as tall as a person, the leaves spread out, covering the face, the long, sharp leaves cut into the skin, causing pain and burning like a knife. When peeling off the leaves, due to strong impact, the sugarcane hairs fly everywhere, flying into the nose, into the mouth, causing itching...

“I was completely covered, except for my eyes, because the leaves and hairs rubbed against my skin, which hurt. But in this hot weather, if I was covered too tightly, I would sweat profusely, feel stuffy, and lose water,” said Thu.

The work is not hard but it is tiring and exhausting because of the unpredictable weather, hot and humid air, all day long going through dense sugarcane fields, sugarcane leaves cutting into hands, rubbing against the body, and salty sweat making the skin burn. Photo: Thanh Phuc

This job is not hard but very tiring. Most of the middle-aged women follow this job. For example, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thinh in Tan Thang commune (Quynh Luu) is 60 years old this year and has been working as a sugarcane peeler for hire for 5 years now. Ms. Thinh shared: “Working in the fields, without a side job, so after planting, we have to wait for the harvest season. During this off-season, I and some other women go to peel sugarcane leaves for hire; when it is harvest season, we go chop sugarcane, load sugarcane onto trucks... In total, the daily wage is about 220,000-250,000 VND/day, quite a high wage compared to going to the market or working as a construction worker. On the other hand, I can also take advantage of the sugarcane leaves to make animal feed for livestock.”

In thesugarcane growing areaMany families grow sugarcane on large areas, with the smallest family having five or seven acres, and the largest family having up to tens of hectares. The characteristic of sugarcane is that after planting, when the plant grows to the third or fourth node, the leaves must be stripped off so that the plant can grow more nodes. The leaf stripping process must be done regularly until harvest. Therefore, the work takes place almost all year round, creating regular jobs for many local workers.

Quick meals eaten by the sugarcane farmers on the edge of the fields. Photo: Thanh Phuc

The peak period is from June to September of the lunar calendar every year, the "peak" period of sugarcane care, especially the stage of peeling sugarcane leaves must be accelerated so that the plants can receive good light, serving the process of sugar accumulation and preventing harmful white cotton aphids.

Grasping that need, in localities, teams and groups have been established to contract these jobs. Accordingly, each team has about 10-15 people, of which one person is assigned as the team/group leader responsible for contacting, connecting, negotiating prices and calculating whether the income is worth the effort or not before accepting the job.

In the localities where sugarcane is grown, groups and teams are established to contract out work such as planting sugarcane, peeling sugarcane leaves and harvesting sugarcane. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Mr. Nguyen Sy Hai - Head of Raw Material Production Department,Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Companysaid: “In the sugarcane material areas of the factory, there are no sugarcane peeling machines, so this work is still done manually. Households often contract the area to groups at a price of about 2.6 million VND/ha. The work is seasonal, so during peak times, it is very difficult to hire workers. There are not many groups doing this work because young workers often go to work as factory workers or work far away, mainly middle-aged people and women who take advantage of their free time to earn extra income”…