Bustling season for harvesting "gifts from nature" outside the Lam River dike.
(Baonghean.vn) - Every time the tide rises, the "mudworm fields" of Chau Nhan (Hung Nguyen) become bustling with people heading to the fields. The mudworm season peaks from the beginning of October in the lunar calendar. As a compensation for the hardships and difficulties of the flood season, each mudworm season, people in the flood-prone areas outside the Lam River dike harvest about 5 tons of "gifts from nature".
Earning billions of dong from "mudworm fields"
In Chau Nhan commune, there are approximately 50 hectares of rice paddies.mudwormsEvery year, the activity is concentrated in hamlets 1, 2, 6, and 8. As a traditional occupation in Chau Nhan, the people here have known how to build dikes to retain water and harvest mudworms for several decades. In the last ten years or so, the villagers have started stringing green nets around their fields, both to "mark their territory" and to prevent mudworms from encroaching on other people's fields.
According to Mr. Phan Dinh Hoan, Vice Chairman of the Commune People's Committee: Each year, the entire commune harvests approximately 5 tons of mudworms. During the peak season, traders bring entire trucks to buy mudworms, which are packed in styrofoam containers, and transport them to the city for consumption. Many households in the commune harvest 1-2 quintals of mudworms each season, such as the families of Mr. Le Xuan Kiem and Mr. Dinh Nhu Khoa in Phu Xuan hamlet; and Mr. Le Quang Vinh and Mr. Hoa Van Viet in Hamlet 7…
The price of mudworms fluctuates from year to year, but the average is usually around 400,000 - 450,000 VND/kg, sometimes reaching 500,000 VND/kg. However, this year, the wholesale price at the farm is only 350,000 - 400,000 VND/kg. In the mudworm fields, people still grow two rice crops, with an average yield of 2.5 - 3 quintals/acre, but they do not use any pesticides to protect the mudworms.
"If there are many floods this year, then next year the mudworm crop will be very abundant due to the rich alluvial soil. To increase mudworm productivity, after harvesting the summer-autumn rice crop, from September onwards, people plow and loosen the soil as well as remove all weeds so that more mudworms can emerge," said Mr. Phan Dinh Hoan.
Unlike the green-colored worms found in the Northern Delta provinces like Hai Duong and Hai Phong, Hung Nguyen worms are yellow, plump, and visually appealing, making them popular with customers from many places. Each worm season, some households earn hundreds of millions of dong, while others still make tens of millions from this "gift from nature."
Besides income from farming, people in Chau Nhan commune and surrounding areas also earn extra income from trading in mudworms. Buying wholesale at the fields for 350,000 VND/kg, Ms. Hoang Thi Hoa sells them at My Market for 370,000 VND/kg. “I mainly sell to customers passing along the Lam River road. On average, I sell 10-15 kg of mudworms a day, and they're all gone within a few hours. This time, the mudworms are plump and have a beautiful yellow-red color, so they sell very quickly,” Ms. Hoa said.
Not only are live worms popular, but with the attractive dishes made from worms, the "worm-specialized" restaurants in Hung Nguyen district have also become a well-known and favored "brand" among discerning diners from near and far.
The arduous job of harvesting "gifts from nature"
Starting to collect ragworms at 8 am, by 9 am, Mr. Au Van Dinh, from Hamlet 7, Chau Nhan Commune, had collected over 1 kg of ragworms. “The ragworms come up with the tide; the water rises for about an hour and then recedes, and the ragworms float to the surface. Usually, the water rises in the evening, sometimes at 2 am or 4 am, but today it only came up at 7 am,” Mr. Dinh said. It took him nearly an hour, across an area of 10 square meters of rice field, to collect just 1 kg of ragworms. On lucky days, he might collect 5-10 kg, but other days he only gets a few hundred grams.
They start appearing sporadically from September, but the peak season for mudworms only begins in early October according to the lunar calendar. Every month,lrain"They only come out during the high and low tides around the 15th and 1st of the lunar month. Even in rain and wind, the worms still come out, so the people here don't mind the cold or rain; whenever there are worms, they go to the fields."
Calling the mudworm a "gift from heaven" is not an exaggeration because after two rice harvests, from the tenth lunar month onwards, mudworms naturally appear in the rice fields, and farmers only need to use nets to collect them. However, in the rice fields, only those plots located near the ebb and flow of the water are found. Nguyen Van Hoa's family has two plots of land with mudworms, and he usually collects 7-8 kg of mudworms each day, sometimes less.
“The rươi season is the cold, rainy season at the end of the year. In the days before and after the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, around 1 am, the whole village wakes up and goes to the fields to wait for the water to recede and the rươi to surface so they can be collected. On lucky days, they get a lot, but on some days, after being submerged in the rain and cold water for hours, they only get a few hundred grams of rươi,” Mr. Hoa shared.
However, despite the hard work and effort involved, raising mudworms is becoming a significant source of income for the people in the flood-prone area of Chau Nhan commune, generating many times more revenue than rice cultivation.
