Fragrant roots of incense in Tet season
(Baonghean.vn) - These days, people in Thanh Nho commune (Thanh Chuong) are busy harvesting incense roots to serve as raw materials for producing Tet incense. This year, the price of incense roots has dropped, making farmers who grow this "fragrant plant" not very excited.
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| Taking advantage of the sunny winter days, people in Thanh Nho commune are actively harvesting trees.Incense rootserving the production of Tet incense. Walking through the “capital” of incense roots of the land of nhut, both sides of the road are full of incense roots, everywhere is fragrant with incense,Lunar New Yearis coming very soon. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| In recent years, in Thanh Chuong district, agarwood roots have been planted in a number of communes, but mostly in Thanh Nho commune. In 2020, Thanh Nho commune had more than 30 hectares of agarwood roots, mainly concentrated in Nho Phong and Nho Son hamlets. Mr. Nguyen The Thin - Secretary of the Nho Phong hamlet Party cell said that the hamlet has 250 households, of which about 160 households grow agarwood roots, on average each household grows about 3 - 4 sao, many households grow from 0.5 - 1 ha. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| According to the peoplelocal, from the second half of 2020 to the beginning of 2021, the price of incense roots plummeted, wholesale to purchasing facilities at the field was only about 3 million VND/sao. While at the beginning of last year, the price was from 7 - 8 million VND/sao, even at the peak it was 9 - 10 million VND/sao. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| Good quality incense roots are old trees that are 1 year old or older, have many roots, and are fragrant. Growing incense roots is not like growing other fruit trees, which often encounter the situation of "bad harvest, good price" or vice versa, because incense roots almost always have a "good harvest" every year, the only question is "whether the price is good or not". Photo: Huy Thu |
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| The season of harvesting incense roots also creates jobs for many workers with an income of around 200,000 VND/day. In addition to harvesting incense roots as raw materials for incense production, Thanh Nho commune people also supply seedlings to many other localities in and outside the province. When harvesting incense roots, people often cut off a part of the top in the middle of the garden before pulling out the roots. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| After harvesting, the incense roots are cut short to get the base of about 15 - 20 cm, by chopping each bush on a cutting board or gathering bundles of incense roots in rows, using a cutting machine to cut them all at once. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| Households growing incense roots can sell them to purchasing facilities by the area of the pole or harvest them themselves, bring them home, cut them short, and then import them. The price of fresh incense roots after cutting off the top is 6,000 - 6,500 VND/kg. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| In Thanh Nho commune, there are currently 4 large incense root purchasing facilities and a number of small purchasing points. According to these facilities, the price of incense roots is low this year due to many reasons, of which the main reason is the outbreak of Covid-19, poor trading activities, and the inability to export incense roots. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| Harvesting incense roots in December often encounters cold rain, if there is sunshine, it is light sunshine, making it difficult to dry, so purchasing facilities here have to build coal-fired drying kilns. Each batch of kilns can dry 3 tons of fresh roots within 24 hours. Photo: Huy Thu |
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| In addition to providing raw materials for incense production villages in the district, Thanh Chuong incense root products of good quality are also widely consumed in domestic and foreign markets. Mr. Le Dinh Hung - Chairman of the Farmers' Association of Thanh Nho commune, Thanh Chuong district said: Incense root is a tree that eliminates hunger and reduces poverty in the locality, with many outstanding advantages, bringing in greater income than some other crops such as cassava, acacia... Despite the erratic prices, local people are still attached to this tree for a long time. Photo: Huy Thu |
| Harvesting incense roots for Tet incense production. Video: Huy Thu |