Que Phong: Why is it difficult to expand the area of ​​yellow flower tea?

Going through the difficult forest roads of Dong Van (Que Phong) with the desire to find the roots of the yellow tea tree, Mr. Luong Van Hung (head of Tuc village, Dong Van) shared that, in the past, you only needed to go into the forest area of ​​Dong Van, Thong Thu from 7 to 10km to be able to see the lush ancient tea trees.

However, since 2013, to find yellow tea flowers, one has to travel dozens of kilometers. The reason is that since traders have been rushing to buy flowers from yellow tea flowers at "sky-high" prices of up to 2-3 million VND/kg, people have flocked to the forest to harvest. Even with tall trees, many people are willing to cut them down to the roots.

The area of ​​yellow flower tea in Que Phong district is decreasing rapidly. Photo: Thanh Quynh

Planting new areas of yellow tea flowers also encountered many difficulties when the Center for Science and Technology Application conducted a trial of more than 1,000 native yellow tea flower trees in 3 communes: Tri Le, Hanh Dich, Thong Thu, but the model suffered over 90% damage due to the impact of natural disasters.

Realizing the significant decline in the number of yellow tea trees in the area, the People's Committee of Que Phong district has developed a project "Conservation and development of medicinal plants with high economic value in the period of 2016 - 2020" with the goal of planting 5 hectares of new yellow tea trees by 2020 and conserving and replanting on a total area of ​​90 hectares.

Accordingly, in 2 years (2016, 2017), Que Phong district aims to preserve and plant additional 37 hectares and plant new 2.5 hectares.

However, the result was only preserving and replanting 17 hectares, reaching 46% of the 2-year plan.

Along with that, the newly planted area is only 0.5 ha, reaching 20% ​​of the 2-year plan.

A rotten yellow tea tree after being cut down. Photo: Thanh Quynh

The flowers of the yellow tea tree cost up to 2 - 3 million VND/kg, causing people to rush into the forest to exploit them. Photo: Thanh Quynh

Communes mainly rely on State investment sources and some other support projects without implementing measures to promote the internal strength of the people and the potential and strengths of the locality.

Besides, grassroots forestry extension work has not been carried out regularly, so the areas of additional planting, new planting and conservation lack close supervision.

The survival rate of newly planted yellow tea trees is still low. Photo: Thanh Quynh

Given the remaining difficulties, the completion of the project's goal of planting 3 new hectares and preserving and planting 63 additional hectares of yellow tea in the 2018-2020 period is considered difficult to complete for Que Phong district.