Gay Tea Concerns

"Che Gay" is a "brand" quite familiar to the people of Nghe An, but this product still lacks a stable direction.

One early spring day, we returned to Cao Son commune (Anh Son). The entire mountainous and rugged forest area of ​​a few years ago has gradually changed to green layers and layers of food tea hills. It seems that every household grows tea. Many households like Mr. Phan Sy Phuc's household have 6 hectares of tea, Mr. Nguyen Van Thuan, Tran Van Chau in hamlets 5 and 6, each household also has over 2 hectares, and small households also have 2-3 sao of tea in their gardens. Ms. Tran Thi Ha (hamlet 6) confided: "Every day, we bring 10 bundles of tea to the market to sell for 50,000 VND. My family has been "loyal" to this more than 1 hectare of tea for more than 10 years. After planting for a year, we can harvest, so we have money to raise our children and send them to school."



Gay tea products (Anh Son)

Sticking with green tea trees, farmers in Linh Son and Cao Son communes have more jobs and significantly increased their income, especially in Cao Son commune. Right in the commune, two markets have been formed in hamlets 1 and 7 (tea markets) specializing in exchanging and buying and selling tea products continuously every day of the week, attracting a large number of people. The market takes place from early morning until noon. Traders who come here to buy goods mainly come from Dien Chau, Yen Thanh, Do Luong, supplying tea to the Vinh City market and some neighboring areas...

Mr. Mai Vuong Minh - Secretary of Cao Son Commune Party Committee said: In 2007, the commune developed the Project "Investing in intensive development and covering green tea trees in Cao Son Commune". The commune mobilized the entire population to cover the roots, increase humidity, and launch a movement to produce biofertilizers in all 10 hamlets, assign the Farmers' Association and Women's Association to borrow capital from the Social Policy Bank with preferential low interest rates for tea-producing households, withdraw forest land from households that do not grow tea and transfer it to households that want to grow tea.

Cao Son currently has over 3,000 hectares of natural land, of which over 80% are forest land. Due to the large forest land area, many bushes and wild plants, when developing the project, people realized the effectiveness of producing organic fertilizers for tea mulch, which is an easy solution, reduces investment costs and improves the land. As a result, over 80% of households have used microbial fertilizers for tea. Thanks to this movement, the commune has developed an additional 100 hectares of tea from the project, bringing the green tea area to 438 hectares.

According to farmers' calculations, for 1 hectare of good tea, there are 4 main harvests per year, each with 1,650 bundles, with an average selling price of 6,000 VND/bundle, generating an income of over 40 million VND/ha/year. Bad tea will be harvested 3 times per year with about 4,000 bundles, with the above selling price reaching 24 million VND/ha/year. After deducting expenses, the net profit is over 25 million VND/ha of good tea/year, over 13 million VND/ha of bad tea/year.

According to the report, Cao Son achieved revenue of nearly 19 billion VND/year from green tea. Gay tea specialty has affirmed its name in the domestic market. With economic efficiency, Cao Son set a target of striving to reach 520 hectares of tea.

However, currently, the planting of new tea is still spontaneous, everyone does it on their own, the investment concentration to direct the building of intensive investment movement has not been effective. 2 wholesale markets are still temporary, not upgraded and built on a scale to create conditions to attract means of transport to buy tea to the place. Although the "Che Gay" brand is known by many people, the exploitation has not received due attention. The value of the product depends on the market, sometimes it is 10,000, 15,000 VND/bundle, sometimes it drops to 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 VND/bundle. This affects the investment psychology of farmers.

In my opinion, green tea is a key crop, suitable to the natural conditions and history of the native land, and is the main source of income for the people of Cao Son and Linh Son to escape poverty. Investing in and affirming the "Gay Tea" brand in the market requires the participation of all levels, sectors, and organizations.

Luong Mai