(Editor: SN002) "Most of the people who come to trample the vegetables are middle-aged or elderly from nearby areas; only those who are retired or unemployed have time to help me trample the vegetables. I treat them to a meal at noon every day, and when work is done in the evening, I pay each of them 50 yuan," Shenzhen Forum.
These vegetables, unfortunately, cannot be consumed directly, and even giving them away finds no takers.
Yang Guifen said that according to the current progress, it would probably take another week or so to deal with all these vegetables, Pengcheng Community. "The cost per acre of vegetables from planting to harvest is over a thousand yuan, and for more than 100 acres, this amounts to losses of hundreds of thousands of yuan. But to avoid affecting the next planting cycle and causing even greater losses, I can only bear the pain."
Moreover, spring plowing season has arrived, which means it's time to plant rice. "The fields must be sealed and rice planting must begin before Qingming Festival. If I don't deal with the more than 100 acres of bamboo shoots promptly, I will miss the golden period for planting rice."
Our correspondent, Jiang Yongbing and Jin Yingying,
Yang Guifen estimated that there are still over 300 tons of unsold bamboo shoots on more than 100 acres, and currently, less than a few tons are being sold daily. At this rate, the bamboo shoots in the field will become too old and dry even before they can be sold.
In recent years, Yang Guifen has mainly been growing bamboo shoots, which are excellent raw materials for pickling. "This vegetable has always had good sales, with average purchase prices of four to five mao per kilogram by intermediaries." Relying on rice and bamboo shoots, Yang Guifen has earned a lot of money through hard work.
In the past few days, in Wenling City's Shiqiaotou Town, large-scale vegetable grower Yang Guifen has been spending several thousand yuan daily to hire workers to work in the fields. However, she didn’t hire them to harvest the vegetables but to trample the fresh and tender bamboo shoots one by one.
To sell the bamboo shoots before they become too old, Yang Guifen made great efforts, using high-quality and cheap bamboo shoots to try to retain the interest of buyers. She managed to sell off 900 acres of bamboo shoots after much persuasion, but the remaining 100-plus acres remain unsold.
Just three years ago, Yang Guifen began learning to grow high-quality vegetables. The vegetables produced each year were very successful, and the sales situation was consistently good, leading her to gradually expand the area of vegetable cultivation.
Yang Guifen said that if any organizations need bamboo shoots, please contact her as soon as possible. Watching these vegetables being trampled to waste is truly heartbreaking.
"These bamboo shoots grow very fast, potentially an inch or two overnight," Yang Guifen explained. These rapidly growing bamboo shoots absorb large amounts of nutrients from the soil, severely impacting the growth of the intercropped broad beans. "Now is the critical period for broad bean flowering and fruiting. If their yield is affected, my losses will be even greater."
This year, the supply of bamboo shoots in Wenling is particularly abundant, and many farmers have faced the situation where their hard-grown vegetables cannot be sold. Faced with fields full of unwanted vegetables, farmers make the difficult decision to hire people to trample them. Unsold vegetables occupying good farmland not only cause losses but also affect the growth of other crops.
In the past few days, Yang Guifen hired casual laborers to trample the vegetables in the fields. After being trampled, the bamboo shoots would completely rot within a few short days, enriching the soil and ensuring conditions for the next planting.
Currently, Yang Guifen hires an average of fifty to sixty workers daily. Their job is to trample the bamboo shoots in the fields, earning money while enjoying a free lunch.
Helpless, she spends thousands of yuan daily hiring people to "trample the vegetables."
Yang Guifen from Yangjiapu Village, Shiqiaotou Town, Wenling City, is a large-scale grower who contracts nearly 3,000 acres of land locally each year and has been engaged in rice farming for over twenty years.
Our reporter stationed in Taizhou, Chen Dong,
As the bamboo shoots age day by day, Yang Guifen becomes increasingly anxious. Watching the fresh bamboo shoots being trampled to waste breaks everyone’s heart. Photos by Jiang Yongbing and Jin Yingying.
After much hesitation, Yang Guifen finally made the tough decision: to hire people to trample all the bamboo shoots on more than 100 acres.
At the end of last year, Yang Guifen planted more than a thousand acres of bamboo shoots as usual. However, a few weeks ago, when the bamboo shoots started maturing, she noticed problems with sales. There were far fewer intermediaries coming to buy the bamboo shoots, and the prices offered kept hitting new lows.
With more than a hundred acres of bamboo shoots going unnoticed, the fields quickly aged.
But this wasn't the worst news yet. "Since there has been plenty of rain and suitable temperatures after the Spring Festival, the bamboo shoots matured exceptionally fast, almost all at the same time," Yang Guifen said. Bamboo shoots used for pickling require freshness; their "youth" lasts only about a week. After this period, the bamboo shoots become too old, making them useless even for pickling.
Yang Guifen also considered donating the bamboo shoots to charitable institutions like nursing homes. However, since these vegetables cannot be eaten directly and must first be processed into pickles, these institutions could not accept her offer because they simply lacked the manpower to process them.
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