Farmers in Dinh Lien Commune bring harvested chillies to a local vendor that exports the pods to China, Taiwan, Malaysia. (Photo: danviet.vn) Thanh Hoa (VNA) - Chilli prices in the central provinceof Thanh Hoa have reached a record high.
In many local markets, consumers have had to fork out 1,000 VND (0.04USD) for just two chillies. In some markets, the price is 5,000 VND (0.2 USD)for four chillies.
Hoang Thi Hue, resident of Thanh Hoa city, said she’d never paidso much ever for chillies.
"Usually, I only spent 500 VND for several pods, but it is asat least 2,000 VND for that number, four times as much," she said. If thechilli was a bit bigger, just one pod costs 1,000 VND, she said.
"It’s incredibly high," Hue said, adding, "thevendor told me to buy a kilogramme to get a better price - about 100,000-150,000VND (4 USD). This is totally not a good price in any way."
Some vegetable sellers at the Dong Thanh and Tay Thanh marketssaid they did not purchase chilli as much as they used to because of thesurprisingly high prices.
Le Xuan Man, Chairman of the Agricultural Services Corporative inYen Dinh district’s Dinh Lien commune, where chillies are a main crop, saidthat the price spike was real. He said the reason was that the chillysupply for both the domestic market and export to China was mainly from thesouth-central provinces.
This year, these provinces were heavily flooded, and their crops,including chillies, submerged and ruined. Thus, the price of freshchillies had been rising since October, he said.
Man also said the prices are not likely to decrease in the comingmonths.
The commune has about 40 hectares of fresh chilli at the moment.When they are harvested, big chillies will be sold for between 15,000-27,000VND per kilo, and small red hot chillies at 80,000-100,000 VND (3.2-4 USD) perkilo.
Le Thi Ha, farmer in Village No1, said that her family earns 16million VND (702 USD) from a sào (0.036ha) of chillies, notincluding extra costs like fertiliser and seedlings.-VNA
VNA
