HÀ TĨNH — Farmers in central Hà Tĩnh Province are experiencing a hard time due to the poor harvest of peanuts and the low price of goober peas.

Phan Thị Lan, a farmer in the province’s Thạch Châu Commune, said she was able to harvest very few peanuts when she pulled out the plants. “We harvested 700kg of peanuts on this land plot from the previous year’s crop, but only 200kg from this crop,” she said.

Lan added that she had to sow seeds thrice this time for peanuts to sprout on the entire plot, which meant triple the investment.

Lê Quang Hùng, the commune’s deputy chairman said the commune’s productivity was reduced by almost half on the 240ha used to grow peanuts compared with the 2016 crop.

A lean peanut crop also occurred in other communes and districts around Hà Tĩnh. A report by the local Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection said the yield was 200kg lower per hectare than the previous crop on a total of 14,000ha of land used to grow peanuts in the province.

The report also said some places in the coastal districts of Lộc Hà, Thạch Hà and Kỳ Anh experienced zero harvest as they were low-lying and were flooded due to unexpected heavy rainfall.

Meanwhile, the price of peanuts in the Hà Tĩnh market plunged drastically. One kilogramme of peanuts that cost VNĐ25,000 (some US$1.1) last year dropped to VNĐ15,000 ($0.7) this year.

The price is expected to drop lower as harvested peanuts piled up at farmers’ homes but no traders came to purchase them.

“Despite the low price, my peanuts have been lying for a week but no traders have come yet,” Nguyễn Thị Long, a farmer in Thạch Châu Commune, said.

Other farmers experienced a similar situation. All were concerned about incurring heavy losses as the harvested peanuts seem to be lighter than those harvested from previous crops.

The piles of peanuts lying at homes make the lives of locals during hot summer become harder due to dust and heat. At the same time, the drier the peanuts get, the greater the loss for farmers as the weight is reduced. — VNS