The author | Liu Sijie
Edited | Fiss
The freight corridor from Myanmar to the Chinese customs clearance port has been closed for four months because of the epidemic and the situation in Myanmar.
Wang Nan, a banana farmer who grows bananas in northern Myanmar, is anxiously waiting for the gate to open. In October, it is time for the banana orchards to harvest one after another. Because the gate was closed, he had lost two trailers totaling more than fifty tons of bananas, and was expected to be more than one hundred thousand yuan. Because they could not get out of the customs, the bananas walked at the pass and were pulled back to the banana garden, and they had no choice but to distribute them to the local workers.
Wang Nan dragged home some of the bananas that could not be passed out and kept them for himself to eat
Wang Nan leased two hundred acres of land in Myanmar, which is not a large scale. The larger banana orchards are facing greater losses, Zhang Gaoli's bananas have been ripening since the end of September, and more than a hundred truckloads of bananas have been placed in the cold storage for a month, and now they can only be dumped.
Every year from October to May of the following year, it is the peak season for banana production, and I watch as the bananas in each banana orchard are ripe one after another. If the gate is delayed, more bananas will rot in the ground, and the banana farmer's efforts for a year will be ruined.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="12" > Myanmar's "gold rush" in exchange for annual losses</h1>
Wang Nan came to Myanmar in 2018, when he was still single in his forties, and a friend advised him to let him go to Myanmar to break in, "There are few men over there, and it is easy to find a daughter-in-law." Wang Nan was moved and came to Myanmar alone.
When he came to Myanmar, his daughter-in-law did say that he had found a woman who was nine years younger than him, and now the child was more than a year old. At first, Wang Nan only worked under the Chinese boss, and in order to support his family, he began to start a business. Many Chinese around him were planting bananas, so he borrowed 700,000 to 800,000 yuan from relatives and friends, rented more than 200 acres of land, and planted bananas.
Zhang Le once planted bananas in The Xishuangbanna area of China, but because of the serious situation of yellow leaf disease grown in China, in 2018, Zhang Le also came to northern Myanmar with his wife and contracted more than 900 acres of land under the company.
Large-scale banana cultivation in Myanmar began in 2006. At that time, in the context of multinational cooperation and joint drug control, China actively promoted the implementation of a large-scale opium poppy replacement planting plan in the border area between China and Myanmar. According to Myanmar's climatic characteristics, tropical cash crops such as rubber and bananas have become the first choice for alternative cultivation.
In August 2006, The State Council of the People's Republic of China issued an instruction explicitly encouraging Chinese enterprises to carry out alternative cultivation and develop alternative industries in Myanmar. Coupled with the lack of domestic plantable land resources and the rise in planting costs, domestic banana farmers have gone to Myanmar to open banana orchards.
Banana cultivation in Myanmar is concentrated in the northern region of Myanmar, where land is leased mainly by Chinese companies. Individuals who then lease land from these enterprises are equivalent to attaching their banana orchards to these enterprises. According to the scale and geographical location of the leased land, the rent per mu of land ranges from about 500 to 1,000 yuan a year.
According to the Report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Myanmar exported 0.44 million tons of bananas to China for the first time in 2008, and by 2018, the annual export volume has reached 102,200 tons, accounting for about 6.62% of China's banana imports in 2018, becoming the fourth largest banana exporter to China after the Philippines, Ecuador and Vietnam.
Zhao Min's younger brother was one of the first farmers to go to Myanmar to grow bananas, and when his brother earned money, he encouraged Zhao Min's family to also go to Myanmar to "pan for gold". Zhao Min's family, who have no experience in planting, came to Myanmar in 2018 under the leadership of their younger brother.
Life in Myanmar is difficult and earning money is not as easy as it seems. The upfront investment in the planting industry is huge, and it often takes several years to recover the cost. The land contracted by Zhang Le is still a primitive forest, and he needs to hire someone to open up the wasteland, and the investment in the first year to build a banana garden is 5 million yuan.
Fertilizer, pesticides, wages of Burmese workers, land rent, Zhao Min told reporters, these are calculated, the cost of a banana is more than 40 yuan. After ripening, a banana plant is about 20 kilograms, which means that a kilogram of bananas should be sold at a price higher than two yuan, so that banana farmers will not lose money.
In March this year, Su Yue, who bought Burmese bananas at the Tengchong Monkey Bridge Pass and sold them to the domestic market, lost a lot of money, when domestic merchants depressed the price, and the price could only sell for 1.2 yuan per kilogram. Zhang Gaoli, who has been in Myanmar for four years, is losing money every year, thinking that he may be able to earn it back this year, but he did not think of sealing the customs, and saw that the loss was more serious than in previous years.
Zhang Le estimates that about three-quarters of banana farmers have left Myanmar because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Those who remain in Myanmar are betting on this year's market. Zhang Le originally contracted more than 900 acres of land, affected by the epidemic this year, there are only more than 500 acres left, according to this year's market, it was supposed to make money, but the pass was delayed, "and it is going to lose again." ”
The bananas hanging from the trees were ripe and could only rot in the ground
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="65" > bananas are not only gambling money, but also gambling on life</h1>
2020 is the first year of Harvest in Li Baolin's banana orchard. At that time, it was sealed for a month, and although it was switched on and off later, due to epidemic prevention and control, the number of vehicles passing through the customs was limited to dozens of vehicles per day, and under normal circumstances, the customs gate could pass hundreds of vehicles per day.
Su Yue said that only by guaranteeing three hundred cars a day at the pass, the bananas in Myanmar's banana orchards will not accumulate. Because of the restrictions on the pass, the banana is not smooth, in 2020, Li Baolin lost three million yuan, and the bananas all rotted in the ground.
Bananas that have not been shipped out of customs can only be thrown away with the box
Even before the epidemic, there were times when the banana was not smooth, sometimes the road was broken, and sometimes the gate was congested due to insufficient number of staff. For banana farmers, growing bananas in Myanmar has become a gamble. Sometimes it's even life that is gambled.
Burma is constantly at war, and banana farmers have not dealt with outsiders in banana orchards for a long time, but they are still affected by turmoil.
Zhao Min accompanied her husband to grow bananas in Myanmar, and in April this year, a group of people wearing camouflage costumes posing as "mountain soldiers" rushed into Zhao Min's residence at night, TV, refrigerator, and all the electrical furniture in the house that could be smashed by them. She and another female employee were taken up the hill by the gang, and the robbers touched her face and touched her hand again, because it was dark, and she was being teased as a little girl in her twenties.
Although they had handed over their only Burmese dollars equivalent to a few thousand yuan early, they were not released until five o'clock in the morning. After that night, Zhao Min made up his mind to return to China and returned to China in May, leaving her husband alone to continue guarding the banana garden.
If robbery is not uncommon, theft is commonplace, and almost every banana orchard has been stolen. It's the locals who steal things, not much each time, a battery, a cell phone, or a little cash.
Myanmar has a tropical monsoon climate, averaging more than 20 degrees Celsius throughout the year, and the summer temperature is relatively high compared to the country, and most banana farmers cannot adapt to such a climate environment. Zhao Min stayed there for a year and lost more than twenty pounds, and his skin became dark. Endure these pains in order to earn more than at home.
Many banana farmers have taken out loans to grow bananas, and Zhang Gaoli mortgaged all his own, taking out more than 10 million yuan in loans, but has been losing money for four years. This year, because the bananas could not go out, and lost more than ten million, Zhang Gaoli did not know how long he could hold out. Zhao Min's family has more than ten truckloads of bananas rotting in the ground this year, because the local Burmese workers can't get wages because they don't produce bananas, and the workers' emotions are also agitated, and they even raise their knives and threaten them to pay their wages quickly.
These days, banana farmers pass on news to each other in the group, where banana farmers have jumped off the building because they can't repay the loan, where banana farmers have drunk medicine, and more about when they can clear the customs.
Because he could not get out of the customs, he was cut down and left in the field
"Customs clearance on September 1", "Customs clearance on September 15", "Customs clearance on October 1", "Customs clearance on October 15", as soon as the news of customs clearance comes, the banana farmers will be excited for a while, but every time they wait for an empty joy.
The banana farmers elected representatives, found the Myanmar Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and the families of the banana farmers ran to report the situation to the commerce department of Yunnan Province, and everyone looked for a way out like headless flies. According to the requirements of the affiliated companies, banana farmers are vaccinated and tested for nucleic acid, but the delayed customs clearance date has almost lost hope.
(In order to protect the privacy of the interviewees, the characters in the article are pseudonyms)
【Copyright Notice】This copyright belongs to The Observatory, today's headlines have obtained the exclusive authorization of the information network dissemination right, and any third party shall not reprint it without permission.