Sichuan Wenchuan Sichuan pepper harvest: pickers earn 120 yuan a day
August is the prime season for Wenchuan pepper growers to pick Sichuan pepper. Walking into the Qiang village of Damen Village, Longxi Township, Wenchuan County, one sees Sichuan pepper trees covering the hillsides, their branches laden with berries like agate, and beneath the trees the villagers' hands move without pause as they focus on picking the peppers.
Villager Yuan Zhilong is a major Sichuan pepper grower in Damen Village, and over the years he has prospered by growing the crop. In the pepper grove, Yuan Zhilong picked peppers while explaining that his family has grown Sichuan pepper for more than 30 years and has nearly 10 mu of pepper fields. To harvest the peppers in time, he hired nearly 10 villagers to help. "This year's fresh pepper output is expected to be 5,000 jin, and dried pepper can reach 1,200 jin. Calculated at 60 yuan per jin for dried pepper, after deducting more than 15,000 yuan in labor costs, he can still earn about 57,000 yuan." Yuan Zhilong told this writer that with this year's bumper pepper harvest, even the lowest-earning pepper-growing household in the village will make more than 8,000 yuan.
Every year around August, villagers from surrounding townships such as Yanmen and Miansi come to pepper-producing areas like Longxi to work, helping pick Sichuan pepper. In Damen Village, this writer met Zhao Guozhi, a pepper picker from Baishui Village, Yanmen Township, Wenchuan County. "This is the slack farming season, and I came to Damen Village to pick Sichuan pepper to earn some money to supplement the household income. This year, several dozen fellow villagers from my village came with me to Damen Village to pick Sichuan pepper," she said. "For the past few years we have come from Yanmen to pick Sichuan pepper. Picking a jin of fresh pepper earns 3 yuan; one person picks more than 40 jin a day and can earn about 120 yuan. The local fresh pepper picking season lasts more than 20 days, so one can earn more than 2,000 yuan."
In recent years, with strong support from Party committees and governments at all levels, Damen Village has vigorously developed industries such as specialty Sichuan pepper, green and red crisp plums, and vegetables. The whole village grows more than 400 mu of Sichuan pepper, and this year's dried pepper output is expected to reach more than 20,000 jin, with income reaching more than 1.2 million yuan. Wenchuan's Sichuan pepper cultivation is mainly distributed across townships such as Longxi, Keku, Yanmen and Weizhou, with a countywide planting area of more than 3,200 mu. This year the county's Sichuan pepper output is expected to reach 70-plus tons, with total output value expected to exceed 7 million yuan.
Yang Guangfu