My hometown is located in the remote mountainous area of eastern Yunnan, and it is really at the end of its tether. Limited by the local natural environment, the mountain is high and the road is far, the land is barren, and there are no geological resources to develop, so the economic situation has been relatively bad. Most young people have gone out to make a living, and the main income of those who stay at home to farm is to grow flue-cured tobacco, which is the only crop that can earn some hard money even if it is desperate. Other food crops, such as corn and wheat, can't earn hard money under the current price conditions. Although most families still insist on sowing these food crops, their main purpose is to plant fat and thin fields in different seasons, hoping that tobacco leaves will grow better next year. Of course, there is another reason. Rural people are restless and don't seem to feel that they should have a rest and stop. This has nothing to do with wealth. And this long time is the season of picking and baking flue-cured tobacco, the hardest time of the year!
I have a deep understanding of the hardships of tobacco farmers. There are three brothers and sisters in my family, and I am the boss. Since childhood, it is natural to share more burdens for parents. When picking roasted flue-cured tobacco, whether it is hot, windy or rainy, you should pick leaves in the field for half a day. On rainy days, shoes and trouser legs are as muddy as if they had just climbed from a mud pond, and mud can be thrown into the stomach when picking tobacco leaves (tobacco leaves near the ground). The intermittent rain dripped on the cheeks through the tobacco leaves, and the eyes, nose and mouth were not affected. The taste is bitter and spicy, which makes people blind. If it rains a little harder, there will be water in your crotch, which will save you from taking a bath. Hehe ... The sunny day is stuffy and hot, mixed with pungent pesticide smell, extremely toxic, and your hands are covered with sticky smoke oil, which is particularly uncomfortable and can't be washed off. At that time, I was most afraid of picking tobacco leaves in the afternoon. I am sunburned and stuffy, and I am in poor health. I was poisoned by smoke. I feel dizzy and want to vomit. If leaves are picked in the morning, clothes and shoes can be wetted by dew in less than ten minutes in summer morning, and tobacco farmers have to wear wet clothes to pick cigarettes from the whole field, so many tobacco farmers suffer from rheumatism and arthritis at a young age. Picking tobacco leaves is a day's work, and you can't be idle at night. After the dried tobacco leaves are softened, they should be removed from the stems in time for preliminary classification, tied into small bundles and packed and piled up. These jobs are mainly done by my mother, and I can help occasionally. Many times, if my mother doesn't do well, I will be happy to be idle and go to bed early. The hardest part is my father. Every night, even if I don't pick up tobacco leaves all night, it's hard to sleep. The three small curing barns all burn coal, and the firepower is adjusted according to the color and moisture of the tobacco leaves in each curing barn. If there is a barn that has just been filled with live tobacco leaves, I go to see it almost once every hour or two. I spend most of the day going back and forth between the three barns, and the distance between the barns is broken. Every time I lose 10 kilograms this season, my figure is getting thinner and thinner.
? Well baked, well sold. Although most of them are purchased by tobacco companies at fixed prices, the grading of tobacco quality fluctuates greatly, and the evaluation criteria for each round of purchase will be different. Generally, the more strict the classification is, the harder it is to sell a good price. Therefore, when the tobacco station opened its doors for purchase, many people stayed up almost all night, in order to sort and package the dried tobacco leaves in time to catch up with this round of purchase and sell them at a good price. Whenever my family sells cigarettes a few days ago, my mother is always too busy to eat, so she smokes a few mouthfuls in a small tile house with dried tobacco leaves and then gets busy. It's bad to sell cigarettes at the purchasing station. A family that sells well feels very happy and hasn't worked hard for such a long time. If it doesn't sell well, it's urgent to tear up those turtles and grandchildren at the tobacco station. However, people have no choice but to gnash their teeth, and farmers are still vulnerable groups in the hands of others. When I was young, I went to sell tobacco leaves with my parents. Before dawn, I drove the ox cart and pulled bundles of dried tobacco leaves to the tobacco purchasing station in the town. I thought my home was early enough, and I didn't know until I got to the smoke station that there was no earliest but earlier. There are more than a dozen villages, and every family is dried tobacco leaves. And everyone is waiting until the village cadres and turtle sons have finished eating and drinking before opening the door. With luck, it will be sold smoothly on the same day. If you are unlucky, for example, there is a leader at the tobacco station to check, the stationmaster is too careful in the abnormal inspection that day, or someone fights with the people at the tobacco station, and so on. Then you may have to spend the night at the tobacco station and sell it tomorrow. And my task is to see that my cows and cigarettes are not taken away. As a reward, I may get a moon cake after selling tobacco leaves (the tobacco station is seriously damaged and the tobacco harvest season is near August 15, so I will make up for the change with moon cakes when paying the bill for tobacco farmers and make another profit). Of course, you can't just have your brother and sister, and the old moon cakes in your hometown are bigger, with a diameter of 14 and 15 cm, and they are filled with peanuts or red bean paste, but only enough for your brother and sister to satisfy their hunger. You may also get a financial reward from your parents, throw a bowl of rice noodles at a roadside stall, Super enjoy ................................................................................................................................................... may have nothing at all. How can my parents care about me if they are unhappy because the tobacco leaves are not sold well?
In fact, compared with many people, I am lucky. Because my younger brothers and sisters are young, before I was six or seven years old, I was able to take care of them at home in the morning instead of picking tobacco leaves at an early age. When I was in junior high school and senior high school, I had to stay in school to make up lessons every summer vacation, but fewer people picked up tobacco leaves. It's a university. I go home to help every summer vacation. At that time, I never dared to stay at school on holiday, so I had to go home to help. Many people say, why not work at school can also reduce my family burden. Yes, I can take advantage of the holiday to work as a temporary worker at school to reduce the burden on my family, but if I don't go home, my parents will be busier and more tired, because no matter whether I go back or not, there are so many tobacco leaves planted at home every year, and if I can at least share some, they won't be so tired. I have seen many farm children who are not as high as cigarettes, and went out with their parents to pick tobacco leaves very early. In the early morning, the dark green tobacco field is covered with a thin blue fog. They are small and weak, covered with simple waterproof plastic paper, and their eyebrows are wet with dew. Small hands soaked in dew hold a small stack of freshly cut tobacco leaves and shuttle back and forth barefoot in the field. There is nothing to complain about taking on housework early at an age when you should be lazy and have fun. The same people have different lives!
Farmers who are not bitter are satisfied with a good harvest after a hard year. In fact, what tobacco farmers are most afraid of is white rain, which is the final sale of tobacco leaves. A white rain can ruin a year's hope. Many people rely on this crop of tobacco leaves to cure diseases, build houses and educate their children. If almost all the good tobacco leaves are folded in the ground during the picking and baking season, they will be in debt for a year's hard work, because most of the early investment in chemical fertilizers and pesticide films is on credit at cigarette stations, and they don't know how to spend so much money. Every night when it thunders and rains, my mother always can't sleep at night. Woke up the next day, she rushed to the field to see if the tobacco leaves had been wet by the white rain and blown off by the wind. A few years ago, my mother cried in a tobacco field destroyed by natural disasters, and I didn't quite understand it at that time. I comforted her until I got married and paid the mortgage, car loan and all kinds of expenses every month after the baby was born, and she cried. I don't understand how helpless and sad she was. Just a few words to comfort her? In a lucky year, the yield and quality of tobacco leaves are preserved, and we have to pray that we can sell them all at a good price. Whether it rains in vain depends on whether God feeds this mouth or not, and the sales situation depends more on the tobacco company's acquisition policy and the government's control over black market acquisition. In the past few years, in order to get rid of poverty quickly and get rich, farmers were encouraged to plant tobacco companies on a large scale, which led to the accumulation of dry tobacco leaves for many years. Now, the whole country is promoting smoking cessation. In the situation that the market demand may continue to decline due to excessive inventory, the number of contract purchases issued by tobacco companies to households every year has dropped sharply, and it is almost impossible to make money without planting. If the planting contract is sold out, the cigarette station will not accept it. The most painful thing is that cigarette stations will not be allowed to go public unless they collect them themselves. Well, there are a lot of tricks in it, so I won't say much.
In recent years, the climate has become more and more unpredictable, and the laws of solar terms that have lasted for thousands of years no longer seem to apply. Who did this is unknown, and the most injured are the farmers who have lived on the sky for generations. But if you have a choice, who wants to face the loess all your life? The rainy season is even more inconvenient for city people, but it may be related to the livelihood of rural people for one year. Whether it is planting mulberry, rice, vegetables or cigarettes, drought or waterlogging will not do. Pray for good weather! No one is easy, farmers are the hardest!