Harvesting Peanuts In Isaan |
These are busy times along the back roads of Isaan. The monsoon rains have transformed the countryside. The rice paddies are verdant rectangular patches dotting the land. Farmers are still engaged in transplanting rice stalks from the nursery paddies to the paddies where the plants will mature and give rice kernels for harvesting in October.
Crop rotation is practiced here in Isaan and is a necessity due to poor soil conditions and lack of money for fertilizers or soil amendments. Dependent upon the time of cycle, the same piece of land is used to raise rice, cassava, sugar cane, and peanuts.
The sugar cane has undergone a rapid growth spurt due to the almost daily rains and is now as high as an elephant's eye. The cane will continue to mature until December when the annual sugar cane harvest will commence. In anticipation and in preparation for the upcoming harvest, the Kumphawapi Sugar Company is expanding and improving their truck staging area. Three years ago the area where loaded sugar cane trucks waited their turn to enter the refinery to be offloaded was a large dusty field with huge billows of choking red dust rising from the winds or passage of trucks. That area has now been paved over with concrete and surrounded with grass covered earthen berms to contain any run off as well as to restrict traffic.
Just down the road from the refinery entrance, the company is busy preparing the land to receive the huge amounts of organic waste from the sugar extraction process. The sickening sweet smelling black waste material is sold to local farmers who spread it on their land in an attempt to improve the soil.
Cassava plants have also experienced a rapid growth. Large trucks filled with cassava tubers are starting to travel along the back roads transporting the cassava harvest from the fields or interim gathering points to the processing facilities.
The heavy vehicle traffic from the sugar cane harvest earlier this year and the heavy monsoonal rains of the past four months are starting to have a deleterious effect on the local roads. Potholes and alligator-ed pavement are becoming more of a challenge when driving along the country roads. Typically the roads will remain or get worse until after the next sugar harvest when the roads will be repaired only to be repaired in two or three more years.
Roadside Stand Outside of Tahsang Village |
Duang Selecting Bag of Peanuts to Buy |
Removing Peanuts From the Bush |
Harvesting Peanuts |
Gathering In the Peanuts |
More Peanut Bushes to be Processed |
My Mom used to often admonish me with the question "Who do you think that you are, someone special?". Well, I know that I am not "special". I don't believe that anyone should consider themselves to be special. However, just about everyone is "interesting" and along the back roads of Isaan there are many of interesting places as well as things and plenty of interesting people.
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