8 September
CONSTANT and continual rain is pouring down, while motor vehicles and four wheels cargo loader trailers (Htaw Lar Gyi is a vehicle normally seen in many villages of rural Myanmar) are moving in and out on the rosy and reddish roads at the village entrance.
Surrounding the straightforward and simple “Twon Tee Village”, various types of cargo trucks are loading pineapples (Ananas comosus) of multiple sizes including ripe ones as well as unripe fruits everyday during the crop season.
Time is right and ripe for harvesting pineapples in the whole areas where “Yin Kya” ethnic people are residing in vast and sprawling locality such as Nam San Township, Loi Lem District in Southern Shan State.
Pineapples grown from “Twon Tee Village” and “Loi Sai Village” are tasty and mouth watering and above all most popular among the fruit lovers. It is happy to note that the “Yin Kya” ethnic people are generating incomes out of pineapple cultivation and keeping the family in comfort with good successful livelihood.
Embracing the good news, I started my journey to “Twon Tee Village” in witnessing the development in person.
The ethnic people under referral are residing in Nam San Township, Loi Lem District in Shan State (South). Two different ethnic peoples namely “Yin Kya” and “Yin Net” are living peacefully in the areas. “Yin Kya” ethnic people are residing in harmony at “Twon Tee Village” of Nan Lip Village Tract, six miles away from Nam San Township.
The origin of “Twon Tee Village”
“Twon” means “tree” in Shan language, while “Tee” stands out as a given name for a kind of tree.
For years immemorial, when the village started to conceive, the area was seen with profuse “Tee” trees spreading vastly in the environment. Quite natural, the evolving village was named.
“Twon Tee”, through nice and easy term, according to village headman through oral tradition, without any written records.
“Yin Kya” ethnic people and “Yin Net” ethnic people are customarily and consistently mixing up their own tribal language with Shan major language in communicating among themselves for centuries.
Main cultivation is pineapple in conjunction with paddy, corn and ginger in the respective crop seasons throughout the year.
Harvesting time for pineapples is the season for brisk business for the cultivators, beginning to reap cash in the month of June. Pineapples are abundant during the month of July, and the trading is brisk and quick but with lesser price tags on the fruits. The months of August and September are seen flooding with pineapples.
Once rooted and planted, suckers will flower and produce fruit in 12 months. Rooted crowns will take 18 months to form fruit. For Yin Kya pineapples, the main fruiting season is from Myanmar month (Tawtalin) September, according to Village Administrator and cultivator U P. Maung.
Pineapples are grown on normal natural land by using cow dung, also known as cow pats, cow pies or cow manure, which is the waste product of bovine animal species. These species include domestic cattle (“cows”). Nine small truck load of cow dung is spread on one acre of land through one foot deep drain or gutter system. Each pineapple tree or plant is separated about four feet apart, according to U P. Maung.
As the pineapple trees grow, the space squeezed in and the trees touch each other.
By nature, the pineapple trees prefer abundant rains, and they grow tall in full without glitches. However, the trees could not endure extreme sun as they tend to wane and withered to an unappealing shape.
Weeding is necessary at least for five times. It is the process to remove out the weeds. Weeds are unwanted plants which grown along the useful crops. Weeding is required because weeds are competitive plants as they reduce the useful crop yield by acquiring space, fertilizers and nutrients from the soil.
Pineapples are fairly slow growing plants. From slips they take about five months to mature enough to form a flower for fruit. After forming flower, it became reddish. Once they flower, then it takes another 6 months for the fruit to mature, according to U P. Maung.
In “Yin Kya” dialect, the pineapple fruit is called “Mut Kyein”, citing “Mut” as “fruit” and “Kyein” as “pineapple”. Coincidentally, it is same as Shan language.
“When I have started cultivation of pineapple trees in 2010, I could fetch MMK 30 to MMK 40 on each pineapple fruit. When the time is off for the fruits, I got MMK 100 for each pineapple,” according to U P. Maung.
If and when the pineapple trees survive for three consecutive years, then it goes on bearing fruits for about ten years. Once cultivators invested in pineapple trees, the trees may stay along for ten long years.
Naturally, one acre of land brings in 7,500 pineapples. With the first harvest at the beginning of pineapple season, one fruit of pineapple fetches MMK 200 accumulating MMK 5, 00,000 for that year. The following second year brings in MMK 8, 00,000, and that the third year, hopefully, benefited with MMK 10, 00,000 for the delight of the cultivators.
As the income generation is gradually elevated year by year in the field of pineapple cultivation, the “Yin Kya” ethnic people of “Twon Tee Village” are living in comfort with the socio-economic development, according to Village Administrator (formerly known as Village Headman) U P. Maung.
Crossing the timeframe of the first year, the second year and the third year, and then the fourth year bangs for one’s buck with abundant yield of pineapples for sales. In later years, the pineapple yield wane and wilt and the size of fruits shrink. Nature calls for new cycle of fresh cultivation of the pineapples trees.
“Twon Tee” pineapple market for this year
With a broad smile, the Village Administrator said “This year in 2019, we started selling at MMK 400 for each pineapple at the opening season. Locally we named honey pineapple or jade pineapple with different sizes. Small one fetches MMK 500, while the medium one sells at MMK 700 to 750. The price tag of the large pineapple is MMK 1,000 each.”
Points of difference between honey pineapple and normal pineapple
Method and manner of cultivation is the same old treatment along with the identical nurturing system in the fields. A point of difference is just simple that brings in sour taste and sweet taste to the fruits.
The variety of the planted pineapple is the same, but the tastes of fruits differ on the basis of fertilizers that the cultivators used in the feeding. It is just a matter of more percentage or less percentage in sweet and sour.
Sweet pineapple is called honey pineapple or jade pineapple, according to cultivators in “Twon Tee Village”.
One could never get hold of the honey pineapple trees at the start of the fresh cultivation. The cultivator has to wait for certain years to catch up with honey pineapple trees. Nature personified as a creative and controlling force affecting the world and humans.
Survey shows that more cow dung in the field is the basic of sweeter pineapple, with the price tag of MMK 100,000 for one load of manure on four wheels cargo loader trailers.
“Twon Tee” pineapple market
Motor vehicles and motor trucks from Meiktila district, Shan State (North), Shan State (South) roll into “Twon Tee Village” and park at the edge of the harvesting farms, and buy pineapples.
Interesting point is that the pineapple growers from “Twon Tee Village” themselves sit behind the steering wheels and drive fast to the nearest townships in the areas of Taunggyi, Loi Lem, Linkhay, Mong Nai, Mawkmai, selling organic pineapples.
“Twon Tee Village” in the “Nam Lip Village Tract”, simple and typical landscape, accommodates “Yin Kya” ethnic people. It is located in Nam San Township near the Union Highway of Taunggyi, Loi Lem, Nam Sam, Keng Tung, Tachi Lek, exactly on the motor-way of Nam Sam, High Fat, Mong Nai path on the drive of Eucalypts Uphill.
I have been there myself to some pineapple farms on a survey to write this article.
In conclusion, at least I could mention with much gladness, “Pineapple cultivation brings income generation for the comfort of family members through manageable scale uplifting the socio-economic conditions of the Yin Kya ethnic people residing at the Twon Tee Village of Nam San Township in Loilem District of Southern Shan State.”
Constant and continuous rain drops are falling in the whole area. It can symbolize a good thing coming after a hard work or it can just mean the washing away of the shortages and then growing something much better.
Over the years, things are moving for better as the pineapple cultivators are busy in counting cash and the noises of the fourwheel drive transport vehicles are ready to roll back to do brisk business at the nearest markets.
Translated by UMT (Ahlon)
