Handan's vegetable industry is showing encouraging development momentum

[Lead-in·China Vegetable Network]In the depths of winter, the reporter came to Yongnian County's ten-thousand-mu arched shed production base, where vegetable greenhouses stood neatly arranged, stretching out of sight. Opening a greenhouse at random, rows of fennel seedlings were a lovely green. During the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, our city's vegetable industry entered a fast track of development.

In the depths of winter, the reporter came to Yongnian County's ten-thousand-mu arched shed production base, where vegetable greenhouses stood neatly arranged, stretching out of sight. Opening a greenhouse at random, rows of fennel seedlings were a lovely green.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in our city's vegetable industry development.

Data from the city's agricultural department shows that during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, our city's vegetable industry entered a fast track of development and has become an important vehicle for continuously increasing farmers' incomes and for new-type urbanization, with its output value accounting for more than half of the planting industry. The vegetable industry has shifted from scale to high efficiency, from low-end to high-end, and from open-field to protected cultivation, with marked improvements in scale, intensification and protected cultivation. Preliminary statistics show that in 2015 the city's vegetable sown area reached more than 2.9 million mu, the protected vegetable area reached more than 1.9 million mu, total output reached more than 12 million tons, and output value reached more than 26 billion yuan.

Making the “vegetable garden” bigger and stronger

“Our industrial park has been designated by the Tianjin Kerun Cucumber Research Institute as a ‘new variety trial and demonstration base’, and the ‘Guanqing’ brand cucumber won a national gold award. Relying on the industrial park, we are turning the cucumber greenhouses into an experiential theme park, building infrastructure such as a cucumber museum, cucumber university, cucumber research institute, cucumber restaurant and cucumber beauty salon, as well as scenic spots such as an artists' tribe and a photography base. This lets farmers learn the latest cultivation knowledge while also letting tourists visit in person. At last year's seven-day National Day tour event, the number of visitors reached 50,000.” Speaking about the cucumber town being built with “rural charm and urban quality”, Wang Weiling, Party branch secretary of Zhaizhuang Village in Guantao County and chairman of Xingnong Vegetable Professional Cooperative, talked freely. The cucumber theme park is now under construction and will fully open this May Day; everyone is welcome to visit and taste the cucumber banquet.

According to reports, Zhaizhuang Village began growing cucumbers in the 1980s, from just a few households with twenty or thirty greenhouses at first to every household growing in greenhouses today. Zhaizhuang Village's Hebei Vegetable Industrial Park covers 960 mu, with cucumbers as the main planted variety. All of it uses intensive seedling cultivation, applies ecological cultivation techniques such as insect-proof nets, sticky insect boards, anti-fog drip film and high-temperature greenhouse sealing, introduces Internet of Things technology, achieves full coverage of integrated water and fertilizer management, and has built new movable plastic solar greenhouses and high-standard glass intelligent multi-span greenhouses. In the industrial park, cucumbers average 23,000 kg per mu, with an average output value of 54,324 yuan per mu, and the highest yield per mu reaches 31,800 kg; several model households with output value exceeding 70,000 yuan per mu have emerged. In 2014, Zhaizhuang Village won the title of “Hometown of Chinese Cucumbers”.