What is the brand of Zepu red dates? Introduction to local red date brands

A few days ago, my friend Xiao Du said the red dates were ripe and invited me to visit their red date orchard in Saili Township, Zepu County. When Xiao Du's 60 mu of red date orchard came into view, the beautiful scene made everyone in our group exclaim "Wow!" at once, with red dates hanging from the branches, almost as far as the eye could see. "Xiao Du, you've made it big this year!" I said excitedly. But Xiao Du's answer was beyond my expectation: "I've been growing red dates for 8 years and haven't made much money, because the scale is small, I don't have my own brand, and the products aren't carefully selected and graded. Every year, buyers from the interior buy them all up in one lot at an extremely low price."

Xiao Du's helplessness is also the helplessness of many small farmers in southern Xinjiang. Small-batch agricultural production, primitive processing, and extensive sales mean that after hard investment, there are good products but no good prices.

No wonder. To be honest, today is an era where appearance rules. When buying things, people also look at appearance and recognize brands. Haven't you seen that the currently hot website "Moupinhui" follows exactly the route of brand flash sales? Even out-of-season goods sell very well, because what consumers recognize is the brand. In a sense, a brand is the guarantee of quality. Without a brand and without brand promotion, especially for agricultural products, wanting to leave the place of origin and sell to the national or world market is extremely difficult. Just think, as a consumer, among the dazzling array of goods in a supermarket and among the thousands upon thousands of sellers on Taobao, how do you identify high-quality goods? At first, you look at the brand. Thinking this way, the experiences of small farmers like Xiao Du in remote rural southern Xinjiang can also be understood.

For a long time, we felt that cultivating product brands was the enterprise's own business. However, to build truly influential major agricultural product brands, relying only on the strength of farmers, agricultural cooperatives, or a single enterprise is clearly difficult to achieve. In cultivating agricultural product brands, the government needs to "help them onto the horse and then accompany them a little farther." Therefore, the government's role cannot be absent. Vigorously cultivating and strengthening agricultural product brands is not only a strategic choice for enhancing the market competitive advantage of agricultural products and advancing agricultural industrialization and modern agricultural development, but also the only way to promote farmers' income growth and prosperity. The government can provide more assistance in policy guidance, industrial development, financial support, project support, management services, and other aspects of agricultural product brand cultivation.

Zepu County relies on developing the forest and fruit industry to drive farmers' income growth. At the same time, it promotes the red date brand through activities such as holding a red date festival and certifying itself as "China's largest county for organic red date planting area."

But these alone are not enough. What is the brand of Zepu red dates? Most people in Kashgar Prefecture do not know. How can the red dates of "China's largest county for organic red date planting area" be cultivated into a famous brand known nationwide like "Aksu" apples and become a pillar for farmers to increase and create income? That is a huge project, requiring the strength of the entire county to cultivate its own flagship brand.

Kashgar Prefecture does not lack good agricultural products, and large-scale raw material production bases have basically taken shape, but it lacks resounding agricultural product brands. It is understood that Kashgar Prefecture has now formed characteristic forest and fruit industries accounting for 1/6 of Xinjiang's total forest and fruit area, with output exceeding 1.7 million tons. "Hometown of Walnuts" Yecheng, "Hometown of Jiashi Melons" Jiashi, "Hometown of Almonds" Shache, "Hometown of Organic Red Dates" Zepu, and others are already famous at home and abroad. The conditions for cultivating good brands have long been mature, and the prototype of brands is ready to emerge. What is urgently needed now is to establish a mechanism for the government, farmers, agricultural cooperatives, and enterprises to jointly cultivate and strengthen agricultural product brands, establish the awareness of jointly creating and building major brands, and require enterprises in the same industry to form joint forces, using the strength of the entire county to jointly cultivate a truly renowned major brand.