How Suburban Agriculture Can Catch the Fast Track of Industrial Development
Dazhou City in Sichuan is a populous and major agricultural city in eastern Sichuan. As Tongchuan District, the central urban area of Dazhou, how to let townships and even rural villages ride the fast track of urban development, achieve urban-rural coordination, and stride together into all-round moderate prosperity has become an important topic.
For rural areas to ride the urban fast track, they must first start with suburban rural areas, then gradually radiate outward, and finally blossom everywhere. How to ride the fast track? That is, by developing urban agriculture, "serving the city and enriching the countryside."
Du Haiyang, Secretary of the Tongchuan District Party Committee, said: "Urban agriculture is a new type of industry, namely modern agriculture that relies on the city, serves the city, adapts to the city, and meets the various needs of urban people. Therefore, we must make full use of resources such as pastoral landscapes, agricultural facilities, farming culture, and rural life to promote the diversified development of suburban agriculture."
Since last year, Tongchuan District has been building an urban agriculture experience zone in Panshi Township and constructing a 10,000-mu Qinba Botanical Exposition Park in Pujia Town. Today, the vigorous construction is nurturing a new economic transformation.
A real-life replica of QQ Farm, where every season is harvest season
The once-popular QQ Farm allowed countless internet users to fully indulge their addiction to being farm owners in a virtual space, experiencing "a harvest for every effort." Now this virtual space will become reality in Changba Village, Panshi Township, Tongchuan District.
12 kilometers from Dazhou city, convenient transportation leads directly to the center of Changba Village. Here, the core area of the Panshi Urban Agriculture Experience Zone is being built, with a planned area of 3,500 mu. Through 5 years of construction, an experience zone of 14 square kilometers will ultimately be completed.
"Changba Village was chosen as the core area because it already has a foundation for leisure and sightseeing agriculture. In recent years, the strawberry picking festival has become increasingly popular. When the picking season arrives, convoys of cars from the city fill the narrow rural roads. Last year, the government had to allocate funds to widen the roads." A relevant leader of Panshi Township introduced.
The municipal and district party committees and governments seized the opportunity and were determined to cultivate and strengthen this seed of leisure and sightseeing agriculture. Thus, focusing on the melon and fruit industry, featuring picking agriculture, and developing various urban agriculture models such as adoption and hands-on experience became the core content of the experience zone.
"We will also offer two services: online vegetable planting and on-site experience," a relevant person from the construction command center introduced. "In the experience zone, we will designate plots in units of 10 square meters. Cameras will be installed in the park. After participants claim a planting plot, they can check the growth of vegetables and fruits and farming operations through the network at any time, and can also communicate with park staff online, and when necessary, come to the site to personally 'guide'."
What is most worth looking forward to is the construction of the "Strawberry Love" live-performance pastoral grand stage. A relevant person from the District Party Committee Propaganda Department introduced that the scenario drama integrates Ba people culture, folk culture, farming culture, and Baqu children's rhymes, eastern Sichuan folk songs, and Bayu dances into one, making the concept of "picking ecological strawberries, watching live performances, enjoying pastoral scenery, and experiencing farming culture" deeply rooted in people's hearts.
Integration of industry and village with demonstration-driven development, creating the city's "back garden"
22 kilometers north of Dazhou, there is a piece of "golden land." Three expressways - Dazhou-Shaanxi, Dazhou-Wanzhou, and Dazhou-Bazhong - pass through here, and it is adjacent to the planned and under-construction Weipu Industrial New City and the Agricultural Products Processing Concentration Zone. With convenient transportation and complete infrastructure, the industrial development potential is tremendous.
This piece of "golden land" is the industry-village integration demonstration area in Pujia Town, Tongchuan District. In the coming years, it will be built into the "Qinba Botanical Exposition Park" and the "Eastern Sichuan Rural Tourism Vacation and Sightseeing Park." Since the project was launched in May last year, two companies have been brought in to participate in construction. Currently, 5,130 mu of various flowers and nursery stock have been planted. The demonstration area has invested 135 million yuan and will invest another 800 million yuan, with plans to build 5 leisure-oriented residential settlements and 5 sightseeing-oriented tourist attractions.
Weixing Town, adjacent to Pujia Town, has received the "favor" of Tongchuan District's development layout in recent years. In October last year, Tongchuan District decided to build the Weipu Industrial New City, which not only links the two towns together but also drives the development of the remaining 9 townships. A few years later, this will become a satellite city in northern Dazhou with a built-up area of 10 square kilometers and an annual GDP of 40 billion yuan.
The Weipu Industrial New City has turned more than 10,000 mu of land in 12 administrative villages including Zhongmiao, Leyun, and Huamei in Pujia Town into an industry-village integration demonstration area. Li Jiaqiang, Secretary of the Pujia Town Party Committee, said that with this demonstration area as the core, the entire district will also develop 150,000 mu of flowers and nursery stock, of which 100,000 mu will be oil peonies, covering 8 townships.
It is understood that oil peonies not only have excellent ornamental value but also high economic value, with benefits per mu reaching tens of thousands of yuan. Planting oil peonies in large tracts can not only create beautiful landscapes for leisure, sightseeing, and rural tourism but also become the largest economic support for the park, thereby enriching the local people.
Urban agriculture must not only serve the city but also enrich the countryside
Jiao Weixia, Secretary of the Dazhou Municipal Party Committee, once visited several urban agriculture parks in Tongchuan District for research. Jiao Weixia stated that experience should be carefully summarized and continuously improved, and methods that are both lawful and compliant and recognized and welcomed by the people should be institutionalized. The results of rural land property rights system reform should be used to promote agricultural industrialization and enable farmers to live prosperous and happy lives.
Du Juhua, head of Group 8 of Changba Village, Panshi Township, said that although their village became prosperous long ago and 60% of the village's arable land has already been planted with various cash crops, they still very much welcome the construction of the Panshi Urban Agriculture Experience Zone. When Suchi Agriculture Co., Ltd., which is undertaking the project construction, transferred land, the villagers were very enthusiastic.
Similarly, in the villages involved in the industry-village integration demonstration area in Pujia Town, villagers' support for the project was also very high. The local government organized work teams to go door to door to mobilize for land transfer, encountering almost no resistance, and completing the transfer of thousands of mu of land in just one or two months.
"After land transfer, farmers can have fourfold returns," a relevant person from the Pujia Town government introduced. First, transfer fees are paid at 700 jin of rice per mu of paddy field and 350 jin of rice per mu of dry land, ensuring farmers' land income; second, the base has established a farmer technical training platform and a rotating employment mechanism, allowing farmers to work nearby; third, farmers can participate in tourism construction with assets as shares and obtain "dividends" from tourism development; fourth, the base will pilot and explore a new contract management mechanism, allowing farmers to participate in contract management.
"After land transfer, our income is much higher than when we farmed the land ourselves," said Wu Jinhua's family, a villager from Zhongmiao Village, Pujia Town. The construction cycle of the Botanical Exposition Park will be 3 to 5 years, and more and more villagers like Wu Jinhua will become prosperous locally. Chen Guangyuan, a villager from Huamei Village who returned from Guangdong, transferred out more than 5 mu of his family's land. He and his wife both became workers at the company, and in their spare time they can do some other business. Now their combined income from all sources is more than 6,000 yuan per month.