Contract chili peppers planted on 500 mu across 6 townships in Zhenba

"The single chili plant I grew last year was judged the town's 'Chili King', and the government rewarded me with 3,000 yuan. That one plant was as good as raising a big fat pig!" Talking about winning the town's "Chili King of the Year" last year, Qian Shunbing, who is nearly 60 years old, could not hide the joy and pride on his face. "Last year my family planted 2 mu of chili peppers. After deducting more than 1,000 yuan in costs, the net income was nearly 10,000 yuan."

Old Qian is a direct beneficiary of Zhenba County's efforts to leverage its resource advantages and adapt to local conditions by making "contract chili peppers" an effective way for farmers to increase income and become prosperous, exploring a chili pepper industrialization business model in which the market pulls the factory, the factory drives the base, and the base connects with farmers.

In recent years, Lifeng Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd. in Liba Township of the county successfully joined hands with the Chengdu Weidao Shijia Group of Sichuan to vigorously promote contract chili pepper cultivation in towns and villages suitable for chili pepper growth. Using the "company + cooperative + base + poor households" model, the Zifeng Chili Pepper Professional Cooperative, an enterprise affiliated with Lifeng Company, signs chili pepper cultivation and purchase contracts with growers and implements protective-price purchasing; the cooperative provides chili pepper growers with seedlings, fertilizer and other materials in a unified way, and by advancing funds early and deducting the costs after purchasing is completed, it allows chili pepper farmers to grow chili peppers "with a safety belt on", greatly increasing farmers' enthusiasm for developing the chili pepper industry to become prosperous.

At the same time, in order to ensure the sustained and healthy development of the chili pepper industry, the county integrated funds through multiple channels and provided financial subsidies and policy support to chili pepper growers; it set up a technical service team to provide technical guidance for chili pepper cultivation in all stages, including land preparation and fertilization, transplanting and planting, field management, and product purchasing, and adopted various training methods such as centralized training, production demonstrations and technical consultation during field management, training more than 2,000 farmer visits. It implemented filing and registration management for agricultural product quality and safety production, established an agricultural product quality and safety production management system, and carried out filing and registration management for the entire process of fertilization and pesticide use at the base to ensure the quality and safety of chili pepper products.

Up to now, the county has planted more than 5,000 mu of contract chili peppers in a standardized and regulated way across 6 townships, which will help more than 2,000 poor households increase income.