Vegetables from Wuwei, Gansu, are fragrant in overseas markets

After Qingming, spring plowing begins in the thousand-li Hexi Corridor along the Silk Road. Meng Zezhi, a "specialist" in agricultural exports, signed contracts with representatives of local farmer cooperatives to "stock up" for vegetable orders for the Central Asian market.

The contracts with the farmer cooperatives include, in addition to the number of mu of land and the purchase price, a requirement for the vegetables' "appearance": bell peppers must come in three colors, and the colors must be pure and not mixed; baby cucumbers must be about 7 cm long, not too long and not too bent.

Meng Zezhi, 50 years old this year, is the president of the Gansu Wuwei Agricultural Professional Cooperative Federation and has been in the vegetable distribution business for more than 20 years. After the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, he tried to take his business abroad, starting with the Central Asian market close to the Hexi Corridor.

Meng Zezhi found that vegetables such as bell peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes from his hometown have great market potential in Central Asian countries. When he first started doing export business two years ago, he also suffered "losses" because he was not clear enough about foreign standards.

"In the past, the bell peppers we grew could not be guaranteed to have pure colors, and their sizes and lengths varied. At the time we did not understand, and thought that as long as we delivered full weight to the customer, we would get the money we deserved." Meng Zezhi said that when it finally came time to deliver the goods, the customer was picky about the "appearance", and in the end they could only sell at a lower price.

Through many contacts with foreign customers, plus the "painful" experience of having prices pressed down, Meng Zezhi has now summed up a set of methods to ensure good "appearance" for vegetables: "In the past, one of our bell pepper seeds cost three or four fen; now they have all been switched to imported ones, and one seed costs 80 fen.

Holding a bag of seeds only the size of a palm but worth nearly a thousand yuan, Meng Zezhi did the accounts for the reporter: "In the past, each seed could only produce 1 kg of bell peppers; now it can produce more than 4 kg, and the selling price has also doubled compared with before."

Meng Zezhi brought in technical personnel to guide the farmers, and also compiled a planting manual, distributed it to the farmers, and set rules for the row spacing and plant spacing of the vegetables with an error of no more than two cm.

His approach won the approval and support of local farmers. Xu Ercai, a cooperative representative from Yanglu Village, Suwu Township, Minqin County, Wuwei City, signed a contract with Meng Zezhi this year for the cultivation of export vegetables in 100 greenhouses, and a preliminary estimate shows it can bring an average income of 60,000 yuan per household to the cooperative's hundred farmers. Xu Ercai said: "Although there are more things to worry about than before, we can earn more money, and our enthusiasm for planting is very high."