Small Apples Help Impoverished County onto the Road to Prosperity
Apples in an orchard in Jingning County. Photo by Zhong Qing, China News Service
Pingliang, September 22 (China News Service, Zhong Qing) - "Jingning apples are beautiful in appearance and taste great; there's simply no worry about selling them." Fruit farmer Yang Daodao could not praise his family's "small apples" enough, sharing his growing experience while handing freshly picked apples to the reporter to taste.
Do not underestimate these apples - they have helped Jingning County, a deeply impoverished area, get onto the "road to prosperity."
On September 21, a network media "zouzhuan gai" interview team arrived in Jingning County, Pingliang City. Jingning County is under the jurisdiction of Pingliang City, Gansu Province, west of Liupan Mountain and east of Huajialing. It is an important town on the middle route of the eastern section of the ancient Silk Road and has long been known as the "West Gate of Pingliang." Due to an arid climate and a lack of agricultural technology, Jingning County is also a national key county for poverty alleviation and development and one of the deeply impoverished areas in the Liupan Mountain region.
According to official data, farming remains the main livelihood on which the people of Jingning depend for survival. Jingning County has a total population of 487,800, of whom 449,000 are rural residents, accounting for more than 90 percent. In the eyes of fruit farmer Yang Daodao, the rapid development of the apple industry has let villagers taste considerable benefits.
"The apple industry is Jingning's label. You can grow them yourself for outside sales, and you can also open a picking garden to increase income - two gains at once." Yang Daodao began growing apples in 1989, and it has now been 28 years. Through continuous exploration, his apple cultivation techniques and planting scale have become quite substantial. "My family has 6 mu of land planted with apples. Over a year, net income can reach sixty or seventy thousand yuan. The family has just bought a car."
China News Service reporters noticed that Yang Daodao's orchard is a bit different from others: the apples on the trees are covered with small bags, and reflective film is laid on the ground. What is this for?
"The small bags are a special cultivation technique for Jingning apples. After bagging, they can also prevent pests and diseases; the reflective film makes the apples color better and look more beautiful," Yang Daodao said. When the technique was first promoted, the bags were subsidized by the government, simply to reduce the burden on fruit farmers and increase their enthusiasm for planting.
In fact, Jingning is already one of the national apple advantageous production areas designated by the Ministry of Agriculture. After more than 30 consecutive years of development of the fruit industry, the total orchard area has reached 1.012 million mu, making it the top county in the country for large-scale apple cultivation. In 2015, total fruit output was 680,000 tons, with an output value of 2.5 billion yuan.
In appearance, Jingning apples have a somewhat "matte" complexion rather than being bright and alluring, but their taste is extremely crisp. Walking among the fruit trees, the reporter found that some apples had also been affixed with stickers bearing words such as "Merry Christmas" and "Together Until White Hair Forever."
Yang Daodao revealed that this contains their little "business secret": "The words on the stickers are black, blocking sunlight. Because the parts with words get insufficient light, their color is lighter than other areas. Sticking them on 4 or 5 days before picking achieves the effect. Apples printed with blessing words are sold by the piece, and one can sell for 10 yuan, while ordinary apples sell for 2-4 yuan per jin." (End)