How can both the "vegetable basket" and the "money bag" be filled?
Editor's Note
Vegetables are, apart from grain crops, the crop with the widest cultivated area and the most important economic status in our country, playing an important role in ensuring supply and promoting income growth. However, with the deepening of the structural reform of the agricultural supply side, the vegetable industry also faces a series of new changes and tests in structural adjustment, production standards and sales models. How can we steady the "vegetable basket" so that city residents can eat more satisfactorily and farmers can sell more smoothly? Let us walk into Sihong County, Jiangsu, and see how they develop the vegetable industry.
Dong Liang, Chen Bing, reporter for this newspaper
At 5 o'clock in the morning, when most people are still asleep, Liu Zheng, a vegetable farmer from Liude Residents' Committee in Sunyuan Town, Sihong County, Jiangsu, got up early and came to his own greenhouse, leveling the soil, applying organic fertilizer, spraying biological fungicide... In a few days, Liu Zheng's off-season Israeli tomatoes will be planted. "Good varieties plus scientific management will surely bring a good harvest."
In recent years, Sihong County, a major vegetable-producing county, has consolidated the development advantages of the vegetable industry and adjusted vegetable planting varieties in a timely manner according to market demand. So, how do they fill the "vegetable basket" of city residents while also plumping the "money bags" of farmers? The reporter walked into the vegetable fields to find out.
Ensuring quality and quantity for the market - strictly controlling pesticide residues at the source, covering seasonal and off-season vegetables across the industrial chain
"The tomatoes I grow, after planting, generally go on the market before the Spring Festival the following year, with a yield of about 30,000 jin per mu. Last year the wholesale price was 2 yuan per jin. Because they target the Spring Festival market, demand exceeds supply every year," Liu Zheng told the reporter.
In the vegetable base of Dasheng Village, Sunyuan Town, vegetable farmer Pan Daoyong is busy picking loofah, cucumber and other vegetables. "Summer is the peak period for vegetable consumption, and sometimes there is a summer shortage. I adjusted the crop rotation layout in advance and expanded the planting scale of seasonal summer vegetables. Loofah, cucumbers, green beans and others all sold at good prices," Pan Daoyong said.
Dong Zhengquan, deputy director of the Sihong County Agricultural Committee, said that Sihong County has a fruit and vegetable planting area of 650,000 mu, with rich varieties of seasonal and off-season vegetables, sufficient quantity and balanced market supply. The county attaches great importance to market information services for agricultural products. Vegetable farmers are becoming more and more scientific in arranging vegetable crop rotations, and the scale, standardization and industrialization levels of vegetable planting are increasing year by year. All of these have played an important supporting role in ensuring supply and increasing income.
"Food is the first necessity of the people. We must not only ensure there are enough vegetables, but also ensure the vegetables are good!" A relevant person in charge of the Sihong County Market Supervision Administration introduced that all 23 townships in the county have established agricultural product quality and safety supervision and management stations. A total of 390 township and village supervisors and assistant supervisors conduct irregular sampling inspections of vegetables in supermarkets, farmers' markets and vegetable bases within their jurisdictions. When problems are found, they are reported to the regulatory authorities as soon as possible, striving to ensure that vegetables on the market are safe and reliable.
"It was especially hot this summer, but the work of going to villages to take samples cannot be relaxed at all. Look, these are 6 kinds of vegetable samples just collected from the base!" Cui Feng, a staff member of the Agricultural Product Testing Station of Sunyuan Town, told the reporter as she walked toward the laboratory. Every month she rotates through 8 bases in the town to take points and samples, and after returning she tests each sample one by one. Agricultural residues are the most important indicator, and she does not dare be careless at all. After the test results come out, she immediately has to return to the base and fill in the test results on the inspection record form, for vegetable vendors from various places to read and refer to when purchasing vegetables.
According to Dong Zhengquan, deputy director of the Sihong County Agricultural Committee, at present, the county's certified pollution-free production area has reached 82,000 mu; there are 316 agricultural products under the "Three Products and One Standard," of which vegetable products account for more than 60%; vegetable sales outside the county account for more than 30% of total output.
Building brands to win the market - intensive planting brings economies of scale, and good quality brings a good reputation
"These peppers are really big, and there are so many on one plant!" "This is the new variety 'Moxiu No. 8' we introduced this year, that one is 'Sujiao 16', and in the greenhouse next to it is 'Sujiao 17'..." In the greenhouse of the vegetable base in Huaifeng Village, Sihe Township, Sihong County, Pang Kaoshan, a large vegetable grower, introduced them to the reporter as if counting his family treasures.
Led by Pang Kaoshan, farmers were organized to build a base and carry out intensive and large-scale vegetable planting. At present, they have a vegetable planting area of 2,200 mu and more than 800 steel-frame greenhouses. Pang Kaoshan himself contracted more than 1,800 mu of land, with 500 mu of vegetable planting, mainly growing peppers, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, zucchini and other vegetables.
When talking about the benefits of growing vegetables, Pang Kaoshan opened up. "For vegetables to sell well, the key lies in the brand and reputation. Our vegetables can sell well in Nanjing and Huai'an within the province, as well as markets in Mingguang, Chuzhou, Wuhe and other places in Anhui outside the province, all because of this," Pang Kaoshan said. We regularly invite experts to give everyone training. Planting technology is one part, and how to better build brand influence is also important content. Two days ago, the RT-Mart supermarket in Sihong County sent a special vehicle to the base to purchase vegetables. Everyone raced against time and rushed the work. In less than an hour, a truckload of vegetables was picked, sorted and boxed, and methods such as cooling with ice cubes were used to ensure the vegetables were fresh on the shelves, winning praise from the supermarket and the favor of consumers.
Just as he was speaking, Han Fuzhan, who is in charge of sales, had his mobile phone ring. The call was from Yancheng. The other party planned to purchase 15,000 jin of zucchini and asked whether a logistics vehicle could be contacted to ship as soon as possible. "Help contact a logistics vehicle, we can earn 500 yuan, sell him the zucchini at 5 mao per jin, net profit 3,000 yuan..." Without time to talk with the reporter in detail, Han Fuzhan turned around and began calling other vegetable farmers to arrange picking and logistics delivery.
Tang Zhaosong, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Sihe Township, introduced that at present, nearly 2,000 households and more than 4,100 farmers in the township are engaged in vegetable planting, with an area of 12,000 mu and a total output value of 144 million yuan. Farmers in the main vegetable-producing areas have an average annual net income of more than 3,000 yuan per mu. Villager Ma Xuanjun planted 10 mu of vegetables. In recent years, he has become prosperous by growing vegetables. He bought a 108-sq-m apartment in the farmers' concentrated residential area and paid the 150,000 yuan purchase price in one lump sum.
Venturing into the market both online and offline - large growers run around handling logistics, and opening online stores sets off a wave of e-commerce entrepreneurship
Unlike the large-scale base and large-grower operation in Huaifeng Village, vegetable planting in Xue'er Village, Sihe Township is mainly small-scale operation by farming households. The village's vegetable planting area is 2,500 mu, with more than 300 growing households, accounting for more than half of the village population. "There are as many as 18 vegetable varieties grown in the village year-round. Basically, whatever can be bought on the market, our village has," said Ma Yongbo, secretary of the village Party branch.
Vegetable grower Tang Leqing introduced that from March to June every year, vegetables come on the market in concentrated fashion, with many varieties and large volumes. Every day vehicles come to the fields to load goods. "I myself also often travel to surrounding markets such as Nanjing, Xuyi, Mingguang and Tianchang to transport my own vegetables there, and also help villagers sell part of theirs," Tang Leqing said.
While expanding traditional sales channels, vegetable farmers in Xue'er Village also use Taobao and postal e-commerce platforms to develop online sales. "There are also many individual online vegetable buyers. What is surprising is that this year, the county postal company also placed an order with us, booking 10,000 jin of green radishes for online sales. They can be planted on September 15," Ma Yongbo said. According to the current momentum of online sales, he is confident that before long Xue'er Village's vegetables can leave Sihong in large quantities and bring more income to more vegetable farmers through high quality and good prices.
According to a relevant person in charge of the Sihong County Commerce Bureau, in order to let more farmers learn to open online stores and create an atmosphere of clustered rural e-commerce development, since the beginning of this year the county has vigorously implemented the "Hundreds, Thousands, Tens of Thousands" e-commerce talent training project. Through various forms of online entrepreneurship training such as "universal coverage in every village" and "sending stores to the countryside," it guides college student village officials, family farm owners, business owners and others to join the upsurge of e-commerce entrepreneurship. In the first half of this year, the county trained a total of 15,000 person-times of various business entities, including farmers.
Zu Wenjing, a low-income farmer in Zuyao Village, Chenwei Township, became poor due to illness and fell into debt. Having lost the ability to work, he could only "huddle" at home. In June last year, Zhu Quanquan, a college student village official who had already initially mastered the essentials of online sales through training, visited him many times to guide him in online entrepreneurship and encourage him to open an online store to sell agricultural products. With Zhu Quanquan's help, Zu Wenjing's Taobao store kept upgrading, developing from a small store at the beginning to a star-rated store with monthly sales of more than 8,000 yuan now.