The fragrance of golden pears from Bandian fills the air, drawing merchants flocking in
“Old Wang? This is Old Zhang from Hefei. I've brought the truck, I'm right at the village entrance.” Recently, a medium-sized truck slowly drove into Weiling Village, Bandian Township, Runan County, Henan Province, and stopped beside a pear orchard at the village entrance. A man with an out-of-town accent got out while making a phone call, “Are the 200 boxes of golden pears I reserved yesterday ready? I've come to pick them up.”
Old Wang is Wang Quande, a major golden pear grower in Weiling Village. He is 54 this year and is a well-known fruit tree cultivation “local expert” in Weiling Village. He has been growing golden pears for 16 years, and his planting area has grown from 1 mu at the beginning to 12 mu now. Wang Quande is also the technical advisor and salesperson for the Weiling Village Golden Pear Planting Professional Cooperative, shouldering the daily management and sales responsibilities of Weiling Village's 1000-mu golden pear orchard.
Right now, with the autumn harvest in full swing, Bandian golden pears are entering the picking season one after another. Visitors who come to the Weiling Village pear orchard base to buy golden pears, experience rural fun, and taste the delicious fruit are arriving in an endless stream, and the golden pears are expected to be available continuously until around the Mid-Autumn Festival. “When the pears were only as big as a thumb, we started bagging them.” Wang Quande led Boss Zhang into one of the pear orchards, where the fruit growers were busy picking pears, packing them into boxes, and weighing them. Wang Quande casually picked a pear, peeled off the paper bag as he introduced it to Boss Zhang, “The bagged golden pears are very hygienic, not contaminated by any pesticides or dust, and can be eaten directly.”
Weiling Village is a specialized golden pear planting village in Bandian Township, and has now developed nearly 1000 mu of contiguous golden pears. To build a strong brand, Bandian Township adheres to the development theme of “green, ecological, healthy” and accelerates the building of the golden pear brand. In production, it insists on controlling the source to ensure quality, has established a golden pear planting professional cooperative, and guides fruit growers to manage strictly according to the standards of organic fruit and to fertilize scientifically. It then formally registered the “Bandian Golden Pear” trademark, and the brand value of Bandian golden pears has continued to rise.
Chu Lizhan, Party secretary of Weiling Village, said: “Golden pears have brought three major changes to our village. First, the environment has changed: broad cement roads have been built to the edges of the fields, reaching the doorsteps of the people, making travel convenient. Second, farmers' traditional planting concepts have changed: they are no longer satisfied with the traditional planting model of summer wheat and autumn corn. Third, farmers' incomes have increased: by switching to fruit trees, farmers' returns have risen substantially compared with simply growing grain crops before. Next, our village also plans to develop another 500-1000 mu of fruit forest.”