Heilongjiang cooperatives join forces to open up the entire industrial chain
In the season when peas ripen, at the planting base of the Kunfeng Modern Agricultural Machinery Cooperative in Keshan County, Heilongjiang Province, farmers are busy harvesting peas. "This year, according to the order placed by Changming United Cooperative, the cooperative planted 1,500 mu of New Zealand sweet peas, with a net benefit of about 1,000 yuan per mu. After the peas are harvested, a second crop of Chinese cabbage can be planted, bringing in another more than 500 yuan per mu. Planting Chinese cabbage after peas is much better than growing large corn before." said Meng Deli, chairman of the Kunfeng Cooperative.
Wang Changlu, general manager of Changming Food Trading Co., Ltd., introduced that Changming Company used to operate under the "cooperative + farmers" model, and the company's daily processing capacity was 160 tons. However, a single cooperative had fewer than 100 members, and the products it produced could be processed in less than 2 months, after which the production line was left "sleeping."
On one side, the company was "not getting enough to eat," while on the other side, cooperatives were worrying about sales channels for agricultural products. The need to unite brought the two sides together immediately, and they established the Changming United Cooperative, with Changming Company uniformly providing sweet pea and sweet corn varieties to 8 cooperatives and uniformly buying back the products. Farmers' wallets grew fuller, and the company could also run at full capacity.
Upon hearing that quick-frozen sweet peas could be processed, Tangshan Xinyuan Ecological Technology Co., Ltd. of Hebei Province came to Keshan and transported the sweet peas processed by Changming back to Tangshan, where after fine packaging they were exported to the United States, Singapore and other places.
This year, the Xinxing Modern Agricultural Machinery Cooperative in Xinxing Village, Beilian Town, Keshan County, invested 78 million yuan to build a sweet corn processing plant, attracting nearby cooperatives to come and unite with the Xinxing Cooperative to produce sweet corn and carrots under contract.
A relevant official from the Economic Management Station of the Heilongjiang Provincial Agricultural Commission said that the establishment of united cooperatives can further improve the degree of agricultural organization and the ability to develop markets, fill the "shortcomings" of cooperatives in the secondary and tertiary industry chains, and realize the expectations of the mechanism design. This is an inevitable trend for the future development of cooperatives. Today, the province has 199 united cooperatives registered with industry and commerce departments. The Provincial Agricultural Commission will actively guide cooperatives in joint restructuring, adhere to taking industry as the foundation and the market as the orientation, guide and encourage similar cooperatives to carry out multi-field and multi-form union and cooperation, and support cooperatives in establishing united cooperatives.
Xu Junpeng