Kiwifruit becomes the new planting choice for cement workers

"To improve the soil for kiwifruit planting, these days we bought more than 30 truckloads of cow dung from Zhengding, and this will realize us cement workers' dream of getting rich through green farming!" Recently, a message posted on WeChat Moments by Han Baogui, Party branch secretary of Nanxijiao Village, Pingshan Town, Pingshan County, Hebei, an old revolutionary base area, caused quite a stir, and "kiwifruit planting" suddenly became a hot topic in the village.

People in small groups were driving cement posts, planting saplings and watering them... The kiwifruit planting base of Hongtai Agricultural Professional Cooperative south of Nanxijiao Village in Pingshan Town was a scene of bustling activity. "With about 500 mu of land and more than 40,000 kiwifruit trees, we need 70 to 80 people every day, and most of them used to be cement workers," said village Party branch secretary Han Baogui. Previously the village had more than ten cement enterprises, and several hundred people in the village worked in the factories or drove transport, ran restaurants or repaired vehicles. But while the cement enterprises brought prosperity to the area, they also severely damaged the local environment. Faced with the choice between short-term interests and long-term interests, Pingshan County shut down the outdated cement enterprises.

To keep the "cement workers" from losing their jobs, the county used the land vacated after the cement enterprises were demolished to plan and build the Xibaipo Green Industry Economic Development Zone, focusing on energy-saving and environmental protection industries such as new energy, electronic information and biological industries. After taking part several times in out-of-town inspections organized by the county, they also set their sights on the village's high dry ridges, developing kiwifruit planting and leading the villagers onto a green ecological path.

"Kiwifruit has high nutritional value and good market prospects!" said Liang Ce, a kiwifruit technician with Northwest A&F University. But when they saw that the former cement workers wanted to grow this rare crop on sloping and marginal land, quite a few people in the village shook their heads.

"The extreme maximum temperature is 43.3°C, the extreme minimum temperature is -18.2°C, and the frost-free period is 130 to 190 days..." Han Baogui still keeps in his phone a copy of the "meteorological data" provided to him by Li Changlu, a cadre in Pingshan Town. He said the local climatic conditions are very close to the climatic characteristics of Shaanxi and Henan, suitable places for kiwifruit planting. Because kiwifruit prefers acidic soil, after soil testing and fertilizer formulation they bought cow dung to neutralize the soil's alkalinity.

On the soft soil, tender green "little umbrellas" were set among the kiwifruit seedlings about a chi tall, looking very lovely. Party branch secretary Han Baogui introduced that according to the park's preliminary plan, the base will invest more than 7 million yuan in stages to build a modern agricultural park integrating kiwifruit sightseeing and picking, ecological tourism and agricultural science popularization.

"Now the survival rate of the more than 40,000 kiwifruit trees is above 95%!" Liang Ce said they implemented standardized cultivation and also helped train a dedicated management team. "Next year, these seedling trees can be grafted with yellow-fleshed Jinlong No. 2, green-fleshed Nongda Mixiang and Xuxiang, most of which are cold-resistant varieties."

Agricultural projects require large investment and have long cycles, but Han Baogui is full of confidence in the future. He did the math: kiwifruit seedlings of more than 2 years will enter full fruit-bearing after 3 years, with a yield of at least 3,000 jin per mu; estimated at a market price of 5 yuan per jin, the income per mu will be about 15,000 yuan, and this park of about 500 mu can earn nearly 10 million yuan a year.

"I earn more now than before, and the working environment is better too!" said Tan Liting, a villager from Nanxijiao Village, with a smile. He started working in a cement plant in 1990 and could earn more than 2,000 yuan a month. Now he works at the cooperative and earns more than 2,400 yuan a month; plus the 6.4 mu of dry ridge land his family transferred to the cooperative, he can earn about 35,000 yuan a year.

Nearly a hundred households in Nanxijiao Village have also tasted the sweetness of green ecology. They used to grow corn and miscellaneous grains on sloping and marginal land, with an annual income of no more than 600 yuan per mu at most. Now they have transferred the land to the cooperative, and the land rent alone is 950 yuan per mu. "After the base is fully built, long-term employment will reach 200 to 300 people, and farmers can earn money by working right at their doorstep. This can be considered as leading the villagers onto a path to prosperity," Han Baogui said with full confidence.