Green agricultural products hit the market fresh and seize the initiative

——A profile of green vegetable development in Yaohao Village, Caijiagou Town, Fuyu City

Early in the morning on July 3, the phone of Liu Zhanjun, Party branch secretary of Yaohao Village in Caijiagou Town, Fuyu City, kept ringing nonstop. "The green vegetables produced in the village have become hot commodities, so I have to choose the buyers carefully," Liu Zhanjun said.

Green vegetables become a new engine for prosperity

In the 700 greenhouses of Yaohao Village, the second crop of tomatoes has already grown to the size of eggs, and some have begun to show a blush of red. "In another 10 days, our tomatoes will be fully on the market." As the legal representative of the Luxing Vegetable Farmers' Professional Cooperative in Yaohao Village, Liu Zhanjun knows both the planting varieties and the sales markets like the back of his hand, because this directly affects the wallets of the whole village.

Yaohao Village is a specialized village for greenhouse vegetable production in Fuyu City and was rated a "pollution-free vegetable production base" in 2004. After more than ten years of development, greenhouse vegetables have now become a leading industry for increasing the income and prosperity of the whole village's farmers. By 2015, the number of vegetable greenhouses had grown to 1,450, covering an area of 400 hectares, accounting for 42% of the village's arable land, with an average of 1.6 greenhouses per household. In 2015, greenhouse vegetable income reached 64 million yuan, and per capita income reached 18,500 yuan, accounting for 85.7% of farmers' per capita net income. The main planted varieties are tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, melons and so on. In addition to holding the local market, the products are also sold to major cities such as Harbin, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing and Kunming, and exported to Russia, with an annual total vegetable output of 60,000 tons and a total output value of 84 million yuan.

Recalling the development process of the past 20-plus years, Liu Zhanjun said they had tasted it all, "the sour, the sweet, the bitter and the spicy."

In 1991, at the village's call, villagers Liu Zhaochun, Xiang Yufan and Xiang Xifeng raised funds on their own and each built vegetable greenhouses with an area of 2 mu, and that year each greenhouse brought a net income of 7,000 yuan. Seeing the benefits, the villagers acted on their own initiative. By 1998, the village's vegetable greenhouses had grown to 500. After that, as the government increased its support, by 2002 the whole village's vegetable greenhouses had grown to 1,100.

In order to open up sales channels, Liu Zhanjun led farmers on many trips elsewhere to visit, study and learn about market conditions. Only then did vegetable wholesalers later come to the village to camp out at the greenhouses and snap up vegetables.

A new pattern of safe and nutritious green vegetables takes shape

Speaking of the village's changes in recent years, Liu Zhanjun was full of emotion. "In the past, vegetable growers worried about sales channels. Now out-of-town buyers all know that we produce and sell pollution-free vegetables here, and they come in droves to snap them up. There is no need to worry about sales at all."

With an attitude of responsibility for dining table safety, Yaohao Village actively develops green, organic and pollution-free products. It was among the first to promote and apply in greenhouse vegetables such techniques for pest control and disease prevention as shading and cooling, rain sheltering to prevent dampness and disease, barriers, insect-proof nets, yellow sticky board trapping and biological pesticides, and it increased the application of bio-organic fertilizer to achieve a pollution-free whole process in vegetable production. In order to enhance the brand effect of vegetables and strive to create a famous and high-quality brand, Fuyu City applied to register for Yaohao Village the local famous and high-quality vegetable brand "Luxing."

To meet the market's needs for balance, variety and safety, Fuyu City has embarked on a path of developing economical, energy-saving and efficient protected vegetables. In terms of cultivation models, different models such as solar greenhouses, plastic greenhouses and intercropping and multiple cropping have taken shape. In terms of variety structure, what used to be only tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans has developed into nine major categories and more than 300 varieties, including solanaceous fruits, gourds, beans, leafy vegetables, root and stem vegetables, berries and edible fungi. In terms of planting structure, there are spring and autumn greenhouses for advancing spring and delaying autumn, intercropping and multiple cropping between summer and autumn, and solar greenhouse production in winter. In terms of economic benefits, a greenhouse economy structure has been formed that focuses on fine vegetables, supplemented by high-quality, new, special and rare vegetables, and complemented by edible fungi and berries, creating a new production pattern of balanced greenhouse vegetable market supply, abundant varieties and safe nutrition.

The greenhouse economy has helped the people of Fuyu find a new economic growth point, and large-scale planting has made villagers' wallets bulge. The people of Fuyu are now pooling the strength of the whole city to build China's green vegetable industry base.

Fuyu City treats the "greenhouse economy" as an important measure to improve people's livelihood and raise farmers' incomes. It strengthens organizational leadership, increases support, makes every effort to accelerate the building of the greenhouse economy, implements a target responsibility system, and gives full support in policy, finance, technology and many other aspects, injecting new vitality and momentum into the city's greenhouse economy development.

Green cultivation seizes the "fresh" opportunity

Yaohao Village in Caijiagou Town is a well-known local green greenhouse vegetable village and one of Fuyu City's high-standard greenhouse vegetable production demonstration areas. This spring, the village expanded the organic planting area of more than 2,200 greenhouses and worked hard to ensure that "no chemical fertilizer is spread in, no pesticide is mixed in, and no herbicide is blended in," so that green products can fetch a good price.

"One greenhouse on two and a half mu of land brings a net profit of sixty or seventy thousand yuan, and the common people are overjoyed," Liu Zhanjun said. "The village's green vegetables are sold as far away as Shanghai, Hangzhou and even Russia. Farmers do not need to go out; the vegetable trucks come one after another to collect them. In recent years, the common people's enthusiasm for growing greenhouse vegetables has run high."

In the greenhouse vegetable hothouse, grower Old Wang was busy working up a sweat. "If you want vegetables to seize the 'fresh' opportunity, farmers' thinking must seize the lead, and their methods must also seize the lead," Liu Zhanjun said. When many farmers were still bending over their fields planting corn, the village took the lead in growing greenhouse cucumbers. By the time greenhouse cucumbers were springing up everywhere, the villagers had already switched production and begun planting tomatoes on a large scale with oil beans interplanted. Last year, the villagers planted 20 hectares of greenhouse melons, and one greenhouse brought in more than 60,000 yuan.

Yaohao Village's "seizing the lead" is shown not only in the varieties it plants. It also closely follows the market, registers and certifies the "Lüqiu" vegetable brand, builds a vegetable fresh-keeping warehouse, and explores new models of winter vegetable planting to ensure that vegetables can both seize the opportunity to go on the market and fetch a good price during the off-season. "In the future we also plan to coordinate with other cooperatives and enterprises to carry out three-dimensional development." Liu Zhanjun believes that through "vertical and horizontal alliances," they can not only meet the greenhouse vegetable base's needs for agricultural social services such as technology, credit and deep processing, but also let farmers share more of the dividends from industrial extension and integration.

In 2015, the village's greenhouse vegetable area reached 550 hectares, with total income of more than 90 million yuan and per capita income of 23,000 yuan. If one sorts through the development process of Yaohao Village's greenhouse economy, one will find that a valuable experience that let the villagers taste the sweetness was "forward-looking awareness and lead-seizing methods."

Twenty years ago, when other villages were all planting corn, the villagers of Yaohao Village, under the leadership of the village Party branch, took the lead in developing greenhouse cucumber planting. When greenhouse cucumbers were springing up in a rush everywhere, this village had already switched production and was planting tomatoes on a large scale with oil beans interplanted. In 2014, relying on its industrial advantage as Fuyu City's largest greenhouse vegetable village, Yaohao Village seized the opportunity to obtain a new vegetable plot development and construction project with an investment of 8 million yuan, and built 53 greenhouses that can hang three layers of plastic film inside and 28 solar greenhouses with insulated outer walls and automatic cotton-quilt roller shutters. At present, the whole village's greenhouses have grown to more than 2,200.

This year, Yaohao Village took yet another series of "fast moves." At the beginning of the year it had already formulated a long-term development plan for the greenhouse economy and expanded the vegetable trading market to meet buyers' needs. A 150-ton vegetable fresh-keeping warehouse is under intensive construction. "Store during the peak vegetable marketing season and sell during the off-season. This can both ease the pressure of selling vegetables and double vegetable profits." Yaohao Village actively explores new models of winter vegetable planting and has newly built 4 high-standard solar greenhouses, creating another new "growth pole" for the whole village's greenhouse economy development.

Tiny Yaohao Village has already embarked on an extraordinary road to prosperity because of green vegetables. The whole village has once again boarded the express train of the "13th Five-Year Plan" and is marching toward a moderately prosperous life.