Wild apricots of Yiwu pave the way for farmers to increase income and become rich

Yiwu County has a cool climate, and its territory is covered with natural fruit trees such as wild apricots, crabapples and apples. In recent years, the artificial cultivation of apricot trees, apples and jujubes in Yiwu County has reached a certain scale, but because there was no good packaging and no smooth sales channels, the fruit farmers all sold their own produce themselves, with very little profit. Kudusi Abudureyimu, 32 years old, relying on green agricultural product processing in Yiwu County, has carved out a path to prosperity.

Kudusi is a local of Yiwu County. He graduated from ** University in July 2007. After graduating, he went to inland provinces and cities with better development, and this experience broadened his horizons. In May 2010, the convening of the Central ** Work Symposium and the convening of a new round of meetings on aid to Xinjiang made Kudusi realize that an opportunity for entrepreneurship had arrived, so on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2011 he returned to Yiwu and decided to start a business right at his doorstep.

Using Yiwu County's unique resources, relevant policies, and the connections and business experience he had accumulated, Kudusi in a very short time established the new "Yifuyuan Agricultural Products Cooperative," integrating production, processing, tourism, exhibition and sales. "Without the government's support and help, my cooperative could not have been established so smoothly. With the support of the local government, I am very confident about starting my business," said Kudusi.

After the Yifuyuan Agricultural Products Professional Cooperative was established, it uniformly packaged agricultural products such as wild apricots and apples before putting them on the market, with a market price of 8 yuan per kg and considerable profit. Today, the cooperative has 103 farming households and registered capital of 3.2 million yuan.

On the shelves of the cooperative's direct-sale store are products such as wild apricot herbal tea, dried wild apricots and packaged red jujubes, and it also sells other agricultural and sideline products on commission. Kudusi said that in order to adapt to market demand, in 2014 the cooperative invested more than 200,000 yuan to purchase washing machines, dryers, dehydrators, packaging machines and so on, and also signed a sales agency contract for all of Xinjiang with Urumqi Xiyu Trading Co., Ltd. Over 5 years, the cooperative's production and processing lines have been continuously improved, and it has successively registered the trademarks "Yifuyuan" and "Adake."

Local farmer Yasen Abuli has seen his family's per capita income increase by 1,800 yuan since joining the cooperative, and he is grateful to Kudusi: "Kudusi has done something good for all of us. The wild apricots that nobody wanted in the past can now bring us income too."

Kudusi told the reporter that at present the products produced by the cooperative have no trouble finding a market, and the biggest problem is that raw materials cannot keep up. Last year, with the government's help, the cooperative invested more than 200,000 yuan to transfer 250 mu of orchards, and now the total area of transferred orchards has reached 750 mu, with plans to transfer 1,000 mu of orchard area within 3 years. At present, Yiwu County apples have obtained organic certification, and when the apple trees bear fruit, the cooperative will add a new apple processing production line to further increase the added value of apples and let farmers obtain more income from them.