The Home of Vegetables in China
This is a vegetable greenhouse in Shouguang, Shandong Province, covering an area of 120 acres, as large as 11 soccer fields, such a large volume of sheds but can not see a few laboring figures, and all this is thanks to advanced agricultural technology.
In Shouguang, the planting of vegetable greenhouses has begun to shift to digitalization and intelligence, from seedling to growth, picking and transportation, which is almost completed by automated machinery. The addition of science and technology has turned Shouguang's vegetable greenhouses into highly efficient plant factories.
Shouguang, located in the north of Shandong Peninsula, is known as the "hometown of vegetables in China", its 968 administrative villages, vegetable professional villages have more than 500.
Shouguang grows more than 400 kinds of vegetables, with an annual output of more than 4.5 million tons. These vegetables are not only sold to all over the country, but also exported to Russia, Korea, Japan and other places, which can bring more than 11 billion yuan income to Shouguang in a year, and the per capita income of farmers is nearly 30,000 yuan.
Try "poor households" to "million dollar households"
However, in the 1970s and 1980s, Shouguang was still a poor county that mainly grew traditional crops such as corn and wheat, etc. In 1980, the per capita annual income of local farmers was only 99 yuan, which was less than half of the per capita income of Chinese farmers at that time.
In order to change the predicament, the late 1980s, a group of people built a 17 winter heating shed. This is a brand new attempt, we have no spectrum in mind, but we understand more, do not try, break through, there will never be a way out.
In the winter of 1989, the cucumbers in the shed ushered in the harvest, the fresh vegetables that had never appeared in the northern winter market before, sold for a high price of more than three dollars a catty, you know, at that time, pork only sold 80 cents a catty.
In this way, a technical innovation of vegetable cultivation began in Shouguang. The next year, the county built more than 5,000 winter greenhouses one after another, and in 1995, the development of nearly 200,000, also in this year, Shouguang was named "China's vegetable township".
For more than a decade, Shouguang's vegetable farmers have become enviable "million dollar households" from "poor households" with annual incomes of less than 100 yuan.
Today, Shouguang's winter-heated greenhouses have developed into the seventh generation, and artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technologies are beginning to be commonly used. Every year, more than 8,000 technicians from Shouguang guide vegetable production throughout the country.
Dare to think and do to open up overseas markets
As early as the late 1990s, Shouguang vegetables have begun to export abroad, and also sold at a good price.
Vegetable farmer Zhang Manyi developed the idea of developing overseas markets. The idea is to do, Zhang Manyi and members of his cooperative to get enough vegetables, and run customs, for various documents, and even learn a simple foreign language.
After some efforts, in May 2013, Zhang Manyi and his folks selected two carts of vegetables and embarked on the journey to Russia. Although there were problems with some of the vegetables due to the long transportation, the tomatoes and colored peppers won the approval of the merchants.
That trip, Zhang Manyi signed an order for 300 cars per year, taking the first step to sell Shouguang vegetables to Russia. Today, Shouguang exports 500,000 tons of vegetables to Russia, Japan, South Korea and other places every year, with sales close to 2 billion yuan, bringing vegetable farmers a rich income.
Break the monopoly and cultivate your own breed
Today, Shouguang greenhouse produced vegetables, 70% of the seedlings are local independent selection and breeding, but more than a decade ago, Shouguang vegetable seed market was once "foreign seed" monopoly, 80% of vegetables with foreign seeds.
The price of seeds from abroad was much higher and the market was not under control. At that time, in order to reduce costs, vegetable farmers often bought a few hundred seeds in partnership, planted them in vacant sheds, and then planted them into their own sheds by dividing cuttings when the seedlings grew up.
This saved money, but the production cycle was extended by three months. To make up the time difference, everyone had to work overtime, tending the greenhouse during the day and coming in at night with a miner's lamp to take cuttings, which was very hard work.
The strategic position of the seed industry was first clarified by the state in 2011. In order to break the technical barriers of foreign seed companies, several research teams started to cultivate their own seeds at that time, led by the Shouguang municipal government.
In order to produce their own seeds as early as possible, vegetable farmers in Shouguang have vacated their own sheds to help the breeding team carry out trials of new varieties.
Today, Shouguang has developed into China's largest vegetable seedling breeding base, with as many as 167 independently selected vegetable varieties, which can breed 1.8 billion seedlings a year, with an output value of more than 1 billion yuan.
Post time: Mar-22-2023