East China’s Jiangsu province has stepped up the efforts in recent years for the promotion of the supply-side structural reform in the agricultural sector so as to upgrade the quality of the supply system.
One of the key points in the development of high-quality agriculture is to shift the focus from increasing production to improving quality.
The province's rural work conference proposed to guide the development of agriculture towards green, high quality, specialization and brand names so as to optimize the layout of agricultural industry and product structure.
In the past few days, Zhou Zhenbin, a leading watermelon producer in Dongtai County, has been scrambling to cope with the rising flow of customers who had placed deposits on the purchase of the watermelon that are yet to ripe.
Zhou could hardly imagine the hot sales of his watermelon just five years ago when the sales of watermelon was sluggish due to the limited number of varieties and poor management.
In 2014, the local government decided to transform and optimize the planting structure, shifting from the exploding watermelons to the gift watermelons that are of smaller size. Meanwhile, efforts were made to improve the greenhouse technology to allow the watermelons to be marketed one month ahead of the peak season and increase their profits. The net profit of production has rapidly increased from a few thousand yuan per mu to 10,000 yuan.
While advancing variety differentiation, Dongtai has further targeted technology standardization, factory-based nursery, greenhouse multi-layer coverage, micro-drip irrigation and other new facility cultivation techniques to make them standards of new cultivation.
In the watermelon shed of Dongtai Noah Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., independently-developed IoT sensors are monitoring the growth of the watermelons around the clock with the water and fertilizer integration equipment accurately regulating the temperature and humidity of soil and air. The Quanmei 4K, a new variety produced in Dongtai, is not only of good taste but maintains basically the same size. Priced at up to 100 yuan each, Quanmei 4K has been exported to Japan, Hong Kong and other overseas destinations.
Each year, a number of new varieties are introduced and a number of new technologies are promoted. Scientific and technological progress has contributed over 67% to Dongtai’s watermelon industry.
The local government also used watermelon as a medium to activate the upstream and downstream industries. The watermelon tourism season held in May each year has helped to create a leisure travel brand and benefit more people.
In recent years, Jiangsu has been adjusting its agricultural structure to stabilize grain production and improve its supply system by optimizing and upgrading the leading industries, expanding the special industries, and building a batch of high-efficiency specialty industrial clusters such as high-quality rice, seasonal fresh fruits, specialty vegetables, and protected agriculture.
(Source: Jiangsu International Channel)
