In the golden autumn, the melons and fruits are fragrant.
In Youjia Village, Zhuqiao Town, Laizhou City, Shandong Province, there are fruitful apple orchards, and fruit farmers are busy for the upcoming fourth Chinese farmers' harvest festival, some picking frames, some packing boxes, some responsible for handling, and some placing orders on the docking line... The freight vehicles at the intersection are ready to be transported to the market as soon as possible.
Wang Jingbo, who took the lead in the work, was busy, and his task this year was different from the past, in addition to taking care of the current business of the orchard, in late September, he also took apples to Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, to participate in a public welfare agricultural live broadcast activity initiated by Tencent. Originally, Wang Jingbo's apples were selected for the "Harvest Plan" – a plan guided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and Tencent cooperated with the China Quality Agricultural Products Development Service Association and local governments to link design companies to redesign the packaging of agricultural products and improve product competitiveness.
At the moment when the domestic apple market is fiercely competitive, Wang Jingbo's apple can be selected first, relying on what? What's special about it? The mystery is in the "bagging apple".
Apples do not bagging to create an industrial demonstration model
In the 1990s, Shandong fruit farmers began to use apple bagging technology. Bagging not only cuts off the way that a variety of diseases and insects directly cause harm to the fruit, effectively reduces the incidence of diseases and insect pests, but also promotes the smooth skin and bright color of the fruit. However, after more than two decades of development, the drawbacks of this technology are also becoming more and more obvious. First, bagging incurs a high cost. According to statistics, 1 mu of apple orchards average 10,000 bags, equivalent to paper bag fees and bagging, bagging labor costs, the cost of each bag is 0.2 yuan, accounting for about 1/3 of the total cost of production alone, Shandong averages 200-25 billion bags per year, the total cost is more than 4 billion yuan, the whole country is tens of billions of yuan; secondly, the paper bags used in bagging, as well as the laying of reflective film after bagging, also has a negative impact on energy consumption, environmental pollution and so on.
Since 2016, the Langyaling Xiaolong Agricultural Products Farmers Professional Cooperative (hereinafter referred to as the Xiaolong Cooperative) has successively carried out a series of research and development innovation of planting models under the support of Yantai Agricultural Technology Extension Center and Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and finally successfully tested the bagged apple technology and biological flower and fruit thinning technology, creating a new model of modern apple labor-saving cultivation, bringing tangible economic, social and ecological benefits.
Wang Jingbo is the chairman of the Xiaolong Cooperative. He introduced that the orchard selected dwarf anvil detoxification seedlings to build a garden, and adopted the dense planting mode of ridge and wide row. This cultivation mode creates conditions for mechanized operation, and significantly improves the ergonomics in terms of mechanical pruning of fruit trees, bagging-free fruit, intelligent apple harvesting, raw grass covering, insect treatment, physical control of pests and diseases, etc., and realizes standardized production, achieving the effect of cost saving and efficiency.
As the party secretary and director of the Yantai Agricultural Technology Extension Center, Lu Changhou was quite touched when he talked about bagged apples. He said that the bagging is not only "free" of the hard work of bagging and bagging, but also "exempts" a lot of labor, paper bags and other costs, reducing pollution and protecting the environment.
Apple cultivation and duck breeding alone are not unfamiliar to everyone, but the combination of duck breeding and breeding in orchards is a major innovation of Langyaling. Ducks can prey on orchard pests and graze, duck dung is high in sulfur, and can kill insects and eggs. Fruit farmers regularly spray biological liquid in the duck release area to make duck manure ripen and ferment as soon as possible, which not only improves the organic matter content of the land, but also makes the fruit trees healthier and the fruits more delicious. This "combination of breeding and breeding" in Langyaling has formed a circular agricultural development model of mutual assistance and coordinated development of apple planting and livestock and poultry breeding, and achieved the purpose of reusing and recycling agricultural waste resources.
After this new cultivation technology, the bagged apples are fully bathed in the sunshine and rain of nature, with long light time, rich nutrition, high sugar content, good taste and flavor; they also greatly save manpower and material resources. According to Wang Jingbo, each mu of land can save more than 6,000 yuan in labor, paper bags, reflective film and other costs.
In 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs settled the first national apple bagging-free technology integration and demonstration base in Langyaling. The application and promotion of this cultivation technology is of great significance to the labor-saving cultivation of modern orchards, and also creates a demonstration model for the high-quality development of the apple industry in Yantai.
Cooperative management leads villagers to start a business and become rich
"Just being good to me personally does not mean anything, nor does it make sense; leading the villagers to get rich is the direction I have been striving for." Wang Jingbo told reporters that at present, there are 300 people in Youjia Village in Zhuqiao Town, and there are 110 villagers working in cooperatives, and each person can receive a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan.
Founded in 2008, the Xiaolong Cooperative, which originally had 235 members, has now expanded to more than 700 households. The bagged apple planting area is more than 2,000 mu, covering eight villages nearby, including Dalangya Village, Xiaolangya Village, and Haojia Village. Local farmers participate in cooperatives by transferring land and raising funds to buy shares, and earn income from the rent and dividends of the land. Cooperatives provide technical training, technical exchanges and information consulting services related to agricultural production and operation.
Zhang Xiangpu, a large team in Zhuyou Village, runs a 60-acre orchard and has been Wang Jingbo's partner for more than a decade. When the reporter met Uncle Zhang, he and his wife were busy in the garden, their skin tanned, but their spirits were full. He is an old fruit farmer with more than 30 years of "fruit age", who began to grow apples after graduating from high school in 1985, experienced apple planting in the 80s, bagging technology in the 90s, and lost money for three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018 due to natural disasters and market conditions... Later, Uncle Zhang improved the fruit tree and planting mode according to the planting mode of the Xiaolong Cooperative, and achieved increased production and profitability in two years.
"The use of bagging-free technology greatly saves labor, reduces labor, grows apples are delicious, and everyone is willing to buy them, so I have tasted the sweetness." Uncle Zhang praised Wang Jingbo to reporters and said that as the leader of the big guys to get rich, Wang Jingbo has the courage and ability, and he will continue to cooperate with him in the future.
Not only has it really brought economic dividends to the villagers, but the Langyaling Ecological Orchard has also driven and attracted a group of young people to return to their hometowns to work, and Wang Xiuqiang of Zhaoguanzhuang Village is one of them. After graduating from university, Wang Xiuqiang worked in a state-owned enterprise in Jinan, but with an "iron rice bowl", he always felt that the development prospects of opening an online store were greater, and it was also his ideal to be able to return to his hometown to work. It just so happens that the Xiaolong Cooperative is lacking such technical talents, and the combination of "Wang Jingbo + Wang Xiuqiang" hit it off, so Wang Xiuqiang returned to his hometown to work, serving as an operation manager in the Xiaolong Cooperative, responsible for the network operation of the daily sales of bagged apples.
"It feels good to work from home, it's busy and there are a lot of things to worry about, but it's busy and busy." During the conversation, Wang Xiuqiang's love for the job in his hometown was unconsciously revealed.
For young people who return to their hometowns to work, Wang Jingbo always takes great care of them: "Speaking from the heart, it is not easy for cooperatives to find such young people, and I cherish them very much." But I don't dare to let young people participate in the fruit-raising process now, for fear that they will lose money. I can bear the loss of the orchard, but I cannot let the young people lose. I hope that when the conditions of the cooperatives are slowly ripe, the young people will be able to take over these tasks and continue to do them. ”
Digital platform to promote the sales of good things upgrades
"The co-operative is like a home, and I will not leave no matter how difficult it is. I have to lead the villagers to overcome the difficulties and keep working. But I am also worried in my heart, worried about the artificial cultivation of apples, worried about the market..." Talking about the current cultivation and sales of apples in Langyaling, Wang Jingbo's distress is also quite a lot.
In recent years, the labor cost in rural areas has increased, and the labor force has gradually aged, and "difficult to hire workers" and "expensive to hire workers" have become the "card neck" problem of apple industry development. In the case of villagers in the Xiaolong Cooperative, the average age of the workers is 60 years old, and the oldest is even 80 years old. Wang Jingbo, who is more than 50 years old, laughed at himself: "In our place, I can be regarded as a young man!" ”
How can we attract young people to work in the village in the future? Wang Jingbo believes that the first is the problem of income, the consumption of young people is high, and they must have a considerable income to return to their hometowns, otherwise they cannot be retained; secondly, they also need a clean environment, a networked office platform, especially the agricultural work in the field, to be able to achieve networking, standardization, standardization, and constantly improve the software and hardware environment.
At the same time, Yantai actively promotes the construction of localized socialized service organizations, providing all-round supporting services such as land circulation, technology, trusteeship, and old-age care for young people and large planters who have returned to their hometowns, so that they can see the prospects and hopes for development.
According to Wang Jingbo, at present, there are three main ways to sell free bagged apples in Langyaling, one is the traditional market wholesale, fruit dealers pick up goods, the second is through micro-stores and large supermarkets in various places docking, the third is through the physical experience store, with the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other large cities docking. But these sales channels can not fully digest the current apple production, there is still a lot of room for improvement.
For the new thing of live streaming with goods that has become popular in recent years, Wang Jingbo's team looks at it in the eyes, eager to try it, but suffers from the lack of complete ability. Therefore, this "harvest plan" is undoubtedly a good opportunity to open up new sales channels and expand the market for Yantai bagged apples.
It is understood that the "Harvest plan" is a special plan for Tencent to actively respond to the national rural revitalization strategy, under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, with the help of Tencent's resources and capabilities, to promote the digital transformation and upgrading of agricultural product brands and promote common prosperity. Jointly initiated by Tencent Sustainable Social Value Division (SSV), Tencent Advertising and WeChat, this plan cooperates with the China Association for the Development of Quality Agricultural Products and local governments to promote the revitalization of rural industries, practice sustainable social value innovation and promote common prosperity through platform traffic and ecological resource support, digital solution support, customized services and talent support.
"The sales channel is indeed our short board, so that although the bagging apples in Langyaling are good, they are still 'raised in the deep boudoir and unknown', and they cannot go to a broader world." Wang Jingbo said that he hopes that more social forces will join in the future to make the bagging-free apple industry bigger and stronger, so that it can be sold to the whole country and even exported overseas in a more convenient way.
It is reported that during this year's Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival, the "Harvest And Good Things Plan" will invest in advertising and promotion of a variety of agricultural products to enhance the sales effect.
"I am very proud that Langyaling bagged apples have been selected for the 'Harvest Plan'." Lv Changhou believes that the "Harvest plan" is a positive action for enterprises to practice sustainable social value innovation and promote common prosperity, and is a beneficial measure for enterprises to feed the society and agriculture, rural areas and farmers. It is hoped that by participating in this plan, more fresh vitality will be injected into Yantai's bagged apple industry, and it is also hoped that more Yantai agricultural products can join the plan and drive more farmers to get rich. (Zhao Xinning)
Source: Farmers Daily