Source: WeChat public account "Communist Youth League Central Committee" (ID: gqtzy2014) comprehensively compiled from the WeChat public account "China Daily" (ID: CHINADAILYWX), Xinhua News Agency, CCTV News, People's Daily, Xiaoxiang Morning News, Qianyou.com, BBC CGTN, Weibo @ Half Moon Talk
Farmers in Miaoben Village, Zhongzhong Township, Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province, transport watermelons on July 16
In this hot summer, the fairy combination of "iced watermelon + air conditioning" is simply a must-have to cool off.
For watermelon, Chinese can be described as a special love. In the steaming summer, watermelon accompanies countless Chinese survive the summer and melt the heat.
How passionate is Chinese about watermelon?
From the perspective of production, China's annual output of watermelon in 2020 is 60.2469 million tons, accounting for 59.29% of the world's total watermelon production. If the total output of the world's second to tenth producing countries is added, it is only about 1/3 of China.
Despite producing nearly 60% of the world's watermelons, the mainland still imports about 97,000 tons of watermelons in 2020. Also in 2020, the mainland exported only about 44,000 tons of watermelon. I have to say that Chinese demand for watermelon is too great.
Data show that since the early ripening watermelon entered the market in late March, sales have gradually risen, and the online fruit consumption market has also ushered in a consumption boom.
Meituan's preferred data shows that since the listing of watermelon, the demand for watermelon by consumers across the country has gradually increased, and the sales volume of watermelon has grown rapidly. From May 23 to May 29, the week was compared with the first week of May, and the sales of watermelon increased by nearly 200%, of which the overall sales volume of "Black Beauty" watermelon increased the fastest year-on-year, with a year-on-year increase of more than 50%.
China's watermelon production is staggering
China is both a watermelon consumer power and a watermelon producer.
According to the statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization database, in 2020, China's watermelon planting area accounted for nearly half of the world's watermelon planting area, reaching 46.04%, making it the world's largest producer and consumer of watermelon.
According to statista, China's watermelon production from 2010 to 2020 exceeded 60 million tons. Turkey, the second-largest producer of watermelons, produces far less than one-tenth of China's output. China's fault-type data is beyond the reach of other countries. This amazing yield is the extent that even the melon-eating masses have to drop their jaws!
Source: Statista's official website
How did the "freedom to eat watermelon" in Chinese be realized?
Although watermelon has a long history of cultivation on the mainland, the cultivation area has not been very large. In the early days of the founding of New China, the total area of watermelon in the country was less than one million mu, and the cultivation areas were mainly concentrated in traditional production areas such as North China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Due to the restrictions of production conditions, the yield and quality of watermelon per unit area during this period are not high, and the market time is also concentrated in the middle of summer.
From the 1970s to the 1970s, with the great improvement of farmland water conservancy conditions, the introduction, breeding and promotion of excellent varieties, and the popularization of advanced fertilization and plant protection technologies, the yield level and quality of watermelon in mainland China have been improved to a certain extent, and the planting distribution has been wider.
The 1980s was a stage of rapid development of watermelon cultivation in the mainland, not only the planting area increased rapidly, but also the varieties of watermelon were gradually diversified, and many excellent varieties were rapidly popularized. Based on the development of the 1980s, by the early 1990s, the production of watermelon in the mainland began to take a qualitative leap, with an increase of up to 83%.
With the continuous development of the mainland economy, in the 1990s, the watermelon production area in various places developed in the direction of annual production and supply on the basis of stability, the cultivation of greenhouses and greenhouses developed rapidly, and the cultivation of early spring and the suppression of cultivation in autumn was greatly developed, which means that the people can eat watermelon all year round.
In the 21st century, with the rich and colorful fruit varieties, watermelon has changed from the king of summer fruits to the role of annual health care fruits, and small and medium-sized fruit watermelons have been favored by people, while the production of pollution-free green watermelons and organic watermelons has become the voice of the market.
Little watermelon
What kind of agricultural technological changes are reflected?
Nowadays, the watermelon industry in the mainland has shown a situation of blossoming everywhere and blossoming, and the formation of this prosperous situation is mainly due to the government's attention and policies, as well as the support of scientific and technological progress and continuous investment.
Since the end of the 1990s, the state attaches great importance to the development of scientific research and production in the watermelon industry, watermelon scientific research projects have been included in the national "863" plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology, in 2006 the Ministry of Science and Technology approved the establishment of the "National Melon Engineering Technology Research Center", in 2008 the Ministry of Agriculture established the "National Watermelon Industry Technology System".
In the 1990s, a number of new varieties of watermelon that are resistant to blight, such as zheng kang series, Jing kang series, Su kang series and Xinong No. 8, were widely promoted in production, and significant social and economic benefits were achieved. The new variety of "Xinong No. 8" cultivated by Northwest A&F University won the second prize of the first national scientific and technological progress award of watermelon. Later, there were "Guangxi No. 3" and "Jingxin", which successively won the National Science and Technology Progress Award.
Powerful scientific and technological power, but also to meet people's different hobbies, such as eating melons without spitting melon seeds. In order to satisfy this hobby, scientists began to study seedless watermelons. By the 1980s, the seedless watermelon planting area in the country had reached more than 100,000 mu, and the annual export volume reached more than 30,000 tons, forming an export base such as Guangxi Tengxian County, Henan Zhongmu, Hunan Shaoyang, Changsha and so on.
Turnip cabbage has its own love, some people like seedless watermelon, but some people like to eat melon seeds exclusively. So scientists have specially cultivated "multi-seeded watermelons" specifically for the production of melon seeds. This type of watermelon has a low sugar content and is also suitable for diabetics.
From this point of view, behind the "freedom to eat watermelon" is full of scientific and technological support! With the continuous development of the scientific research ability of the watermelon industry, I believe that there will be many imaginations about the sweet cause of watermelon in the future...
Why do foreigners rarely eat watermelon?
According to statistics, Chinese eats up to 16 billion watermelons every year, with an average of 100 pounds per person per year.
In foreign film and television films, watermelons are rarely seen. It's not that foreigners don't like to eat watermelon, in large part because the price is too expensive...
In Washington and New York, the production price of a kilogram of packaged U.S. watermelon for export is about $6.91 (about 46 yuan), the data shows.
Netizens shared their bad experience of buying melons overseas.
"Watermelon in Swiss supermarket, 35rmb 1/8 scoop."
"German watermelon is so expensive, bought 28 euros of things, actually 10 euros are melon money, a watermelon is enough to buy four pounds of ribs."
"New Zealand watermelon expensive I was shocked to drop my jaw, winter more exaggerated 5.99 /kg, the last time I bought a large watermelon + a box of cherries, spent 120 New Zealand dollars ..."
Watermelon is also famous in Japan and South Korea
According to a search by the South Korean portal NAVER, a watermelon weighing about 5 kilograms was sold for a retail trademark price of 26,900 won (about 140 yuan).
In Japan, the average variety of watermelon is generally 2-3,000 yen, which is about 150 yuan.
And foreign melons are not necessarily delicious.
Recently, the local specialty "square watermelon" in Zentsuji City, Japan, was listed, with a watermelon side length of 18 centimeters and a price of about 15,000 yen, about 750 yuan.
It is reported that although this square watermelon is expensive, it is picked before it is fully ripe, the sweetness is not high, extremely dull, and there is no rich juice...
This situation is also common in European countries
Food prices are accelerating as global inflation has continued to soar in recent days. In the face of high fruit prices, foreign netizens have also opened the spit mode...
I love watermelon, but not $12.99 ($≈87)! Watermelons sold for between $3.99 and $4.99 throughout the summer last year, but this year they reached $9.99. I didn't have watermelons this year.
It's crazy. If you're going to take care of a family and only have so much money, you'll have no doubt about choosing ribs over watermelon. These two things sell for the same price, which is really interesting.
It's not easy to want a healthy diet when you're on a tight budget. A small watermelon costs £2.68 (≈22 yuan), and the same price can buy 8 bags of custard cookies.
Achieving the freedom to eat melons is thanks to her
The realization of the "freedom to eat melons" by the Chinese people is inseparable from the 80-year-old Academician Wu Mingzhu, who is still sticking to the front line of scientific research. In the 1950s, Academician Wu took the initiative to invite Miao and went to Xinjiang to devote his life to selecting and breeding melon seeds.
Source: Cantaloupe Research Center, Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences
In 1930, Wu Mingzhu was born in Wuhan, Hubei Province. In 1953, she graduated from the Department of Horticulture of Southwest Agricultural College with a major in fruits and vegetables, and was an alumnus of the same level as Yuan Longping, the "father of Hybrid Rice in China".
Image source: CCTV Sannong video screenshot
The working conditions in Xinjiang are very difficult, but Wu Mingzhu and her colleagues spent 3 years traveling through more than 300 local production teams, one melon field after another to investigate, and finally collected more than 100 pieces of information, sorted into 44 varieties, and became the basic material for later breeding.
Image source: CCTV Sannong video screenshot
This road of melon seed cultivation, Academician Wu Mingzhu has been gone for more than fifty years.
Nowadays, Grandma Wu is unrecognizable because of Alzheimer's disease, but when the old man ate the watermelon brought to her by the medical staff, the memory was instantly awakened. She still remembers the melon in her heart that she can't put down for the rest of her life:
"Watermelon 8424 is my favorite, and it's my best play. Because it looks good, the fruit shape is good, and it is delicious. ”
According to a 2018 data, with 2 million hectares of watermelon planting area and an annual output value of more than 2 trillion yuan, China ranks first in the world in watermelon production and consumption. It can be said that Wu Mingzhu spent more than half a century of time, exhausted his life to select and breed melon seeds, and built a leading watermelon breeding technology platform in the mainland, so that the "family" of high-quality watermelons has been continuously expanded, and "branches and leaves" have been "opened and scattered" in the country to realize the "freedom to eat melons" for the Chinese people.
501 original pieces of original content on the work of the Communist Youth League, activity information and hot spot information of young people
Official account