On January 1, when the first rays of the New Year's sun illuminated the sky, four large trucks full of potatoes set off from Xiaozhuang Village in Hongyao Township, Xiji County, and drove all the way to Sichuan.
"More than 100 tons are shipped to Sichuan, Yunnan and other markets every day, and they have been sold for more than 5 consecutive months." Xiong Zhizhong, secretary of the party branch of Xiaozhuang Village, said happily. Last year, Xiaozhuang village had a bumper harvest of potatoes, with a total output of 12,500 tons of potatoes grown in the village of 5,000 mu, which was sorted and stored for sale out of season.
Potatoes have been cultivated in Xiji County for more than 300 years. In the long-term production practice, the local people have accumulated rich experience in planting and breeding, and written scientific research papers on the ground. Especially in recent years, the Xiji County Party Committee and the county government have taken the supply-side structural adjustment as the main line, focused on market demand to adjust the industrial development ideas, seed potato breeding, starch processing, fresh potato export, staple food development "four potatoes" at the same time, invested more than 300 million yuan in industrial poverty alleviation funds, and promoted the industry to cluster, serialized, and refined development.
In 2020, Xiji County planted 800,000 mu of potatoes, with a total output of 1.6 million tons and a total output value of 1.7 billion yuan. From the former "life-saving egg", the potato has developed into a modern agricultural industry chain integrating research and development, planting, processing, marketing, culture and ecology, supporting the dream of the local people, scientific, large-scale and standardized planting has been extended to thousands of households, and has become one of the leading industries for local farmers to increase their income and become rich.
Plough the fields
A seed reaps infinite hope
In February 2020, the autonomous region concentrated on purchasing 550 tons of aid materials for Hubei, including 150 tons of potatoes in Xiaozhuang Village, Hongyao Township, Xiji County.
"As soon as we heard that it was sent to Hubei, we immediately mobilized more than 80 villagers to sort and load trucks overnight to send the best potatoes in the village to Hubei." Xiong Zhizhong said.
Since then, this small village, which is not well known deep in the mountains, has become famous throughout the country. In the past, Xiaozhuang Village had inconvenient transportation and a harsh natural environment, with a permanent population of 201 households and 784 people in the village, and a per capita net income of less than 4,000 yuan. In recent years, through the cultivation of potatoes to make a fortune, the per capita disposable income of villagers has reached 15,000 yuan.
"Among all the crops in Xiji County, potatoes have become the main food crops and cash crops because of their wide adaptability, good yield, rich nutrition, wide range of uses, long industrial chain and high economic benefits." Su Linfu, director of the Potato Industry Service Center of Xiji County, introduced.
Before the 1990s, local farmers planted about 2 mu of potatoes, yielding about 400 kg per mu, "vegetables in good years, grain in barren years" is a true portrayal of the important position of potatoes in the lives of local people.
After 2001, with the increase in potato starch processing and fresh potato sales, the potato planting area in Xiji County exceeded 500,000 mu, and the yield per mu reached about 760 kg. Since then, the planting area has increased year by year, reaching 1.01 million mu in 2012, breaking through the million mu mark.
Since 2014, Xiji County has optimized the industrial structure based on reality, cultivated four potato industrial belts in accordance with the idea of "regional layout, standardized production, and large-scale operation", integrated and popularized the application of high-yield and high-efficiency technologies such as detoxified seed potatoes, film-coated moisture preservation, and green prevention and control, so that the yield of potatoes has increased year by year, breaking through the dilemma of wide-ranging and thin harvest and relying on the sky to eat, and embarking on the road of modern agricultural development.
Represented by Xiaozhuang Village, the village aims at green high-quality and efficient agriculture, introduces new and excellent varieties, adopts new technologies, and creates a high-quality potato seed potato breeding base in accordance with the self-propagation and self-use mode of potato detoxified seed potato farmers. "The whole village has more than 7,000 mu of arable land, potato planting area of more than 5,000 mu, and the average yield per mu is more than 2,500 kg." Xiong Zhizhong said.
In the past, Quan Zhentang, a villager in Xiaozhuang Village, relied on two donkeys raised by his family to cultivate land, and saved money for seven or eight years in order to buy a tricycle worth 7,000 yuan. In 2014, Quan Zhentang planted more than 40 acres of potatoes, earning more than 80,000 yuan a year. In 2017, he took off the "poor hat" as he wished, built a new house, purchased agricultural machinery, and bought a car and a house for his son in Yinchuan.
"Xiaozhuang Village has received a total of 270,000 free potato seeds for three consecutive years, established a high-quality potato breeding base of 1,000 mu, and driven surrounding villages to establish a first-class seed potato breeding base of 10,000 mu." And support the establishment of archives, large planters and business entities to build standardized seed potato storage cellars, the establishment of cooperatives, the formation of production, reproduction, storage, marketing as one of the industrial pattern. Xiong Zhizhong introduced.
"According to the calculation of 1:20, 10,000 mu of first-class seed potatoes can be planted with 200,000 mu of commercial potatoes. The application of detoxified seed potatoes increased production by 30% to 50% compared with ordinary seed potatoes, and the value of potatoes sold in the past season was about 300 yuan per ton. "Xiji County has achieved the transformation from extensive planting to fine production by promoting potato detoxified seed potatoes and standardized storage technology, and small potatoes have achieved a big industry."
Scientific and technological innovation
Localization of high-quality seed propagation
"The development of the potato industry in Xiji has experienced three stages of self-sufficiency, rapid expansion and steady development." Su Linfu introduced that before the 1990s, the local people relied on the cultivation of potatoes to solve the problem of eating, and potato seed farmers used themselves for their own use, and the quality was uneven.
In 1990, with the completion of the first refined starch factory in Xiji, starch processing enterprises sprung up, driving an increase in potato planting area. With the large-scale cultivation of potatoes, the drawbacks of seed degradation and yield decline are concentrated.
"Potato exports, consumers have higher and higher requirements for potato quality, and it is urgent to solve the problem of potato seed degradation." Su Linfu said.
Grain is the foundation of the society, and seed industry is the foundation of grain. In order to develop the potato industry "chip", in August 1998, Xiji County established the Potato Production Research Institute to carry out the introduction and breeding of potato varieties, the breeding and promotion of detoxified seed potatoes, and the research and demonstration of storage technology. At this point, Sigi potatoes embarked on the road of independent research and development.
"At that time, the talent, equipment, and technology were poor, and even the basic knowledge of nutrient solution configuration was not understood, and everything started from scratch." Su Linfu recalled that Xiji County organized agricultural technicians to go to Qinghai, Gansu, and other places to "learn from the experience," and at the same time invited potato seed potato researchers to come to Xiji to carry out technical training, seed potato breeding, popularize excellent varieties, and improve planting technology and storage technology.
"At the beginning, the people did not have the detoxification technology, and there was some resistance to the original species produced by detoxification." Su Linfu introduced that through continuous publicity and promotion, the people have tasted the sweetness from planting high-quality potatoes and taken the initiative to strive for seed planting.
Industrial prosperity is the foundation for poverty alleviation and enrichment, and scientific and technological innovation is the driving force for industrial prosperity. To this end, Xiji County has invested more than 12 million yuan to build a potato high-tech demonstration park integrating sterile production, facility agriculture, seed potato storage, and experimental demonstration, providing new technologies, new achievements, and new information support for the development of the potato industry, and driving agricultural restructuring and increasing farmers' income.
At the same time, Xiji County promotes the potato detoxification seed potato "farmers self-propagate for their own use, enterprise breeding and supplying seeds" model, integrated promotion of "selection of excellent varieties of detoxified seed potato covered with moisture protection planting film covered soil comprehensive prevention and control of diseases and insect pests" technology, improve the yield and quality of potatoes, mu yield of 2500 kg to 3000 kg. He Heming, a villager in Dabao Village, Hongyao Township, planted 40 acres of high-quality potatoes, with an annual net income of 100,000 yuan in addition to costs.
With the support of the local government and the efforts of agricultural technicians, one technical difficulty after another has been overcome, the good news of scientific and technological innovation achievements has continued, and one project after another has taken root in Xiji.
It has successively selected and bred new potato varieties "Ningshu No. 9" and "Ningshu No. 13", special potato detoxified seed potato rapid propagation and high-quality high-yield cultivation technology, potato storage and preservation technology research and demonstration project, potato excellent potato varieties large-area high-yield cultivation technology and other projects and seeds.
In March 2006, the renamed Xiji County Potato Industry Service Center established the Ningxia Potato Engineering Technology Research Center, which was approved as a national agricultural standardization demonstration zone for detoxified potato production. Subsequently, Ningxia implemented the three-level breeding system construction project of potato detoxification seed potato, and Xiji County became an important potato seed potato breeding base in the whole region and even the whole country.
"The use of aerosol production, saving 90% of test tube seedlings, each plant produces 50 to 80 original seeds, unit area produces more than 1500 original seeds, the production capacity is doubled, and the breeding ability of detoxified original seeds is significantly enhanced." He Jiandong, a second-level researcher in the research and breeding of original potato seeds in Xiji County, introduced that one original seed can produce 750 kilograms of commercial potatoes through breeding.
In 2017, in Xiaozhuang Village, Hongyao Township, Xiji County, a demonstration area for the core research of the potato green high-yield and efficient creation project was established, and the yield per mu reached 6246.98 kg after the actual measurement of experts on the spot, an increase of 84.98 kg compared with 6162 kg mu in 2014, setting a record for the highest potato yield in the whole region. With this achievement, Xiaozhuang Village has become a "seed player" in the potato industry in the whole region.
In recent years, Xiji County has built three potato detoxification and breeding centers in 6 townships, including Xinying and Hongyao, producing 60 million original seeds; building 13,000 mu of original breeding bases and more than 15,000 tons of original breeding; and building 100,000 mu of potato first-class seed breeding bases and breeding more than 200,000 tons of first-class seed potatoes. A four-level breeding system has been formed in which the county has a breeding center, the township potato base, the village has a propagation point, and the group has a demonstration household with good seeds, and the coverage rate of potato seeds in the county has reached more than 92%.
Nowadays, Xiji County has become one of the first batch of potato regional breeding bases in the country, in addition to meeting the needs of the county, it is also sold to Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Shanxi and other places, forming a good situation in which potato seed potatoes go out of Xiji and go to the whole country.
Widely traveled
"It has sold more than 10,000 tons of potatoes to Sichuan, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Chongqing and other places, and is expected to sell more than 30,000 tons a year." On January 2, in the large cold storage of the Hongchang Potato Professional Cooperative in Xinying Township, Yuan Hongtang instructed workers to sort, bag and load trucks.
Yuan Hongtang, 45, has been engaged in the potato trafficking business for more than 20 years and has personally experienced the history of Xiji's potato export from "cold" to "hot".
"In the past, foreign merchants did not know about Xiji potatoes, and the main domestic vegetable wholesale market could not see Xiji potatoes." Yuan Hongtang ran the market with potatoes on his back and painstakingly introduced them to dealers. Once in Sichuan to sell, Yuan Hongtang followed the wholesale merchants, personally cooked, fried, when the merchants tasted, praised the smooth, sweet taste of Xiji potatoes, signed a purchase and sale contract on the spot.
"In recent years, Xiji potatoes have become representatives of excellent quality and are favored by markets at all levels." This year, the government supported Yuan Hongtang to build a potato ventilation cold storage to solve the problem of frozen potato transfer in winter and achieve four-season sales.
In order to open up the potato sales channel, the village party branch took the lead in setting up a potato seed potato breeding cooperative, built a thousand tons of potato storage cellar near the village department, hardened the trading site, supporting facilities and equipment, and facilitated the masses to sell, sort, pack, load and unload nearby.
"With the help of the potato festival, the Chamber of Commerce and the media to publicize the potatoes produced in our village, organize large growers and marketers to participate in the exhibition, and continuously improve the visibility of products." Xiong Zhizhong said that at present, the potatoes in Xiaozhuang Village are mainly sold in Sichuan, Yunnan and other places, and the annual operating income is more than 15 million yuan.
Hongyao Township has an area of 96,000 mu of arable land, of which 55,000 mu is planted with potatoes and 10 mu per capita in the township. "Last year, the total output of potatoes was about 120,000 tons, in addition to self-kept food and seeds, export potatoes reached 80%, operating income was 150 million yuan, and the per capita income was 19,000 yuan according to the permanent population." Wang Jianshu, mayor of Hongyao Township, introduced.
In recent years, Xiji County has continuously revitalized the market, accelerated product circulation, built a complete export system for fresh potatoes, established a three-level Internet platform for counties, townships and villages, and formed a storage value-added and sales pattern centered on the three professional potato wholesale markets in Jiangtai, Xinying and Tianping, with other townships and towns having distribution centers, and 187,000 storage cellars throughout the village groups.
"The annual sales of fresh potatoes is nearly 700,000 tons, mainly sold to Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and other places, and some commodities are sold to Southeast Asia and other places." Su Linfu introduced that 15% of Xiji potatoes are eaten and retained as seed potatoes, 45% exported, and 40% processed, and potatoes have changed from "life-saving eggs" to "rich beans" for farmers to increase income.
Deep processing
Start the industrial modernization model
"Potatoes, starch, vermicelli are commonly known as Xiji's 'three treasures', from another level also explains the Xiji potato industry from planting to research and development, processing, sales of the industrial system." Su Linfu said.
The production environment in Xiji County is clean, there is no industrial pollution, the potatoes produced are rich in nutrients, mellow taste, bright and clean skin color, neat potato type rules, high commodity rate, resistant to storage, and have become the best raw materials for the production of potato starch and its products.
In the 1980s, in order to enrich the potato consumption system, Xiji Rural gradually developed a rural starch processing industry based on "household edible processing and soil workshop processing", and successively emerged in Xinglong Town's Shanmin Village, Xiye Village, Daiduan Village, Wanghe Village and other potato processing villages.
Since the 1990s, Xiji County has imported complete sets of equipment from abroad to build the first potato starch factory with an annual output of 5,000 tons, and then successively built two refined starch factories with an annual output of 15,000 tons in Xinying and Jiangtai, and established a silly (group) company.
Since then, private small-scale starch processing plants have developed rapidly, with 20 refined starch factories, 85 crude starch factories, and 2,100 individual three-powder processing households in the county, and potato processing has shown a situation of blossoming everywhere.
In order to improve the level of potato deep processing, Xiji County has carried out drastic reform and upgrading of potato processing enterprises, joint reorganization, and gradually eliminated enterprises with small production scale and environmental protection of processing juice discharge, and only retained more than 6 processing enterprises with more than 60,000 tons, processing more than 600,000 tons of potatoes per year.
"Each ton is calculated at a purchase price of 1,000 yuan, and the total revenue reaches about 600 million yuan." According to the county's agricultural population of 425,000 people, the per capita income from potato sales of farmers reached 1,418 yuan. Su Linfu calculated that when the starch processing plant was purchased and processed, the export price of commercial potatoes rose by about 20%.
"Enterprises adopt advanced processing technology to make potato starch quality better and better, so that farmers can get more benefits." Liu Yuguo has been engaged in potato processing in Xiji for 17 years, and now has 3 potato starch processing plants, processing 90,000 tons of potatoes per year and paying more than 100 million yuan for the purchase.
Nowadays, potato processing is a guarantee project to support farmers' income and promote industrial integration and development, extend the industrial chain, meet the diversified needs of staple grains, and show a good trend of cluster-type, serialization and deepening development.
Potatoes are shipped north and south
The original seed of potato detoxified seed potato tertiary breeding.
Original species storage room.
The industry is booming, and the villagers are smiling.
Export channels are well connected.
Potatoes are harvested in autumn.
It takes half a year to grow a seed.
After the potato harvest, the land enters a one-year rotation.
Potato exports provide employment opportunities for the masses.
Dry potato handmade flour.