Cherry tomatoes hold up "half of the country"

"Now it's the peak of cherry tomatoes, and my 6 acre greenhouses earn 6,000 yuan a day!" Orders don't have to worry, it's just a busy picking. Li Chengliang, a villager in Yinjialou Village, Mingcun Town, Pingdu City, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, is artificially pollinating tomatoes in his greenhouse, while two hired workers are busy picking them.

On the eve of New Year's Day in 2020, there was a busy scene in more than 2,000 cherry tomato greenhouses in Mingcun Town, with an average purchase price of 134 yuan per kilogram of land, which further consolidated the conventional income of growers with an annual income of 100,000 yuan per mu. "Crazy" cherry tomatoes in Mingcun Town interpret the "persimmon ruyi" of rural revitalization.

Mingcun Town is located at 36.9 degrees north latitude on the Jiaolai River, with long sunshine hours, large temperature difference between day and night, coupled with the unique saline and alkali soil, creating the characteristics of local cherry tomato skin thin meat crisp, clean and delicious. Since its introduction to planting in 1998, Mingcun cherry tomatoes have continuously improved varieties and improved quality, and have been carried out in space by Shenzhou 7, from ordinary fruits to national 4A level green food, and successfully obtained the registration and protection of national agricultural geographical indications.

In mid-November 2020, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs released the list of "2020 National Rural Characteristic Industries Billion Town", And Mingcun Town was successfully selected, while cherry tomatoes supported half of the "billion" output value.

"There are more than 200 households in our village, each household has a greenhouse, and the village has also set up a cooperative to hold a group for heating and get rich together, and nearly half of the villagers have bought houses in the city." Zhang Dekuan, secretary of the party branch of Yinjialou Village, proudly recounted the improvement of tomatoes to the living conditions of villagers.

In Mingcun Town, like Yinjialou Village, which increases its income by growing cherry tomatoes, there are many villages such as Dahuangbu Village, Patrol Village, Hanjiawuzi Village, and Yinjiazhuangzi Village.

Yu Ruikai, a villager in Patrol Village, was impoverished by a traffic accident a few years ago, and through poverty alleviation small loans, he built a 2.4-acre cherry tomato greenhouse, with an annual income of 150,000 yuan, and lived a well-off life of "persimmon" in "coin", for a time his poverty alleviation story was spread as a good story in the local area, and it also became a powerful witness of the tomato industry to help Mingcun Town get rid of poverty.

"In recent years, cherry tomato production has become one of the leading agricultural industries in our town, an important channel for farmers to increase income, and an important carrier for Mingcun to implement the rural revitalization strategy, which has played a huge role in promoting the high-quality leapfrog development of the agricultural and rural economy." Wang Anping, secretary of the party committee of Mingcun Town, said.

With the fame of Mingcun cherry tomatoes, the foreign fruit merchants who came to buy were endless, the price rose with the water, and the good market feedback made the local tomatoes in short supply, and they were in a state of grabbing goods every day, and the huge price advantage made the Mingcun market attract a lot of attention.

In June and July 2020, some farmers and buyers found that some small tomatoes in the surrounding areas were quietly flowing into the Mingcun market and mixed with local cherry tomatoes for sale, which alleviated the shortage of supply to a certain extent.

"Mixed with foreign tomatoes sold together, in a short period of time seems to be a balance between supply and demand, the field sold at a high price, we also made the difference, but the fake things will not buy in the end to consumers, once the reputation collapses, it is difficult to save, brand agricultural products destroyed in this above examples are too many." Yu Ruichun, president of the Grain, Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative in Patrol Village, expressed his concern about the "counterfeiting" of tomatoes.

"Rural revitalization should respect the initiative of farmers, but it must also play a leading role of the government, and at key nodes, it is necessary to escort the sustainable development of rural industries." Sun Zhongwei, deputy mayor of Mingcun Town, said that it is imperative to resolutely do a good job in "cracking down on counterfeiting" of tomatoes in Mingcun and maintain good market order.

In order to adapt to the new situation, seek new development together, and establish an orderly competitive environment, led by the government, Mingcun Town has set up a tomato association to widely absorb growers, buyers and sellers, agricultural operators and technical personnel, build a unified service platform for members through the establishment of rules and regulations, study and learn from the successful experience of other agricultural product brands, enrich the history of their own brand development, implement various policies to benefit the people, guide growers to steadily expand the planting area, take the lead in responding to natural disasters and pests, and organize production and sales. The association pays close attention to the protection of landmarks externally, strengthens industry self-discipline internally, guides growers to operate in good faith, promotes the standardized operation of all aspects of the tomato industry chain, forms a good brand effect and sales atmosphere, and effectively guarantees the maximization and sustainability of the income of the majority of farmers.

Deng Ruixian, who is engaged in fruit and vegetable sales in Beijing, has been buying tomatoes in Mingcun Town for several years, but he still often encounters the problems of "not receiving" and "queuing up". In order to stabilize the supply of goods and further consolidate and expand market share, he simply became a "farmer" himself - invested in the construction of the Farmer's World Wisdom Agricultural Industrial Park in Mingcun, covering an area of 400 acres in 28 greenhouses, and hired a local fruit and vegetable cooperative with rich experience in planting. In the production process, the two-dimensional code traceability system and the certificate of conformity system are adopted, and the quality inspection of agricultural products is carried out according to the batch after maturity, and the corporatization management of cherry tomatoes is implemented from planting to harvest.

"Corporatized management has had a profound impact on the whole chain of Mingcun cherry tomato industry from planting to management and sales to scale and modernization." Fang Desen, director of the Agricultural and Rural Service Center of Mingcun Town, said.

In order to promote the faster and better development of advantageous projects, Mingcun Town raised funds from various sources and invested more than 3 million yuan to level and harden the dirt roads around the Farmers' World Wisdom Agricultural Park, which greatly improved the traffic conditions and laid the foundation for the subsequent picking business while accelerating logistics and transportation. At the same time, the town government actively assisted the agricultural park to obtain 500,000 yuan of water and fertilizer integrated irrigation facilities from the higher water conservancy department, so that the greenhouse planting was like a tiger. In Mingcun Town, agricultural industry projects such as "Farmer's World", as well as Jiaken, Half Mu Garden, and Good Land Products, Jingdong Pingdu, etc., the increasingly mature "enterprise + cooperative + farmer" model continues to drive industrial efficiency and increase farmers' income.

"In the past, the young people in the village went out to work and earned 60,000 or 70,000 a year, but now when they go home, they find that the income difference between them and the greenhouses in the village is too big, so they return to the village and plant tomatoes." Yu Ruichun said that many people around him who go out to work have been attracted back by the considerable benefits of growing tomatoes.

Rural revitalization, talent first. Mingcun Town has always put the revitalization of talents in an important position in the revitalization of rural areas, attaches great importance to the cultivation of new professional farmers, relies on the Tomato Association and the Qingdao Academy of Agricultural Sciences to carry out all-round and multi-level close exchanges, regularly invites agricultural experts and professors to the towns and villages to guide agricultural production, through centralized training to explain to farmers industry dynamics, new varieties, new technologies, diseases and insect pests and scientific management concepts, etc., but also went deep into the field to teach and answer questions, solve practical problems, impart real talents and practical learning, and store talents in the "water" to raise and develop "fish" ”。

The revitalization of the cherry tomato industry has stimulated the revitalization of "people", more and more young people in Ming village who have gone out to work have returned to their hometowns to start businesses, and the revitalization of "people" has consolidated and promoted the continuous development of cherry tomatoes. Mingcun Town has cultivated a soil suitable for tomato growth, and has deeply cultivated a fertile soil suitable for the development of the tomato industry, with "one billion yuan" as the starting point, Mingcun cherry tomatoes are striding towards depth.

Zhang Dejie, Tang Bo, reporter Hao Lingfeng