The persimmons on the mountain are different red, and the branches are full of lanterns. On October 25, the 2023 Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival and Gutian Cannonball Persimmon Picking Festival was held in Liyang Village, Chengdong Street, Gutian County, Ningde City, Fujian Province. Pan Zheng, former deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Fujian Provincial People's Congress and president of the Provincial Rural Revitalization Research Association, Chen Qingwen, former chairman of the Financial and Economic Committee of the Provincial People's Congress and executive vice president of the Provincial Rural Revitalization Research Association, Xiao Zheng, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Bao Jiangsu, deputy mayor of Ningde City, attended the event. Zhang Chenghui, secretary of the Gutian County Party Committee, attended the event and delivered a speech, and Xu Feng, deputy secretary of the county party committee and county magistrate, presided over the event.
The event was hosted by the Ningde Municipal People's Government, the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the Fujian Provincial Rural Revitalization Research Association, and undertaken by the People's Government of Gutian County.
At the event site, the Institute of Pomology of Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences released the "Blue Book on the Development of Gutian County Cannonball Persimmon Industry" to boost the development of Gutian Cannonball Persimmon Industry. The 2023 Gutian County Persimmon Appraisal Gold, Silver and Bronze Award Ceremony will push the atmosphere of the picking festival to a climax. Subsequently, the down-to-earth literary and artistic programs such as encouraging "Celebrating the Harvest", singing the song solo "Persimmon Red on the Shore of Cuiping Lake", the allegro performance "Learning New Ideas and Celebrating the Harvest Year in Golden Autumn", the modern Fujian opera "Controlling Drought and Stabilizing Grain", and the scene song and dance "Walking on the Avenue of Rural Revitalization" were staged in turn, which were wonderful, and the audience applauded and applauded.
Zhang Chenghui said that in recent years, we have built an economic community of "group development" between the village collective and the masses through the cooperatives led by the party branch, and the Gutian "cannonball persimmon" characteristic fruit brand has gradually become famous in Fujian, beautifying the countryside and enriching farmers. It is hoped that "persimmon" will be used as the medium and "festival" will be used to rejuvenate agriculture, further improve the radiation capacity and brand influence of Gutian persimmon industry, and become the fruit of prosperity and happiness for Gutian farmers.
After the opening ceremony, the guests, the masses and the tourists who came to visit the persimmon exhibition and persimmon Ruyi Hall in Liyang Village, the booth was neatly placed with fresh persimmons, persimmons, wild honey, ecological rice, white fungus deep processing products and other dazzling agricultural products, attracting many consumers to choose and buy. Tourists share the joy of the villagers' harvest and the fruitful results of rural reform and development. At the same time, local Internet celebrity e-commerce companies also actively participated in the exhibition and sales activities at the event site, fully promoting the online sales of Gutian special agricultural products such as cannonball persimmon and white fungus.
Liyang Village has a history of more than 30 years of cannonball persimmon cultivation. In recent years, the village has explored and implemented the model of cooperatives led by the party branch, relying on cooperatives to build an economic community of "group development" between the village collective and the masses, and embarked on the road of professional development and brand development. Aside from the sale of new products, every autumn, the villagers will go up the mountain to pick persimmons, peel them and dry them, and make persimmons, which taste quite good and are favored by the market and tourists. The local government hopes to give full play to its ecological advantages and further enhance the popularity of cannonball persimmons by holding a persimmon tourism and cultural festival. In 2022, the village's financial income will be 530,000 yuan, and the per capita income of the villagers will exceed 23,000 yuan. In 2023, the persimmon planting area of the village will reach 3,000 mu, with an estimated output of about 4.5 million catties and an annual output value of 20 million yuan.
"Through the spread of the persimmon festival in the past five years, our cannonball persimmon is now not only promoted to the whole province, but also has orders in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and even Singapore and the United States. Lin Shoujing, secretary of the party branch of Liyang Village, Gutian County, said.
In recent years, Gutian County has integrated the characteristic agricultural tourism resources represented by Liyang cannonball persimmon in the east of the city, Fengduji peach, Pinghu Fuda hibiscus plum, etc., and continued to hold agricultural festivals and brand promotion activities such as the Peach Blossom Festival, the Peach Picking Festival, the Oil Picker Picking Festival, and the Cannonball Persimmon Picking Festival. It has further improved the popularity and added value of Gutian agricultural products.
Source: Gutian County Rong Media Center