Purple shell red rice and rice. Photo by Li Jiafei
The joy of harvesting purple shell rice. Hainan Daily reporter Yuan Chen photographed
Harvest purple shell red rice. Hainan Daily reporter Yuan Chen photographed
Rice is one of the main food crops in China, with a long history of cultivation, and the yield and planting area have always ranked first in the world. Because of this, many people are not unfamiliar and fresh with rice. However, in Luo Douju, Jinshan Town, Wenchang City, there is a grain called "Purple Bei Red Rice", which is a bit different, and the folk regard it as a treasure, and the usual price is dozens of times that of ordinary rice.
What makes it different?
A few days ago, this reporter made a special trip to Jinshan Town, Wenchang City, to find out.
Folk cultivation for thousands of years
The snow has passed, and the northern land has entered the cold winter season, but the fields in the coconut country of the southern country are still lush green, and the freshly harvested rice fields emit the fragrance of earth.
The farm yard is drying golden rice, and the harvested farmers smile and close their mouths, although the rice yield is not high, but the local rare red rice market is very good, and the price is getting higher and higher every year.
Purple shell red rice, also known as "lice rice" in the local folk, is a kind of naturally grown wild red rice, small particles, has a high nutritional value and medicinal value, the people like the treatment of medicinal materials attach importance to them, generations of generations, continue to this day.
As for the origin of "lice rice", local farmers can not say, only that There are sporadic distributions in Jinshan, Luodou and Sanjiang, which are said to have grown and multiplied in the local area for more than 1600 years.
There is a relevant record in the Qing Dynasty Kangxi's "Wenchang County Chronicle", which says: "There are two kinds of rice: glutinous rice and japonica rice. The white one is soft, and the red one is sweet. Locals believe that the "red person" mentioned here refers to purple shell red rice, because the hulled grain is red, which is its distinctive external feature.
Wild red rice seeds, the yield is extremely low, so it has not been widely promoted cultivation. But its medicinal value has long been discovered, some villagers told reporters that the local frail and sick people, often follow the advice of the elderly, to find this wild red rice, long-term consumption can improve physical fitness, enhance people's immunity.
Natural Organic Healthy Rice
Red rice, also known as brown rice, is relatively small compared to ordinary white rice, the taste is hard, not as soft as white rice, but the rice is fragrant. With the development of society and the progress of the times, people's living standards are constantly improving, and more and more people are beginning to pay attention to the health value of red rice.
In 2015, Lu Fang, who had been working in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, returned to his hometown of Jinshan and found this red rice. At that time, affected by the super typhoon "Wei Ma Xun", the area around Wenchang Jinshan, Luodou and Wengtian was irrigated by seawater, and tens of thousands of acres of fertile land were deserted due to salinization. In order to revitalize the land, Lü Fang decided to return to his hometown with his wife to start a business, starting from improving the soil and guiding local farmers to cultivate purple bei red rice.
They looked around for and collected the seeds of this wild rice, starting from the 3 acres of test field, slowly exploring the best growing environment of Zibei red rice, and at the same time, with the support of the local party committee and government, they launched the soil improvement project of 10,000 mu of saline alkali land, and registered and established Hainan Jingyi Agricultural Development Co., Ltd.
In order to explore the nutritional composition of wild red rice, Jingyi Company also specially commissioned a third-party professional organization to test the local red rice, and found that it is rich in potassium, calcium, iron, zinc, selenium and other mineral elements, as well as more than 20 kinds of amino acids, the health value exceeds everyone's expectations, and it is a natural grain of medicinal and food homology.
"There is such a good rice in my hometown, why not dig and promote it well?" Lu Fang said that giving up the urban white-collar work, decided to return to the hometown to start a business, after more than 5 years of unremitting efforts, now, they have expanded the original sporadic distribution of purple bei red rice, expanded the planting area to nearly 3,000 acres, to achieve large-scale planting of purple bei red rice.
In order to ensure the nutritional composition of Purple Bei Red Rice, Lü Fang adheres to the ancient planting mode, on the basis of improving the local soil, reduces manual intervention, gives full play to the characteristics of its original species resistance to salinity, insects and diseases, does not use chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the planting process, and even natural fertilizers are rarely used, rice is only planted twice a year, and rice stalks are backfilled during the fallow period of rice to recuperate.
Saline land is revitalized
Wu Qingguang, a 53-year-old villager who was originally idle at home and had a meager income, has become more and more motivated in recent years to grow purple shell red rice with Lü Fang's company.
"Never before did wild aka rice be so popular!" Wu Qingguang told reporters that although the yield of purple bei red rice is very low, with an average of only two hundred catties per mu, one catty can sell for 100 yuan, which is dozens of times that of ordinary rice.
In order to drive more farmers to benefit from radiation, in addition to reclaiming standardized breeding and planting bases, Jingyi Company has also built Wenchang Jingyi Red Rice Industrial Park, developed distilled grain rice, baby rice flour, rice bran punching agent, convenient rice and other deep processing, around the socialization services of agricultural production, such as warehousing, logistics, e-commerce, etc., to promote the integration of one, two and three industries, and initially built a complete industrial chain of "production + processing + sales".
A few days ago, in the "List of Provincial Modern Agricultural Industrial Parks in 2020" released by the Hainan Provincial Government, Wenchang Jingyi Red Rice Industrial Park was listed among them.
"Every year in spring ploughing, or in late autumn, you come to Jinshan and you can see the undulating rice waves here, either green or yellow, and it is no longer a desolate saline land." Wu Qingguang said happily.
In the evening, strolling along the path next to the rice fields in the countryside, I saw the figures of several working farmers not far away, the quiet village, guided by the concept of modern agricultural development, making people feel as if they smelled the intermingling of ancient farming civilization and modern agricultural industry, a beautiful picture of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, which is envisaged.
Source: Sina Hainan
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