A white goose that flew over five thousand miles ‖ Xu Wanqi

A white goose that flew over five thousand miles

Xu Wanqi

In the spring of 2018, a passenger boarding from Haiyan County, Zhejiang Province, to Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport was in a car carrying more than a dozen large boxes, which faintly emitted the sound of "chirping" and "chirping". After the car arrived at the terminal, the flight attendants carefully helped with the check-in.

A flight attendant looked through the gap in the mesh, "Yo, what kind of bird is this?" ”

At this time, the patron slowly walked over and explained to everyone: "This is a goose seedling, which will 'fly' to Ping Shan, all the way for thousands of miles." "He has gray hair and is slightly short, but it is difficult to hide his natural ability and wisdom, he is Wang Jinliang, an agricultural technology expert in Haiyan County, Zhejiang Province, who helps Pingshan County. Wang Jinliang's visit is not the first time he has gone to Pingshan County. The state-level poverty-stricken county hidden deep in the mountains of southern Sichuan and the remnants of XiaoliangShan deeply touched the heart of this nearly flower-sized agricultural expert.

He was impressed by the poverty of Ping Shan. Before the poverty alleviation and removal of the hat, the mountains obstructed traffic and blocked people's contact with the concept of modern agricultural management. Wang Jinliang arrived at Ping Shan, the next day he went to the countryside to understand the situation, 8 days of hard to run 8 townships, back to the feet sore, even the road can not walk. Everywhere he went, he always paid close attention to observation and wrote down the agricultural situation in each village.

Wang Jinliang did not stop and continued to walk through every village in Ping Shan. In a month, he has a clear understanding of the soil, climate, hydrology, and industrial distribution of Ping Shan.

The goose seedlings that arrived in Yibin by sitting and flying finally landed safely. Subsequently, this batch of goose seedlings, which pinned wang Jinliang's grand wishes, was carefully escorted to the new village of Jinping Town to open a pilot goose breeding project in the new village. Raising geese is not simply raising them large, management, sales, marketing is the more vacant link of this emerging industry, which is also the direction of Wang Jinliang's in-depth exploration.

Wang Jinliang is not only the initiator of the standardized production of Yinhong plum in Pingshan, but also the initiator of the three-dimensional circular agriculture concept in Pingshan. He found that the red plum only has a fruit hanging period of 4 months a year, and the rest of the time the orchard is idle, rather than letting the resources waste in vain, it is better to revitalize its value. With the comprehensive transformation of agricultural land, the orchard land has been fully applied with chemical fertilizers, and the farm manure has lost its use space. A large number of chemical fertilizers are applied to the roots of fruit trees, resulting in two problems: one is that there is a certain corrosiveness to the roots, and the other is to produce a large number of weeds. Weeds compete with fruit trees for fertilizer, trying to squeeze every bit of nutrient, and grow extremely densely. In order to inhibit weed growth, fruit growers have to apply herbicides. The local soil is thinner, and the large application of herbicides not only causes pollution, but also further loses the nutrient layer.

The goose seedlings that Wang Jinliang first introduced were not ordinary varieties, but the white geese of eastern Zhejiang in his hometown. The eastern Zhejiang white goose, also known as the Elephant Mountain White Goose and the Shaoxing White Goose, is a famous local breed of Chinese meat goose. The area around Zhejiang has a long history of raising geese, and according to the "Fenghua County Chronicle", the Jin Dynasty, which dates back more than 1600 years, began to raise white geese. The famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi has many allusions related to the white goose. In the Lanting Scenic Area of Lanting Town, Shaoxing County, there is a stone stele of "Goose Pond", which is said to have been jointly inscribed by Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi's father and son, and has long become a sacred place in the minds of calligraphy lovers. The goose has been with us for many years, but before it was reared on a large scale, most of them were free-range, far from playing their value.

Raising geese is easy, but it is a big problem for the people of Ping Shan to fall in love with geese and love to eat goose meat. The reason is that after the goose seedlings fly over 5,000 miles, it is a big challenge to let the goose culture fly over. Folk interest in goose meat is generally not high, and local meat dishes are mainly pork, chicken, fish and so on. For example, when women in Ping Shan gave birth to children, they all said "stewed chicken stew duck stewed pig's trotters", and they did not hear of "stewed goose". One reason is that geese are grazing and mud-eating animals, the flesh is rough, not to mention, but also with a certain grassy smell, if it is not well managed after slaughter, the taste will be greatly reduced; another reason is that killing geese is a technical work, the strength of adult geese is large, there is no experience to subdue it, how to pluck the hair after slaughter to remove the fine fluff is a technical work. Therefore, the folk are always not interested in eating geese, and even goose eggs are far less than eggs and duck eggs in the market.

Wang Jinliang knows that the ultimate goal of raising geese is to break through the threshold of dietary concepts. How do you look for this point? At the moment when new media and self-media are blooming, only people who love food and love food can be found, everyone collects firewood and the flame is high, everyone is together, there is always a way. In April 2021, representatives from Lizhuang Restaurant Association, Ping shan e-commerce, calligraphy, food, photography, writing and other major associations gathered together to taste a whole goose feast. The goose used in this table dish is the white goose of eastern Zhejiang imported from Haiyan County, cold eating goose, white cut goose, braised goose, boiled goose... A variety of dishes showcase the chef's craftsmanship. Even the members of the Catering Association, who have always been more picky about eating, also praised the taste of the improved variety of Zhejiang East White Goose, breaking everyone's previous stereotype of the rough and grassy goose meat. With the promotion of e-commerce associations and breeding institutions, there are now more white geese in Pingshan restaurants and markets, especially the continuous enrichment of goose dishes, and consumers are more and more fond of the high quality of zhedong white geese.

After the successful pilot project of the Zhejiang East White Goose in The New Village of Jinping Town, another feeding point in the town's Sumac Village was also launched; unexpectedly, the owner of the Sumac Village Breeding Site turned out to be a disabled person with limited mobility. Wang Jinliang told us that raising geese does not cost much, nor does it require much labor. The goose is usually stocked in the orchard field, it only eats weeds, there is no damage to the fruit trees; the goose manure is left in the orchard land, and it can be concentrated to compost the plum tree or loquat tree to reduce the application of chemical fertilizer; more importantly, even the herbicide is also saved, not only from the economic savings, but also in the environmental protection is also a lot of benefits. And the goose also has a social characteristic, a goose takes the lead, the geese follow, and at night it comes back. There is a saying in Sichuan called "raising geese as a housekeeper", when strangers come, geese will straighten their necks and scream non-stop, even if the family does not have dogs, it can also replace the role of dogs.

In Wang Jinliang's mind, raising geese is by no means stopping at Ping Shan. According to the standardized management model of yinhong plum that he has matured and has been promoted by surrounding counties and cities, he will promote the cycle agriculture of mutual benefit between raising geese and planting yinhong plum to the districts and counties where yinhong plum is planted, so as to create income for more farmers. To get rid of poverty and become rich, there must be scientific and technological factors. To transform agriculture in the western region and county, it is necessary to find an economic and sustainable development path, make full use of limited resources, and play the overall role of "1+1>2", and the role of circular agriculture is indispensable. At present, the white goose introduced in Pingshan in eastern Zhejiang has been supported by Wuliangye Group, and a large number of distilleries produced in the distillery have been dehydrated and processed to make goose feed, which is transported to farmers' homes in autumn and winter to ensure that the geese continue to grain throughout the year.

The goose growth cycle is fast, generally about 4 months can be out of the pen, adult geese can grow to about 5 kg. The meat of the white goose in eastern Zhejiang is delicate and tender, whether it is braised or white cut, it has its own suitable cooking method. Liu Guangyou, chairman of the Pingshan County Writers Association, is not only good at making various goose delicacies, but also writes the experience and process into a series of food articles, which have been promoted by local Yuke company and have been recognized and loved by more and more consumers.

This 5,000-mile-long white goose in eastern Zhejiang has settled in Ping Shan; they grow under the forest, leisurely pecking at weeds, adding a few unique delicacies to the table of the Ping Shan people. In the near future, in a large number of idle orchards, more white geese in eastern Zhejiang will be seen.

About the Author

Xu Wanqi, male, pen name Liquan, born in 1990, originally from Shuiluan Township, Xuyong County, worked for the Education and Sports Bureau of Pingshan County, Sichuan Province. He is a member of Yibin Writers Association and Pingshan County Writers Association. His works have been published in newspapers and periodicals such as "Chinese Dictionary", "Hundred Poetry", "Sichuan Writers Daily", "Yibin Literature" and so on. In 2019, he published his personal essay collection "Between Virtual and Real", and wrote the manuscript of "Interesting Solution of Water And Water And Sloppy Dialects".