LANZHOU, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) — Ju Aiguo solely accomplished the primary grade of elementary faculty, however now, on the age of 55, he’s an agricultural technician with a medium-grade skilled title, in addition to a profitable apple farmer.
“Trimming, fertilizing, field management and plant protection are four vital steps of planting huaniu apple trees,” mentioned Ju, who has been planting the huaniu apple for greater than 4 a long time.
Ju lives in Maxian Village within the metropolis of Tianshui, in northwest China’s Gansu Province. Located on the Loess Plateau, Tianshui is thought for its huaniu apples, named after an area village. The particular apple selection is thought for its ruby colour and crisp texture.
The Loess Plateau affords optimum pure situations for huaniu apple farming, similar to a deep soil layer, considerable sunshine and reasonable annual rainfall. The planting space of Tianshui covers 790,000 mu (about 35,333 hectares) with the yield totals at about 1.93 million tonnes final yr.
Ju has realized the apple planting methods not solely via apply, but in addition from years of coaching. Now he’s at all times invited to provide lectures to native farmers all year long.
He is amongst 355 native farmers given medium-grade skilled titles, together with one other 13,000 with primary-grade titles, in response to Xie Rui, an official with the native fruit business workplace.
They embody farmer specialists, apple beauticians, market data collectors, and so on. The number of new enterprise types is respiratory new life into the decades-old business of huaniu apple cultivation.
At a fruit firm in Qin’an County, huaniu apples of various sizes are rolling on a transmission band, which sends them right into a sorting machine earlier than being categorized by attributes similar to weight and sweetness.
Wang Le, the machine operator, is affectionately generally known as the “apple doctor”. “The image technology can easily recognize bad apples and sift them out, making sure that customers receive high-quality ones,” mentioned Wang.
“With rising sales, quality control is increasingly important,” mentioned Cai Quanbin, deputy basic supervisor of the company, including that the automation sorting line facilitates the clever sorting of 30 tonnes of apples every single day.
Big firms additionally assist speed up the mixing of the commercial chain, creating job alternatives and boosting incomes.
During the shopping for season for huaniu apples, each family in Huaimiao Village, Qin’an County, has vibrant purple apples piled up outdoors prepared on the market.
“It was a bumper year,” Li Xiaosheng, a village official there, talked about final yr’s harvest. “More than 10,000 tonnes of apples have been sold, including about 1,000 tonnes of huaniu.”
Deng Wen, an “apple agent” from Hubei Province, has been buying huaniu apples in Qin’an since August. “The huaniu apple is distinctive in flavor and easy to store. It is quite popular in the high-end market,” mentioned the person who buys greater than two vehicles of apples every single day through the peak season.
“Thinking ahead of the market is key to making more money,” mentioned Wu Zhengquan, supervisor of an area farmers’ cooperative specializing in huaniu apple planting and advertising and marketing.
He advised Xinhua that the cooperative holds conferences on technological manufacturing, gathering “apple agents” to share their market data, similar to which dimension sells higher and what style is hottest with clients. “The information guides us in planting,” he mentioned.
These days, huaniu apples are being embraced by a broader market. In September, 7.6 tonnes had been exported to the Maldives for the primary time. In the opinion of Yan Gang, basic supervisor of an agricultural export enterprise, there’s huge worldwide market potential to be tapped.
“We have received orders from many foreign countries and areas since August. The apple is well-liked by foreign customers,” Yan mentioned.
Xie disclosed {that a} complete of 18 main enterprises in Tianshui have been permitted of direct export of their apples, with the annual export worth reaching 200 million yuan (about 27.3 million U.S. {dollars}).
In the primary three quarters of final yr, the export worth of apples in Gansu has exceeded 430 million yuan, up 22.4 % yr on yr, in response to native customs.
A various vary of merchandise primarily based on huaniu apples is making its option to abroad markets.
Tianshui Great Wall Fruit Juice Group Co., Ltd. has bought a complete of 330,000 tonnes of apples within the first 11 months of final yr. Their concentrated apple juice has been bought to the United States, South Africa, Japan and different nations.
Tianshui is accelerating the transformation of the only industrial chain of apple juice into extra diversified processing, similar to apple fruit powder and apple paste.
Xie famous that there are 18 deep-processing firms in Tianshui, the place the annual processing quantity has reached 200,000 tonnes, with a complete added worth of 197 million yuan.
Ju Aiguo, the farmer, want to broaden his orchard this yr. Seeing the profit from huaniu apples, his son, who’s at present working elsewhere, plans to return to his hometown and assist his father.
“Life is getting better, and we hope to see another bumper harvest this year,” mentioned Ju.