Home » City specials » Chengdu
Chengdu changing face of agriculture
Print Edition
CHENGDU, a major supplier of agricultural products in the country, is in the throes of modernizing the sector. Being a basic but dominant sector, it means both responsibility and opportunity.
As the capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, Chengdu pays special attention to the sector: government officials coordinate the development in agriculture with manufacturing and services, and bolster trade as well as tourism to create more added values for the sector.
The recent 3rd Sichuan Agricultural Expo & Chengdu International Urban Modern Agricultural Expo, which was held from November 19 and 23, highlighted the integration of modern agriculture with high technology, entertainment as well as the fast-growing e-commerce industry.
Sichuan Shenghe Okra Management Co Ltd, a company established last year, which specializes in plantation, research and development, as well as sales of okra, was one of the exhibitors at the fair.
“We sell okra because it is a native plant of Sichuan and good for health. It has a business potential,” said Xu Bo, a senior executive of the company. “But we are not farmers only growing okra … we create a value chain that can maximize the earnings.”
The company has a 0.67-square-kilometer plantation area in Shuangliu County and follows a strict quality control. It also runs a production line in Chongzhou to process the natural product into beverage, mixed tea and dried fruit. With this, the company claims, the value of their okra rises more than 10 times.
“The rule of the smiling curve is applicable in both the manufacturing sector and in agriculture,” Xu said. “We are trying to transform this business from the primitive and traditional ways of doing things.”
People began to realize that in the agriculture section, the upstream (labor, capital and technology) and downstream (fine processing, channels and services) of the supply chain have a higher added value than that of the midstream portion (plantation).
Besides the product itself, technology is put to good use during the production process, especially during planting, irrigation, fertilizers and illuminating. For farming at home, Huigu Agriculture Co Ltd has created an interior wall that can hold the plantation, making it possible for people to pick fresh vegetables in their apartments and eat them.
In a document released by the Chengdu Agriculture Commission, it says, “agriculture has become more intelligent.”
“We are trying to build a comprehensive industry chain for the sector to optimize services for consumers and improve profit margin for investors,” it said.
The development of modern agriculture industry has also entered the “Internet Plus era” — integrating online and offline experience.
At the fair, Chengdu 3+6 Information Technology Co Ltd exhibited its latest model of self-service machines distributing and selling fresh food — from hot pizza to frozen meat. The temperature could be set between minus 18 Celsius degrees and 60 degrees. Such smart machines have begun to transform people’s habit of going to wet markets or supermarkets to buy food — they now only need to order online, pick up their deliveries at the community’s door step, and pay with the applications on mobile phones, all thanks to the “Internet Plus” era.
With the help of the Internet and globalization, the agricultural industry has become almost boundless. At the fair, people can not only see well-known native ingredients such as green tea, mushrooms and various condiments, but also products from other provinces and even other countries, such as Italian sausage, Polish cheese and Malaysian white coffee.
The fair also had a separate hall for agricultural entertainment. Sichuan is the origin of agritourism. Last year, Chengdu received 90 million people who spent time in farmhouses to escape the city life, and take in the fresh air in the rural belts. It also serves the freshest food while in the midst of beautiful nature. Generating sales of 16 billion yuan (US$2.53 billion) last year, agritourism accounted for 24 percent of the farmers’ income in Chengdu, and is expected to realize sales of 18 billion yuan this year.
Better integration of agriculture with technology and services needs more investment. In the first half this year, Chengdu signed 103 new agricultural projects worth 15.6 billion yuan, including a 1.5-billion-yuan cold chain logistics park in Pengzhou, a 250-million-yuan green plantation and distribution base invested by Shenzhen E-Road, and a 100-million-yuan high-end plantation industry park developed by the local Zoeve Seed.
In the next five years, Chengdu is expected to attract more than 150 billion yuan in the agricultural sector alone, according to the city’s draft of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). It is a clear demonstration of Chengdu’s ambition to develop modern agriculture.
This year, the output of Chengdu’s agriculture industry is estimated to reach 38.6 billion yuan, up 3.2 percent year-on-year, according to the Chengdu Agriculture Commission. The steady growth of the sector guarantees proceeds to the rural population, whose disposable income may increase 10.2 percent annually to 17,747 yuan this year.
At the fair, 704 new agricultural investment projects were signed with a contracted value of 139.7 billion yuan.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
