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Every day at around 9 o'clock, boxes of plump and firm cabbage and plump and colorful chili peppers are sent out from the Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Vegetable Market in Hong Kong. Before noon, these vegetables from Nanzhangzhuang Village, Yaowangzhuang Town, Luannan County, Tangshan City, Hebei Province, will be able to enter Hong Kong families.
The history of vegetable planting in Nanzhangzhuang Village can be traced to the end of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, in order to increase their income, the villagers not only grew grain, but also grew vegetables on their own. In the 80s of the 20th century, the small village took the lead in building vegetable greenhouses, and the annual income was several times higher than that of bare ground vegetables.
In October 2022, members of Luannan County Luyuan Vegetable Professional Cooperative were taking care of melons. Photo by Zhang Yongxin.
Liu Liansheng is the first person to build a greenhouse in Nanzhangzhuang Village. "Originally, there were a few sheds for trial planting, but now a cooperative has been established, with more than 40 greenhouses. Liu Liansheng said.
Nanzhangzhuang Village has a total of 423 people, with a vegetable planting area of 550 acres and 700 greenhouses, mainly planting peppers and cabbage. Driven by greenhouse planting in Nanzhangzhuang Village, the population of Yaowangzhuang Town is only 1The town of 60,000 people in eastern Hebei has developed into a well-known vegetable production and distribution center in the country in the past few decades.
Our refrigerated trucks are sent to the Guangzhou stall, which can be reached in about 36 hours, and then sent from the stall to Hong Kong and Macao. Cao Shengli, a vegetable broker, came to the fruit and vegetable wholesale market along the Qinghe River in Luannan County early in the morning and watched the refrigerated trucks drive in and out.
Cao Shengli, 48 years old this year, is a member of Luannan County Luyuan Vegetable Professional Cooperative and the largest vegetable dealer in the town, and has been dealing with vegetables for more than 20 years.
Cao Shengli said that in recent years, the vegetable planting structure has been continuously adjusted, the greenhouses in the villages have become higher and larger, the degree of scientific and technological automation has been continuously upgraded, and the vegetable brand has long been famous.
In 2022, Yaowangzhuang Town** will connect with the "Vegetable Basket" Work Office of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and send vegetables to professional testing institutions for testing. After strict selection, in May this year, Yaowangzhuang Town was approved as the 11th batch of "vegetable basket" production bases in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, realizing the southern transportation of "northern vegetables".
In May 2023, in the fruit and vegetable wholesale market along the Qinghe River in Luannan County, merchants are sorting chili peppers from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Photo by Zhang Yongxin.
The selection criteria are high, and the testing is very strict. Take the sharp pepper as an example, we have passed more than 40 index tests, and some vegetable varieties need to go through more than 100 tests to pass. Zhao Kai, mayor of Yaowangzhuang Town, said.
Today, there are more than 100 vegetable cooperatives in Yaowangzhuang Town, where Nanzhangzhuang Village is located, with an annual output of more than 400,000 tons of vegetables. In 2022, Yaowangzhuang Town was approved as a "vegetable production base around Beijing", and it also ranked among the towns with more than one billion yuan of rural characteristic industries in the country with "Qingheyan cabbage".
Relying on the vegetable industry, Nanzhangzhuang Village also changed its thinking to enter the tourism industry, promoted industrial upgrading, and built the first vegetable museum in this area.
In this small vegetable museum, the reporter saw black and red black peppers, fairy grass, cabbage, rosemary, Tangshan autumn cucumbers and other vegetables, which are new varieties they tried to plant. Liu Wenhao, the person in charge of the vegetable museum in Nanzhangzhuang Village, said that the museum has set up a vegetable testing center, a variety experiment display center, a sorting and distribution center, and also specially hired well-known domestic agricultural experts as technical consultants to carry out technical services.
Zhao Kai said that focusing on the transformation and upgrading of the vegetable industry, cooperatives promote standardized production, standardized operation and modern management. At present, more than 1,000 high-standard greenhouses have been renovated in the local area, and 8 new technologies such as biogas slurry and wood vinegar have been introduced, such as intelligent temperature control, aquaponics and vegetable symbiosis, and water and fertilizer integration.
The small peppers from Nanzhangzhuang Village leapt from the north and south from the original roadside, and were "favored" by Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. Today, more than 12,800 vegetable greenhouses in the town are still expanding, and the market has broad prospects.
*: China News Service.
Author: Bai Yunshui, Meng Chao.