Jishou City promotes contract farming

Since the beginning of this year, Jishou City has helped increase industrial efficiency and villagers’ income through contract farming.
 
The vegetable garden of Shuangtang Village in Shuangtang Subdistrict is a hive of activity, and local elder villagers are busy harvesting Chinese cabbage and loading it onto trucks.
 
“After sending my grandson to school, I’ll work here to earn some money,” said a local villager.
 
In July of this year, Shuangtang Village signed a contract for purchase and sales orders with Jishou Shengxing Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. However, villagers were not confident in the contract farming as they never did it before. So the village government had to plant vegetables on the idle land, setting an example for villagers.
  “It’s expected to earn 3,000 yuan per mu (about 0.067 hectares), with the guaranteed price of 1.2 yuan per kilogram, which can strengthen the village collective economy,” said Xiong Zhengchun, Party secretary of Shuangtang Village.
 
Contract farming is an agricultural production and sales model in which farmers produce agricultural products based on contracts signed between themselves or their rural organizations and buyers of agricultural products. It implements unified planting, management, fertilization, and sales of vegetables, leaving farmers no longer worried about sales.
  Kangyun Village in Majingao Town signed a contract for cabbage of more than 30 mu (2 hectares) this year, and Tan Shuming, a large grower, has planted 13 mu (about 0.87 hectares) of Chinese cabbage. He said that he only needs to focus on planting now, but doesn’t worry about sales, and transportation costs are also reduced. This fully guarantees stable production and increased income.

Tan Guiwen and his wife helped the elderly in the village in loading vegetables on trucks after finishing their own business. Gu Min from Jishou Shengxing Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. was also busy weighing vegetables for villagers.
 
“Seeing there are many left-behind elderly people, we often work together with them. We are happy when they have a bountiful harvest,” said Gu Min.
 
At the vegetable storage cold chain center of the company, Chinese cabbage is neatly arranged, and workers are busy with preliminary processing and packaging of raw materials to ensure that the products are transported out of the warehouse in time.
 
“After Chinese cabbage is transported to the base, it will be pre-cooled and packaged for the second time with worn-out leaves removed to ensure its freshness and quality. Then, it is transported to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,” said Wu Yingzhong, Minister of the Industry Department of the company.
 
This year, the company has cooperated with 11 towns in Jishou City. It placed more than 3,300 mu (220 hectares) of vegetable orders such as screw peppers, potatoes, and pumpkins in the first half of the year, with a total output value of 40 million yuan. In the second half of the year, nearly 3,000 mu (200 hectares) of Chinese cabbage were ordered, with an expected total output value of nearly 20 million yuan.
  Jishou City will continue efforts to cultivate the contract farming industry and promote the large-scale and specialized development of modern agriculture to help the village collective and villagers increase income.
 

Chinese source: rednet