Special agricultural products have been made into commodities, worth 200 million yuan! The town of Shanghai achieves high output by tending to flowers and plants
200 million yuan - This is the total output value of the flower and seedling industry in Gangyan Town, Chongming District last year. If this is the annual revenue of an Internet company or a manufacturing enterprise, it is not surprising; A suburban agricultural town that does not rely on renting land and building factories to collect rent, does not have "village smoke", and can achieve such output value solely by tending to flowers and plants, which is not easy. This also makes people curious: what is the "wealth code" of this town?
Rural revitalization cannot do without industrial development, especially agricultural development. The reporter found that in Gangyan Town, "agricultural modernization" has taken a clear "three-step" path: first, identify the characteristics, and select the flower and seedling industry based on its own advantages; Find the right business logic and use industrialization and industrialization thinking to layout agriculture; Finally, taking advantage of the "east wind" of technological innovation, let technological strength become the support and "driving force" of characteristic agriculture.
What kind of agriculture should a modern international metropolis develop? The exploration of Gangyan Town may become a sample of "agricultural modernization".
Where does "specialty" come from?
September is the peak season for selling melon seeds and boxwood. In the Horticultural Village of Gangyan Town, once again, large trucks with license plates from other places have been parked - car owners from all over the country go to Horticultural Village in admiration of the authentic "Chongpai" style boxwood.
"The price of a plant ranges from a few thousand yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. The sales have been good this year!" Standing in his own planting base, Gu Hongchun, a villager from Horticultural Village, couldn't help but smile. The 30 acre landscape boxwood tree that he devoted his life to cultivating has now become a "wealth tree".
Horticultural Village seems to be born for horticulture - it is the largest production base of melon seeds and boxwood in East China, with over 1200 acres of boxwood planted within a 3.1 square kilometer village area, known as the "hometown of melon seeds and boxwood". How did Horticultural Village form a connection with boxwood?
The historical accumulation and natural endowments are the greatest confidence of the "hometown of melon seeds, yellow poplar". In the past, Chongming Island was often attacked by wind and waves, and it was necessary to build embankments. In order to strengthen the embankments, people planted boxwood trees with well-developed roots on the embankments. Later, people were pleasantly surprised to find that this tree, which grew slowly and could only grow once a year in other places, could grow two seasons a year in Chongming, which provided Chongming with unique conditions for the development of boxwood planting industry.
The Horticultural Village, originally belonging to Hexing Township, has always relied on the cultivation of flowers and fruit trees as the main source of collective economic income. Since the discovery of the "treasure" of boxwood, Hexing Horticultural Farm was established in the village in 1958, where melon seed boxwood was planted and shaping techniques were explored. The melon seed boxwood has been selling well to this day.
In the process of promoting rural revitalization, many villages and towns are looking for "characteristic industries", but there are also some misconceptions. Some villages and towns have entered the "internet celebrity industry" and introduced "internet celebrity varieties", with exquisite layout in their locations, but have little connection with ordinary villagers; Some villages and towns also travel thousands of miles to introduce locally unavailable varieties from other provinces and cities. After a period of time, foreign varieties may experience a "rejection reaction" due to local conditions, and industrial revitalization cannot be discussed. Where exactly does "feature" come from?
In the view of Tian Feng, Deputy Director of the Rural Department of the Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, developing characteristic agriculture based on its own conditions and resource advantages is a feasible path to "optimize advantages and make characteristics unique.". "Characteristic agriculture is not just a 'castle in the air' or a 'bonsai' used for exhibitions. It cannot be 'unique for its own sake'. The key is to have practical connections with the history, culture, and even people's production and life in rural areas. Only then can such characteristic agriculture be grounded and sustainable."
In Gangyan Town, flowers and seedlings are closely related to people's daily lives. Guo Zhihua, Deputy Mayor of Gangyan Town, told reporters that over three-quarters of farmers in Horticultural Village are engaged in the cultivation of boxwood, which brings in an annual income of over 40 million yuan. In recent years, the industrial form of Horticultural Village has also radiated to surrounding villages, gradually forming the flower and seedling industry axis along the Hewu Road. The total flower planting area in the town has increased from over 300 acres to over 1800 acres. Nowadays, this flower and seedling industry cluster has a poetic name: Shanghai Flower Port.
"Specialization is actually branding. For a town, a brand and IP are like a person's' persona '. Finding a' persona 'that suits oneself and is conducive to long-term development is essential for the town's industry to have a greater impact on a larger scale and benefit the people at a deeper level." The relevant person in charge of Gangyan Town said.
How can agricultural products become commodities?
Agricultural development, having unique features alone is not enough. Looking at the suburbs of Shanghai and even other places, there are many characteristic agricultural products, but many of them still remain in the stage of individual farmers setting up stalls for sale, "one family, one style", and "the fragrance of wine is afraid of deep alleys". On one hand, farmers are struggling to keep good things out of the market, while on the other hand, the market and consumers are unable to see these good things. How to solve it?
One of the manifestations of agricultural modernization is industrialization - guided by the market and relying on industrial bases managed by enterprises to achieve optimized combinations of various production factors. In Gangyan Town, the flower and seedling industry has achieved stable production, unified sales, and modern business models, which has enabled traditional agriculture to cross the stage of relying on nature for food and further integrate with modern commercial markets.
The flowers and seedlings in Gangyan Town are not only in the fields and greenhouses, but also mostly in factories and assembly lines. In Shanghai Chongming Smart Ecological Flower Garden, the largest flower and seedling factory in Asia, highly automated production lines run through the entire process of flower sowing, germination, seedling cultivation, transplantation, and shipment, all completed on the assembly line. The entire garden is like a "flower copier". At present, the base produces over 10 million high-quality potted flowers annually, with an annual output value of 82 million yuan.
In the nearby Shanghai Chongming International Chrysanthemum Ecological Park, multiple small chrysanthemums harvested from the fields can be transported from the smart glass greenhouse to the flower bundling workshop via a conveyor belt. Workers sort and bag them, and the entire process only takes one or two minutes. Rather than being a flower shed for raising flowers and seedlings, it is more like an efficient production workshop. The park can produce up to 12 million fresh cut chrysanthemums annually, with an annual output value of around 20 million yuan.
To turn agricultural products into commodities, in addition to introducing a factory operation mode, it is more important for growers themselves to have market awareness and consider the flowers and plants in the fields and potted boxwood as commodities. Behind the transformation of concepts lies a deep understanding of supply and demand relationships and market logic.
Chen Hongjuan, the person in charge of the Planning and Environmental Protection Office of Gangyan Town, worked in Chongming after graduating from Tongji University as a graduate student in 2010. She found that at that time, the villagers in the horticultural village only knew how to grow and not how to sell. The sales of boxwood were mainly carried out in a scattered and wandering style, with the pricing power completely in the hands of intermediaries, unable to sell in large quantities or make a bid. "Later, we encouraged villagers to transplant their high-quality boxwood to the main road of the village, Dagang Road, to create a concentrated display belt for the boxwood industry."
At the same time, villagers also hung QR codes on each boxwood tree, which can be scanned to understand information such as height, age, price, and contact information of growers. The town also set up a boxwood industry association, registered a trademark, organized villagers to sell together, and opened a WeChat official account of "the most beautiful garden boxwood" for online sales.
Villager Lin Yuzhang lives on the north side of the Yuejin River in the Horticultural Village. Over the years, he has placed his most beautiful tree species on the open space along the road in front of his house, which buyers can see at a glance. It is a living advertisement. 22 boxwood trees stand proudly, selling one batch and then placing another batch on display. "Before, others didn't know about your tree and didn't know how to buy it; now when they come to the village, they can directly find you whichever tree they like."
Under a series of measures, the sales revenue of Styled Poplar in Horticultural Village increased by 33% in 2022 compared to 2018, and the per capita income of villagers increased from 37000 yuan to 47000 yuan.
How to find a new trend in agriculture?
In the first half of this year, two major events occurred in Gangyan Town. Firstly, the Hexing Rural Revitalization Industry Demonstration Park officially opened in February, with a total of 7 supporting buildings, including maker centers, craftsmen's homes, and other areas. Currently, more than 20 enterprises have settled in. Secondly, in April this year, Chongming Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Incubation Park was established in Gangyan Town, integrating functions such as agricultural science and technology research and development, innovation and entrepreneurship, and industrial upgrading.
This is the next step in the development of agriculture in Gangyan Town. After identifying its unique features and industrializing agricultural products, it is necessary to leverage the advantages of Shanghai, a modern international metropolis, in terms of market, technology, capital, and various "traffic", overcome the urban siphon effect, introduce technology and services into rural areas, and solve core problems such as increasing farmers' income and strengthening rural collective economy.
"The implementation of new agricultural concepts, technologies, and products requires the introduction of scientific and technological forces. We have signed cooperation agreements with the Municipal Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other institutions to increase research on new varieties and technologies. The construction of industrial parks is to provide industrialization space for seed source agriculture and brand agriculture, and improve agricultural competitiveness," said Ding Donghong, Secretary of the Party Committee of Gangyan Town.
The government provides policy resources, research institutes provide technology and data, and enterprises and cooperatives become carriers of new technologies and varieties. With multi-party cooperation, the flower and seedling industry in Gangyan Town has seized the "wind" of technological innovation and opened up a new development situation.
"In the future, agriculture cannot rely on high energy consumption competition, but on technology to lead." Yao Jianjun, the person in charge of Shanghai Chongming International Chrysanthemum Ecological Park, told reporters that the park's operator, Honghua Horticulture, has collected and preserved over 3000 chrysanthemum germplasm resources, making it one of the first "National Chrysanthemum Germplasm Resource Banks" and cooperating with multiple research institutes. As a result, the growth cycle of multiple small chrysanthemums in the park has been significantly shortened, and a batch of chrysanthemums can grow in only about 80 days, resulting in a significant increase in land use efficiency.
The characteristic, industrialized, and technological flower and seedling industry has allowed people to taste the sweetness of increasing income and becoming rich. Taking Shanghai Chongming Smart Ecological Flower Garden as an example, in recent years, the park has employed more than 80 workers from Yangbin Village, Hexing Village, and other villages, with an average annual income increase of over 30000 yuan per person. In the horticultural village, it is common for growers to earn hundreds of thousands of yuan annually by selling trees.
The development of the flower and seedling industry has also given rise to new professions, such as boxwood stylists. Huang Guoping, a villager from Horticultural Village, was originally a truck driver and has been optimistic about the boxwood industry for the past two years. He sold his small truck and focused on shaping the boxwood tree. "At present, there are more than 60 boxwood stylists like me in the whole town, with a daily salary of over 400 yuan. During the peak sales season, they are busy every day, and their annual income is much higher than driving trucks!"
"The starting point and foothold of the modernization of agriculture and rural areas are all 'people', and industries must truly benefit the people. In recent years, we have tasted the sweetness of information, resources, and advanced concepts flowing into the town. In the future, we will further strengthen our advantages, refine our characteristics, and make the people's' money bags' more abundant." Ding Donghong said.
