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Supporting Preliminary Processing of Agricultural Products at the Place of Origin Is an Effective Way to Increase Farmers’ Income in Xinjiang
2017-02-13
By Zhou Qunli, Cheng Yu, Yang Qin &Yao Li
Research Report Vol.19 No.1, 2017
Xinjiang, with vast land and rich sunshine and heat resources, produces a large variety of tasty forestry products and fruits and is a major production base of such products in China. In the past years, the forestry and fruit industry has been developing rapidly in Xinjiang, with fruit trees covering 20 million mu of land in 2013[], 3.87 times the figure of 2003. However, since facilities for storage, drying and other preliminary processing activities were largely outdated, fruits and vegetables, once harvested, could hardly be kept fresh[], transportation costs were high, and sales channels were limited. As a result, good yields did not bring much income to local farmers.
To promote the development of this featured industry in Xinjiang, The Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance included Xinjiang in the subsidy program for preliminary processing of agricultural products at the place of origin (hereinafter referred to as “the Program”) as one of the pilot sites. To check how well and effective the Program has been implemented in Xinjiang, we went to Urumqi to have meetings with the departments of agriculture and finance, and the agricultural product processing bureau of the autonomous region and made filed trips to Luntai County and Bohu County of Bayingolin Autonomous Prefecture, and Yingjisha County of Kashgar. According to what we learned during the trip, we believe that the Program tackled the bottleneck that prevented local farmers’ income from growing, gave better play to the advantages of the forestry and fruit industry in Xinjiang, and improved the efficiency of budget use. Therefore, the Program should be promoted to a wider scope.
I.Implementation of the Program in Xinjiang
Since the Program was launched in 2012, Xinjiang has invested a total of RMB 632 million in the Program, building 5,950 drying houses, and 1,659 cold storage facilities. In 2015 alone, 3,377 drying houses were built together with 1,017 50-ton and 84 100-ton assembly-type cold storage facilities. Most of them were located in southern Xinjiang (See Table 1). These facilities were all put into use and brought benefit in the same year they were built, contributing greatly to the increase of the income of local farmers and the quality and efficiency improvement of agriculture in the local area.
1.Top-down Implementation and Inter-departmental Coordination
A coordination and leadership group was establish for the Program in Xinjiang, headed by a member and secretary general of the standing committee of the CPC Xinjiang Committee and participated by officials from 27 institutions including the Department of Finance, Department of Forestry, Office of Poverty Alleviation, Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Machinery Bureau, Agricultural Product Processing Bureau, Office of Finance, and Power Company. Pushed from the top down, all relevant institutions coordinated closely and relevant authoritiesrespectively took charge of specific sites to push the Program forward. Leaders of the Coordination and Leadership Group also sent letters to the top leaders of prefectures where progress of the Program was slow, asking them for explanation, inspection, and improvement.
2.Pool Funds to Reduce Farmers’ burdens
In 2015, a total investment of RMB 380 million was made under the Program in southern Xinjiang, with only 90 million, or 23.68% of the total coming from farmers. A drying house cost RMB 75,000 and RMB 10,000, or 13.3% of it was required from farmers. A 50-ton cold storage facility cost RMB 150,000 with RMB 60,000, or 40%, from farmers (See Table 2). In southern Xinjiang, funds were raised from various channels for the Program and farmers had fewer burdens but more benefits.
3.Build Implementation Capacity by Enhancing Technical Training
Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences developed the Implementation Plan for the Hot Wind Drying and Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables and all prefectures and counties formulated detailed implementation rules and training plans based on their specific conditions. In 2015, up to RMB 5million was earmarked for the training under this program to ensure that 66 workers were trained for each drying house and 2 for each cold storage site. A total of 245,240 people were trained, including 22,020 cold storage workers, 338 drying house managers, 10,131 drying house workers, 151,965 fruit and vegetable pickers, as well as 54,032 workers for the sorting and 6,754 people for the marketing of fruits and vegetables. The technical training program laid solid foundation for the development of preliminary agricultural product processing in Xinjiang.
II.Effectiveness of the Program in Xinjiang
So far, the Program has covered 84 out of 88 counties in Xinjiang and in all of these places, a service system has been established preliminarily for the drying and cold storage of fruits and vegetables to reduce post-harvest loss, extend the agricultural industry chain, and increase farmers’ income. At the fifth national meeting for assistance to Xinjiang in 2015, the Program was honored as good initiative that drove industrial development and promoted employment and income growth.
1.Significant Income Growth
Through rot prevention and out-of-season sales, the Program raised the quality and price of agricultural products and significantly increased farmers’ income. For one thing, it managed to reduce post-harvest loss. Take Jinghe County as an example, cold storage helped reduce the post-harvest loss of grapes by 10%. For another, it improved product quality. A typical example is dried apricots. In the past, apricots were dried in the sun which took a long time and hampered safety and hygiene, lowering the price. After the hot wind drying process was adopted, product quality improved and the price rose by over 50% (See Table 3). Up to 50% of all apricots dried in the drying houses were class-1 products while this rate was only 30% in the past. Also, products became available for sale for a longer period and out-of-season sales raised the price level. In Bohu County, for example, cold stored Chinese cabbages were sold at RMB 1.8 per kilo in the spring of 2016, more than three times the price of the previous autumn. As we learned from a green vegetable cooperative in Kuocun Village, Tawenjueken Town, Bohu County, previously, vegetables last no more than two months in traditional cellars and an annual profit totaled RMB 40,000-50,000; after cold storage was adopted, the annual profit grew to over RMB 200,000. If a member of the cooperativecontributes RMB 1,000 to the cooperative, he/she will receive a dividend of up to RMB 200 in cash after a year. ...
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