New trees bear fruit for farming entrepreneurs

During my trip to the Lushan earthquake zone, I was amazed to discover that the area resembles a gigantic fruit garden at this time of year.

As I rode a bus that bumped along the mountain road, I was impressed by the seemingly endless groves of trees bearing oranges, cherries and apples on both sides of the highway in the counties of Shimian, Hanyuan and Yingjing.

The fruits have changed the lives of the local farmers, who suffered great hardship when a magnitude-7.0 earthquake hit the area on April 20, 2013.

Farmers in the mountainous zone traditionally plant fruit trees, and since the quake, the local government in Ya'an, the city that administers the counties, has encouraged the locals to plant more trees and to raise their incomes by dabbling in tourism using the produce grown on trees planted before the quake hit.

Last year, He Dong, a resident of Jianshe village in Datian, Hanyuan county, opened his 20-hectare cherry garden to visitors. Visitors are allowed to eat as many cherries as they like, but they have to pay for any fruit they decide to take home. A kilogram of cherries costs between 120 yuan ($20) and 140 yuan.

"Urbanites think it's novel to pick the fruit themselves, and they rush to the garden. I earned more than 2 million yuan last year, when the cherries ripened," the 27-year-old said.

His old, two-story, 90-square-meter house was damaged in the earthquake, and he spent 1.8 million yuan building a new four-story house that's twice the size.

Hua Zhongjun, a thin, reserved man with a sun-tanned face, is also 27. He lives in Shengli, a village in Datian, 6 kilometers from He Dong's village. After the quake, Hua introduced a new branch-trimming technique he had learned in Beijing, resulting in larger, tastier apples. His 1.3-hectare orchard is also open to visitors.

Last year, when the apples ripened in July, they were sold for between 10 and 12 yuan per kilogram if the buyers picked, but the market price was lower, between 4 and 6 yuan per kilo.

"The apples earned my family of five 280,000 yuan. Before, we planted peas and corn and earned less than 10,000 yuan a year," he said.

Next to Hua's simple one-story building on the mountainside stood a brand-new sedan he bought for 160,000 yuan last year. His orchard was served by a rudimentary mud road until the county government built a tarmac road after the quake.

According to Qing Lidong, deputy Party chief of Ya'an, governments at different levels have tried hard to help the people affected by the quake to boost their incomes and rebuild their houses.

In mountainous Hanyuan, 700 kilometers of paved roads with overhead lighting have been built to link the farmers' gardens and allow a greater number of visitors to buy fruit.

Thanks to the example set by He and Hua, fewer young people are willing to leave the villages to become migrant workers. Many take temporary work in local fruit gardens so they can learn the correct techniques and start their own gardens.

From 2006 to 2008, Hua worked in a factory in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, earning around 1,200 yuan a month.

Mao Lihong, an information officer in Hanyuan, said many younger villagers are unhappy at the prospect of being away from their loved ones and only having about 1,000 yuan a month in their pockets after paying their rent and meal costs.

In the wake of the Lushan quake, which killed 196, the province has provided an additional 10 billion yuan after receiving 46 billion yuan from the central government.

Governments at different levels in Sichuan have made their own efforts to help people rebuild their homes and find new sources of income.

Contact the writer at huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/21/2015 page8)