Heze seedling industry sees boost in rural vitalization

The Dingtao district of Heze city – located in East China's Shandong province – has recently been actively developing the vegetable greenhouse industry with a focus on seedlings.

It has established professional cooperatives and service teams to promote good seed varieties and to provide comprehensive services to farmers.

The aim is to strengthen the agricultural industry value supply chain and to promote the efficient development of the fruit and vegetable planting industry.

A view of a seedling plantation in Dingtao district. [Photo by Wang Haoyong for chinadaily.com.cn]

A seedling production plantation in Dingtao district is servings as the birthplace of greenhouse fruits and vegetables and is providing agricultural education to farmers. Field lectures cover seedling varieties, growth processes and basic agricultural practice. In addition, local growers have achieved great results in terms of survival rates and yields.

In the district's Dutang town alone, three large seedling production centers now cover 700 mu (46.67 hectares) and a provincial modern agricultural industrial park.

They've also developed over 4,000 winter-heated daylight greenhouses for vegetable production, forestry and fruit-planting areas, as well as 45 leisure picking gardens. This has created a specialized industrial cluster, that ranges from seedling production to planting and harvesting.

Moving forwards, plans are for Dingtao to optimize its rural vitalization strategy and leverage its agricultural resources to support regional development. (Edited by Jin Yongxue)