A small slice of France in the Chinese countryside

Reporters' log | Chen Liang and Li Yingqing

Driving to Meiming Raspberry Farm, Zhu Zhongyuan got lost in a one-street town about 10 kilometers outside the county town of Songming.

The street had several narrow side lanes that wound into the countryside, and although Zhu, a county publicity official, had visited the farm two or three times before, he just couldn't recall the right way to go.

"I remember there was a large TV advertisement painted on the wall at the entrance of the road," he says while driving.

Fortunately for us, the locals here all know exactly how to get to the farm. Five minutes later, we were pulling up on its granite driveway.

When we arrived, Martin Dabilly and his older brother, Thomas, were busy in their office, which on the wall had a map with colors and other markings to show where various raspberry plants are in different stages of growth. Next door was a packing room and the farm's cold storage facility, where women were putting fresh raspberries into small boxes by hand.

The brothers gave us a guided tour of their farm, taking us to see their large, plastic greenhouses, which form tidy lines along a straight stretch of road overgrown with grass, although rather than common weeds this grass is clover.

"Clover fixes nitrogen, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers," Martin Dabilly explains, adding that eucalyptus trees have also been planted along the road to act as "a kind of windbreak".

The greenhouses run at controlled temperatures and also use a drip irrigation system that includes a blue watermark monitor, a device that automatically takes soil moisture readings. This data can be evaluated to determine how to improve the irrigation scheduling for optimum results.

"Based on our irrigation system, we apply water only where and when it is needed," the French farmer says.

In an open field, he pointed to a plant with large green leaves and crimson red stalks, which was rhubarb, a vegetable some people say was introduced to Europe from China by Marco Polo. Rhubarb grown at Meiming can be found in hotels and restaurants in Shanghai, he says.

We met Martin Dabilly's wife, Claire, at the farm's cottage. She was watering a tree in the garden, which is covered in clover and other plants, accompanied by the couple's pet dog, Milou.

The cottage was painted red outside, and inside was a variety of colors, with an iron fireplace in the living room. On the walls were replicas of paintings by French impressionists.

In this foreign land, it seems the Dabilly family has carved out a little piece of the French countryside for themselves.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 06/26/2015 page25)