Longhu Green Park Rural Complex: Integrating agriculture with tourism

Children taste the freshly-picked strawberries. [Photo by Zhang Minmin for chinadaily.com.cn]

In March, at the Longhu Green Park Rural Complex in Zhucheng city, Weifang, Shandong, visitors can freely experience the joy of picking and eating fresh, tender strawberries from among the green leaves at the strawberry picking garden.

The complex integrates modern agriculture, technology demonstration, and leisure tourism.

It includes 100 winter-heated greenhouses, 20 mixed planting and breeding greenhouses, five intelligent greenhouse and mushroom greenhouses, 133 hectares of fruit orchards, 186.7 hectares of nursery bases, over 33 hectares of breeding areas, and more than 6.7 hectares of family-friendly picking gardens. It grows 50 varieties of specialty fruits and vegetables such as cherries, tomatoes, and strawberries. 

The strawberries in the strawberry picking garden are large and red. [Photo by Zhang Minmin for chinadaily.com.cn]

The complex adopts a "leading enterprise + cooperative + farmers + impoverished households" cooperation model, developing contract agriculture to encourage local farmers to plant green vegetables. 

It provides free seeds and technology to farmers, and also employs local impoverished households, solving the employment issues for a large number of rural residents. 

Local farmers have become "triple-income" or "multi-income" farmers, receiving land rent, wages, and bonus dividends. This has provided them with a new path to prosperity. (Edited by Huang Junyao)