County Secretary promotes Jingning apples in Beijing

According to Lanzhou Evening, when the brand store for selling Jingning apples was starting trial operations on August 17, Wang Xiaojun, Secretary of Jingning County, the biggest apple production base under the jurisdiction of Pingliang City, came to Beijing to "peddle" Jingning apples in person, in an attempt to liven up the Jingning Apple Promotion Fair held in Beijing.

Wang said that Jingning County, as an advantageous production region for apples on the Loess Plateau, has primarily formed its business with a large-scale production base, standardized production, branded products, market-oriented promotion as well as socialized services.

Along with the rise of the apple industry, Jingning County, though located in the remote northwest region of China, has won popular praise, and has gained well-known "national business cards" like National Quality Safety Demonstration Zone of Food and Agricultural Products for Export, Hometown of China Apple, Famous Trademark of China, Green Food Accreditation of China Green Food Development Center, Accreditation of Chinese National Protected Geographic Indication, etc., and has been transformed from a big county of apple production to a strong county of apple production, and from a traditional fruit industry to modern one.

So far, Jingning County has a total orchard area of 1.012 million mu, successfully attaining the goal of becoming a big county of apple production with a planting area over 1 million mu, including a fruiting area up to 500,000 mu. It is expected that the estimated yield will hit 600,000 tons in 2014 with an output value of RMB 2.4 billion.

Farmers will gain an income of RMB 3,790 on average from fruit, accounting for 80 percent of their per-capita income. During recent years, Jingning County has motivated leading enterprises to set up marketing points in large and medium cities, which is an important move towards a sound marketing network.

Edited by Brian Salter, Huang Pei