Xingxian: polish the golden signboard and make a big industry with small grains

Duan Siqi

In the golden autumn season, the crops are ripening one after another, and Xing County, Luliang City, Shanxi Province sings a harvest song.

In recent years, Xingxian County has implemented the development strategy of "special", "excellent" and "efficient", continued to play the "high-quality cereals" brand with high quality, promoted the development of the whole industrial chain of coarse grains, and made the coarse grains industry truly become a pillar industry for rich counties and villages.

Promote revenue as a whole

"Last year, the total output of my family's 13 acres of millet was more than 7,300 catties, and the company sold more than 20,000 yuan for recycling, and this year it should be better, all thanks to good policies!" On the beach of the Yellow River in Lijialiang Village, Luoyukou Town, Xingxian County, a noble and swarthy face of a large grain grower showed a smile full of hope.

From a distance, the corn, millet, sorghum, and soybean ears in the fields are full, and the breeze blows, wafting with a burst of fragrance.

Located in the hinterland of the middle reaches of the Yellow River Basin, Luliangxing County has an average altitude of 1002 meters, with a dry and cool climate, a short frost-free period, sufficient sunshine, and a large temperature difference between day and night. The unique natural and geographical conditions have made it possible to form an agricultural tradition of growing cereals since ancient times.

How to rely on resource advantages to embark on a unique road of rural revitalization? In recent years, Xingxian County has focused on building "the first county of small grains in Shanxi"

The goal of "China's Hometown of Millet" focuses on highlighting the "high-quality cereals" card, and continuously developing and expanding the planting scale of cereals; It has cultivated 6 provincial-level cereal processing leading enterprises such as "Shanhua Wanman" and "Qingquan Vinegar Industry", which has driven farmers to increase their income and become rich while building the brand of Xingxian cereals.

This year, Xingxian County learned and practiced the experience of the "Ten Million Project", issued the "2024 Industrial Action Plan", made detailed arrangements for 6 major industries and 8 key tasks, and adhered to the agricultural industry development ideas in 9 aspects: high-quality small grains, modern facility vegetables, ecological breeding, characteristic economic forests, high-quality edible fungi, high-quality Chinese medicinal materials, integrated development, agricultural product processing and rural construction, and made great efforts to drive the masses to continue to increase their income.

Like the noble treasure family, with the strong support of the county, the villagers have orders for planting and recycling. The market is getting stronger and stronger, prices are also "rising all boats," and peasants' enthusiasm for growing grain is getting higher and higher.

In 2023, the planting area of miscellaneous grains in Xingxian County will be stable at about 400,000 mu, with an annual output of 180 million catties, and the output value of the miscellaneous grain industry chain will reach 1.05 billion yuan, and the income of miscellaneous grains will account for 83% of farmers' income from growing grains, with an increase of about 5,000 yuan per capita.

Science and technology to rejuvenate agriculture and explore new roads

"This is cowpea, this is mung bean, this is a new variety to try." In the experimental demonstration base of miscellaneous grain seed industry in Liulin Village, Caijiahui Town, Xingxian County, looking at the vigorous bean seedlings all over the ground, He Huping, chairman of Luliangshan Huamanan Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd., who is responsible for hosting this experimental field, is like a few treasures.

Agriculture is the basic industry that supports the development of the national economy, and seeds are the "chips" of agriculture. For He Huping, the yield and quality of new varieties are not only related to the success or failure of the experiment, but also to the development direction and future of the entire Xingxian agriculture.

Rejuvenating agriculture with science and technology starts from a seed. Since 2022, Xingxian County has continued to deepen its cooperation with the Institute of Crop Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to jointly build a national coarse grain production, supply, training, test demonstration and seed base, and accelerate the upgrading of the industry.

The two sides have set up a demonstration base for the research and development and testing of new varieties of miscellaneous grain crops such as millet, buckwheat, edible beans and sorghum in Xingxian County. In the past two years, with the close cooperation of both sides, the tests of various new varieties have achieved fruitful results.

In June this year, the average yield of cold-season beans (peas, chickpeas) just harvested in the Liulin base exceeded 300 catties per mu, which was twice that of ordinary varieties. After preliminary testing, the content of protein, amino acids and other nutrients in the new varieties is basically the same as that of the traditional varieties.

In order to meet the development needs of the cereal industry in Xingxian County, experts from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences transformed the experimental fields into large classrooms on the spot, and taught farmers techniques through "listening, doing, and watching", so that they could master more scientific farming methods.

Following the advice of the experts, the millet planted by the villagers not only increased the yield,

Intercropping is also used to achieve double cropping of peas and millet in one year.

"Good times are yet to come!" Li Xueping, who has tasted the sweetness, plans to transfer more land and grow into a new type of professional farmer.

Under the promotion of the Xingxian County Party Committee and the county government and the guidance of experts from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Xingxian County has actively increased investment in science and technology in the fields of research and development of coarse grain seeds, mechanization of cultivated land and training of new professional farmers, cultivated and formed new quality productivity, and explored a new way for the combination of production, education and research in the agricultural field and the realization of agricultural modernization in poverty alleviation areas.

Seek development with the meeting as a medium

In August, just after the beginning of autumn, an industry event on the "development of the cereal industry" ——— the 2024 National Cereal Industry Development Exchange Conference was held in Xingxian.

Gan Yantai, professor of Wenzhou University, Hu Xinzhong, director of the Processing and Comprehensive Utilization Research Office of the National Oats and Buckwheat Industry Technology System, and Cheng Xuzhen, director of the Edible Bean Special Committee of the Crop Science Society of China, and other specially invited experts came to Xingxian. After the academic report, the experts came to the experimental field to check the growth of miscellaneous grains and guide the development of the millet industry.

Under the witness of the guests, on the same day, the Institute of Crop Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Jinsui Cereals Research Institute and Shanhua Splendid Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd. signed a contract on the transfer of the management rights of four new varieties of miscellaneous grains, namely "Zhonggu 18, Pea Zhongqin 3, Buckwheat Zhongbuckwheat 21 and Zhongkue 3". Four companies, including Beijing Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd., signed joint development agreements with local enterprises in Xingxian County.

At the meeting, Qiao Yun, vice chairman of the Luliang CPPCC and secretary of the county party committee, sincerely invited all scientific research institutes and market entities to carry out deeper, broader and more extensive cooperation with Xingxian County, so as to make more contributions to promoting the high-quality development of the whole industrial chain of Xingxian cereals.

On December 19, 2023, the regional public brand of "Xingxian Cereals" was released. In the agricultural products display area of the venue, boxes of millet, red kidney beans, mung beans, kidney-shaped soybeans and other small grains of Xingxian County are dazzling, cowpea noodles, pea noodles and other miscellaneous grains, hand-rolled noodles series, as well as millet oil, flaxseed oil and other small grains deep-processed products, so that the guests feel that the small grains of Xingxian County that once exuded the atmosphere of "earth" have been "more than one side".

Invite experts, build bases, cultivate leaders, expand scale, create brands, and develop industries...... A series of combinations in Xingxian County are dizzying. In 2023, the development of Xingxian cereals industry will be full of harvest: the first China Shanxi (Xingxian) Cereals and Pasta Culture Festival, the 2023 International Millet Year Academic Annual Conference, the 5th China Millet Industry Development Conference and the first China (Xingxian) Cereals Industry Expo will be held one after another, and the regional public brand of "Xingxian Cereals China Good Grain" has been launched strongly.

Nowadays, on this red fertile soil, one project after another has landed, batch after batch of industries have emerged, and one beautiful new countryside has changed rapidly, and Xingxian County has also entered a new stage of seed industry construction from traditional crop planting, and has made great strides on the road of high-quality development of the "special, excellent and efficient" miscellaneous grain industry.