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In recent years, with the continuous expansion of domestic planting scale, domestic fruits have been upgraded and their quality is getting better and better. With the upgrading of consumption, the pattern of production and sales is also quietly changing. Consumers bought domestic imported fruits with good quality and low price, and also intuitively experienced the improvement of the quality of domestic fruits.
In supermarkets and farmers’ markets in major cities in China, products originally belonging to imported fruit areas, such as Sunshine Rose Green Extract, Soft Seed Pomegranate, Autumn Pear and Wild Persimmon, have now appeared in domestic fruit areas.
"It used to cost more than 100 yuan to buy a string of sunshine roses. Now, in the chain fruit shop at my door, the B-grade sunshine roses are only 29.9 yuan per kilogram." Ma Chunying, a resident of Ganhe Home in Urumqi, Xinjiang, said.
In recent years, with the continuous expansion of domestic planting scale, more and more imported fruits have been "localized". According to the data of Tianyancha, there are currently over 6 million fruit-related enterprises in China. With the consumption upgrading, the production and sales pattern of domestic fruits is also quietly changing.
The source of fruit tends to be domestic.
In the modern agricultural science and technology industrial park in Shaya County, Xinjiang, the huge cherries ushered in the first batch of ripe fruits this year in May. With a bite, the flesh was full, the stone was small, and the juice was moderately sweet and sour, which was booked by many tourists. Looking at the clusters of red and full fruits hanging on the trees, some tourists can’t help feeling: "We have also realized the freedom of fresh cherries."
Looking back on the fruit market in the past 10 years, at the beginning, people’s demand for high-quality fruits such as cherries was mainly met by imports. "Chilean cherries, Japanese sunshine roses, Thai golden pillow durian, etc., in the early days when imported fruits entered the market, we rarely purchased them, fearing that they could not be sold." Looking at the dazzling array of fruits in front of me, Xu Weiwei, the wholesale market owner of the New Beiyuan Spring Agricultural Products Center in Urumqi, said. In 2019, following his father’s footsteps, he placed his No.2 fruit shop in the "New North Garden Spring" market, and the Xu family witnessed the changes in fruit consumption for two generations.
From high-quality fruits in season to out-of-season fruits, more and more imported fruits have flooded into China market, filling the gap of high-end products in China fruit market. While imported fruits occupy the market in China, they also quietly affect the fruit industry in China.
In order to ensure the freshness of fruits, imported fruits are often picked under immature conditions. After a long transportation, the taste and quality are greatly reduced. How to overcome this shortcoming? China counterparts turned the origin of fruit to China.
"In the past, citrus in Australia occupied the market. After 2010, the market purchased more citrus from Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi and other places in China, which was delicious and cheap." Xu Weiwei said.
Not only citrus, but more than 80% of pitaya came from Vietnam when it first entered the China market. After the successful cultivation and promotion of pitaya in China, it replaced 60% of Vietnam’s imports.
Nowadays, pitaya has not only taken root in the south of China, but also been introduced to the western part of the motherland. "Most of the pitaya on the market are shipped from the south, and now we can also eat the local red pitaya." Jin Hongjun, a dragon fruit grower in the 11th regiment of the 1st Division of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, said.
Grow high-quality fruits
Imported fruits take root in China and bring economic benefits to local growers. However, the good times did not last long, and the traditional concept of "selling by heaps" made farmers only pay attention to output, but ignored quality. Therefore, when it comes to high-quality fruits, consumers still prefer "import".
"There are more than ten yuan of cherries and imported cherries (that is, cherries) from outside vendors. No matter the size or color, you can see the difference at a glance, let alone the taste." Xu Weiwei said.
Consumers’ demand for quality makes farmers pay more attention to the grading pricing of fruits. However, the transformation of planting concept, input cost and technology can not be separated from the support of science and technology.
The first time I tasted the "dinosaur egg" was in Cao Xiaofei’s forest fruit nursery. At that time, he was conducting investigation and research with the forest fruit seedling experts hired. Cao Xiaofei is the head of Xinjiang Aksu Desert True Fruit Industry Co., Ltd., which is mainly engaged in the seedling cultivation of Xinjiang characteristic forest fruit seedlings.
According to him, "dinosaur egg" is an imported American fruit plum, which is very crisp in taste and can be stored for a long time. "In recent years, ‘ Dinosaur egg ’ Our seedlings sell well. "
In 2010, Xinjiang Academy of Forestry introduced a number of apricot and plum varieties for trial planting in Aksu, among which the successfully planted varieties were "dinosaur egg", thick flavor, delicious emperor and delicious queen.
In 2018, in Suzhong Farm, Qiemo County, Xinjiang, Liu Huashan, the person in charge, moved the experimental field to the field. In his view, the southern part of Xinjiang has a large temperature difference, long sunshine time and little rain, and planting American apricot and plum trees has unique advantages. In order to grow high-quality apricots and plums, he started with agricultural materials and seedlings according to the market acquisition standards, realized unified standard procurement, improved the local saline-alkali soil and tested it regularly, and formulated a set of standardized operation procedures.
"Our positioning is high-end fruit. The initial investment in standardized orchards is relatively high. If the fruits planted do not meet the market standards, there will be little benefit in bearing more fruits." Liu Huashan said.
In Shaanxi, Fujian, Shandong, Yunnan and other places where "imported fruits" were planted earlier than Xinjiang, the efforts of new farmers are not only manifested in planting techniques and refined orchard management, but also like product managers to inspect the market, analyze advantages and disadvantages, and analyze competitors, so as to adjust planting varieties. Yan Hu, president of Yunnan Binchuan Farmers’ Pomegranate Research Association, expects that the new pomegranate varieties "Angel Red" and "Huaguang" with China’s own intellectual property rights will replace the soft-seeded pomegranate market in Tunisia in the future.
Cold chain technology allows fruits to shuttle north and south.
In August this year, a train loaded with 32 cold chain containers and 640 tons of Xinjiang Jiashi Ximei departed from Kashgar Station, arrived at Shaanxi Weicheng Station in three days, and was sold all over the country after transit.
The person in charge of China Railway Urumqi Bureau Group Co., Ltd. told the Workers Daily that the transportation of Ximei is a technologically advanced railway cold chain logistics vehicle. The box is powered on 24 hours a day, and the whole operation process is monitored remotely. The data indicators in the box are updated every 5 minutes. The mobile intelligent cold storage can guarantee the freshness of Ximei to the maximum extent.
As a typical "imported fruit", prunes introduced from France have taken root in the northwest of China. Jiashi County, Xinjiang, occupies 40% of the country’s prune planting area and 60% of the country’s output, and has become the largest production, processing and export base of high-quality prunes in China.
As early as 2020, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs launched the construction project of cold storage and preservation facilities for agricultural products producing areas, speeding up the completion of the shortcomings of the "last mile" cold chain logistics facilities in producing areas, and minimizing the post-harvest losses of fruits.
Nowadays, domestic "imported fruit" has formed a new circulation path while moving towards people’s dining tables, subverting the traditional fruit industry.
From the source, quality control to cold chain transportation, qualified fruits enter the retail channel according to different grades. For consumers, they can not only buy domestic imported fruits with good quality and low price, but also greatly reduce the probability of buying "rotten fruits" and "inferior products", and intuitively experience the improvement of domestic fruit quality.
