Recently, the "First Selenium-rich Watermelon Festival" opened in Shantan Village, Tanping Town, Jiahe County, attracting nearly 20,000 tourists and melon farmers from surrounding counties to celebrate the watermelon harvest and experience the fun of picking and tasting watermelons.

The activities were rich in contents and forms, including the free taste of watermelon, watermelon eating competition, watermelon weight guessing competition, watermelon transport competition, cover watermelon competition, watermelon rolling competition, watermelon championship competition and other interesting activities, making tourists exhilarate, forget to return and have endless aftertaste.

The event aimed to promote the selenium-rich watermelon, the special agricultural product of Shantan Village, advocate the modern agricultural development concept of integrating ecology, environmental protection, sightseeing and tourism, highlight the principal of "one village, one product" and "one village, one special", and help the whole region tourism, rural revitalization and poverty relief.

The hardworking, honest and kind Shantan villagers have a tradition of growing watermelons. They use watermelon as the main source of income for their families, and all watermelons are grown in farm manure, never with pesticides, fertilizers or oxytocin, which are tender and sweet with good taste, known as the famous green watermelons.

In recent years, with the correct guidance and assistance of the town party committee and government, the village has innovated the model of "combination of agriculture and tourism" and made full use of the rich selenium in land, convenient transportation conditions and other agricultural resources to develop the watermelon industry, build up "selenium-rich watermelon" brand and characteristic agricultural product demonstration base. At present, selenium-rich watermelon has been developed to more than 800mu, with a yield of 2 million jin, and the selenium-rich watermelon industry has become a sunrise industry in Shantan Village to promote the poverty relief and rural revitalization.

It was reported that a total of 35,600 jin of watermelon were sold. Hunan Huier Logistics Co., Ltd. ordered 4000 jin on the spot, Chenzhou Jiabairun Commercial Company placed an order of 20,000 jin, and other 10 supermarkets signed the order agreements on the day of the event, which played a positive role in promoting Shantan selenium-rich watermelon out of the Jiahe County.