Though it is midwinter, the vegetables, sweet oranges, cows and sheep, and etc. are still being cultivated well in Yongxing county. In recent years, assisted with the promotion of facilities, ecological operation, and industrialization, Yongxing county’s agriculture industry was improved greatly, which helped to increase local people’s income as well. In 2015, great achievements were gained by Yongxing agriculture industry that its grain output was amounted to 266,200tons with an increase of 1.02%, setting a new historic record of the county. Furthermore, per capita farmer’s income of the county was up to 14,390yuan with an increase of 10.5%. The rapid development of modern agriculture contributes greatly to the improvement of agriculture and increase of farmers’ income.

Technological innovation helps to increase grain yield

Zhongnan Santai Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. of Xiangyindu town is one of the leading agriculture enterprises of Yongxing county. The smart fertilizer machine which was bought by the company in July 2014 is the first one ever available in Chenzhou city. It was introduced by Feng Hongyin – the Director of Board that: “once the information as farmland productivity evaluation results, fertilizer efficiency of crops, soil test results, and food production of grain were collected, we used the smart fertilizer machine to process the details and figure out relative fertilization schedule for seasons of rice, sweet orange, and vegetables. Compared with custom fertilizer operated by the farmers in former years, the fertilization schedule confirmed by the machine is more scientific, nutrient, and economical. 20yuan fertilizer costs/mu can be saved by the machine. ”

It was learned that from 2008, the county carried out the soil test for all 420,000mu farmlands and formulated relative fertilizer schedules by computer processing on the basis of the collected information as soil nutrition content, fertilizer requirement law of crops, target yield, and etc. 420,000mu farmlands of the 364 administrative villages of 21 towns and villages are capable to be obtained with the fertilizer guidance. In 2015, 1.016million mu farmlands of 17 towns and villages as Bianjiang town and Xiangyindu town were facilitated with the formulated fertilization schedule based on soil test.

In order to promote the agricultural modernization, Yongxing county popularized 5 new agricultural technologies as concentrated seedlings raising, decomposition by returning straws to fields, green prevention and control technology, and etc. At the meantime, 63 agricultural technicians were dispatched to the villages to guide local people’s operation, especially for the cultivation of demonstration families of agricultural science.

Establishment of brands helps to increase people’s income

Yongxing county is the exclusive key county of high quality sweet orange base of China, base county of famous-brand and high-quality crops of south subtropical, the state base county of green raw material (sweet orange), and key county of orange industry in superior region. Yongxing sweet orange was awarded with different national and Hunan provincial level prizes. In order to play the best advantages of this industry and drive people to be wealthy, Yongxing county established “Sweet Orange Plantation Association” and Sweet Orange Industry Office and fully operated branding marketing of Yongxing sweet orange with unified mark and brand. At the meantime, professional cooperatives were established in the villages to operate the production and management jointly, which highly helped to guarantee the oranges’ quality. Furthermore, some free technical training and guidance were provided by local government to promote the standardized production, concentrated operation, and branding marketing.

In order to promote the development of sweet orange, Yongxing county paid great attention on improving sweet orange industry and high-quality rice industry along S213. High level demonstrations and sweet orange park projects were implemented there by the center of Yongshui village, covering 6 administrative villages and 30,000mu lands, which effectively helped to increase local fruit farmers’ income. Taking sweet orange for example, per capita income can be with the increase of over 5000yuan.

Guided by local government, some merchants tried to marketing sweet oranges online from 2014, which helped to expand markets and extend industrial chain. Currently, there are 152 online shops of sweet orange available in Yongxing county, covering 25% of the total marketing of the orange. The sales of some large scale online companies are over 10million yuan till now.

According to the statistic, the total planting areas of sweet orange are about 139,000mu in Yongxing county, covering 12,000 families of 240 villages of 17 towns and villages. 92,000mu of them were yield in 2015 with annual production of 80,000tons, accounting for 800million yuan output value.

Featured agriculture is being transformed rapidly

“The cole flowers planted in earlier days are sprouting now,” said Li Qianjin- the owner of Qianjin Farm of Youtang village, Xiangyindu town who transferred over 1100mu lands to operate leisure farm in the village. Last year, he planted 10mu sunflowers which attracted a large number of visitors on its blossom season. Due to this successful experience, Li planted over 300mu cole flowers in 2015 by the guidance of local government.

As introduced by Li, 300kgs rapeseeds can be yield in each mu land and the oil expressed by these seeds can be sold to over 1200yuan. Thanks to the fertile soil of the banks of Xihe river of Yongxing county, local villagers can plant the cole flower after harvesting the late season rice. 3000mu cole flowers were planted by local villages in 2015. It was estimated to grant over 1000yuan/mu income to local villagers.

In recent two years, Yongxing county paid great attention on improving the development of leisure agriculture. Followed the ideas of “planning goes after programming, development goes after environmental protection”, Yongxing county improved Bianjiang landscape belt, Zhujiang landscape belt, and Xihe landscape belt to be boutiques of leisure agriculture and rural tourism. At the meantime, it carried out different measures to promote the development of leisure farm, such as providing financial subsides and granting favorable policies, which formulated green economy development pattern and improved the vigorous development of featured agriculture. Till the end of 2015, 394 rural professional cooperatives are available in Yongxing county, 104 of which were newly registered in the year. 24 leading agricultural enterprises were cultivated by the county as well, contributing 876million yuan profits and tax payments to the county.