Potato Cultivation’s Westward Journey

By staff reporter MA LI

RAINY weather for several consecutive days in Fengdu， Chongqing， gives the misty Xueyu Mountain some richness of green. Along the roadsides corn stalks have begun to elongate while kidney bean plants are flowering. In the meantime， potatoes grown in a tract of land are entering harvest season.

Early in the morning， 54-year-old Tang Daixiang of Xinhechang Village， Wuping Town， Fengdu County， gets up and stands at his door， calling out to his neighbors for helping him dig up potatoes.

In 2018， Tang Daixiang tried out a new potato variety introduced from Tengzhou， Shandong Province， and succeeded in one stroke. “I harvested 5，000 kg from just 2 mu （15 mu equal 1 hectare） of land and earned RMB 14，000 by selling them.”

The same area of hillside land， if used for growing corn as before， could yield only RMB 400 to 500. Tang Daixiang was pleasantly surprised that potatoes could bring him such a fortune.

Building on the successful trial cultivation last year， Tang increased the potato cultivation area to 10 mu this year. Supposing the output per mu reaches 2，500 kg and the purchase price is RMB 2 per kg， Tangs income from potato cultivation alone can potentially reach RMB 50，000 this year. Adding other incomes from tobacco planting and doing odd jobs during the slack farming season， the familys annual income this year is estimated at about RMB 70，000.

By noon， potatoes from a plot （about 0.6 mu） has been harvested. They are loaded into baskets， delivered to the courtyard near the highway， and washed before being transported to the supermarkets in the county seat. Tang Daixiang now offers a payment of RMB 100 a day to each villager who helps harvest potatoes. “I cant have them work for me for free as they did last year， because the planting area and output are obviously much larger，” he says.

Seeing that Tang has reaped economic profits by planting potatoes， a number of other Xinhechang villagers joined in potato business this year， leading to the re-opening of the village vegetables cooperative， which had been idle for many years. “The planting area has been expanded from two mu last year to more than 500 mu this year，” says Tang Jianghong， chief of the village Party branch and concurrently head of the village vegetables cooperative. He adds that the village will expand the planting scale further next year.

The successful cultivation of potatoes in Wuping Town with an average elevation of 1，800 meters， has much to do with the east-west poverty alleviation cooperation endeavor undertaken by Tengzhou City in Zaozhuang of east Chinas Shandong Province and Fengdu County， southwest Chinas Chongqing Municipality. The cooperation program goes back to 2017 when a Tengzhou leader visited Fengdu. During this research tour， the two sides decided to choose potato as the first choice of economic crop to be introduced in Fengdu. Subsequently， Cao Ling， a Standing Committee member of the Fengdu county Party committee and head of the county Party committees organization department， visited Zaozhuang for details of the cooperation in the potato industry.

In 2018， two potato varieties， Xisen No. 3 and No. 6， from Tengzhou， were planted as a trial over 100 mu of land in Wuping Town. Tang Daixiang was among the farmers participating in the trial planting.

With the experiment turning out a success， Tengzhou provided Fengdu with 3，000 mu of potato seeds free of charge in 2019. These seeds were planted in six townships – including Wuping， Nantianhu， and Xiannuhu – of Fengdu which were chosen to pilot the expansion of potato production.

Up to now， the 3，000 mu of potatoes in the six townships are expected to yield 3，000 kg per mu on average， bringing forth an increase of near RMB 5，000 in the revenue per mu. This will greatly benefit more than 800 related local households， including 208 people from 121 registered poor households.

Lin Fangyan， director of the Wuping Town Agricultural Service Center， says that after the potatoes are harvested this year， they will also lead cooperative farmers to grow out of season vegetables， in order to further raise their income.

With the help of resourceful farmers from Tengzhou， the planting and harvesting methods in Fengdu have been greatly updated. According to Lin， except Tang Daixiangs land where mechanized production could not be achieved due to scattered planting areas and small plots， large-scale planting sites all use mechanical digging and harvesting. In addition， in the early stage of potato planting， the mechanization of ditching， sowing， fertilizing， covering soil， and velum application has also been realized， which greatly reduces the labor input.

In the large-scale planting base of Wuping， potato blight surveillance and warning system has also been installed. This system can monitor the occurrence of blight at any time and location in a five kilometer radius. As long as the growers scan the twodimensional code on the system with their mobile phones， they can timely identify the specific location of the disease and deal with it. “The application of modern technology has given us more confidence in the production and promo- tion of potatoes，” Lin says.

This year， Lin notes， 1，400 mu of potatoes have been planted in Wuping Town. At a conservative estimate with the yield per mu at 2，500 kg， and the purchase price at RMB1.6 per kg， the total income of potato growers in Wuping would reachRMB 5.6 million. “This is just the beginning，” says Lin， adding that the potato planting scale in Wuping next year will be between 10，000-12，000 mu， and the total revenues from potatoes are expected to reach RMB 40 million so as to raise the average income per household in the town to RMB 9，000.

Tengzhous agricultural assistance to Fengdu is only one of many east-west pairingoff poverty alleviation models in China. The socalled east-west pairing-off cooperation means that the relatively developed provinces and regions in eastern China pair off with relatively poor areas in western China to assist in the latters development. This policy began in the 1990s， and has become an important strategy to narrow the gap between the east and the west， activate the endogenous power of the west for development， and change the mode of poverty alleviation from “blood transfusion” into an active and sustainable mode aimed at improving the “blood making” capacity of the poor population. Over the past 20 years， about 300 counties and cities in eastern China and about 300 counties and cities in western China have forged partnerships. Eastern provinces and municipalities have provided more than RMB10 billion in financial assistance to more than 10 provinces， regions， and municipalities in the west， helping to build more than 20，000 km of rural roads and nearly 2，000 health centers. As part of the cooperation， the eastern region not only offers money and goods， but also promotes the cooperation between eastern and western industries as well as the flow of talents， funds， and technology to poor areas so as to achieve a win-win situation.