Wild Pepper Fragrance Along the Yellow River

In the first ten days of August, summer is not over and autumn is coming. Hancheng, located on the West Bank of the Yellow River in the eastern part of Shaanxi Province, held the annual "Wild Pepper Grand Meeting" as scheduled. In the main venue of the National Wild Pepper Industrial Park in Hancheng, wild pepper farmers, merchants, experts and audiences gathered together, and the exhibition, trade, competition of wild pepper, and the forum were proceeding in an orderly manner, with a lively and festive atmosphere everywhere.

At the same time, Themed Interview Team of "The Economic Spring is Revitalizing Rural Areas in China --Letting the World Listen to the Voice of Shaanxi" came to Hancheng City for an interview. During the two-day interview, the Interview Team went into the village and  fields to record with pen and lens the excellent stories on the rapid development of agriculture, beauty of rural environment, and rich of farmers in the process of implementing the strategy of rural revitalization in the city.

The aroma in the hometown of wild pepper is strong

Hancheng is praised as "the Hometown of Dahongpao Wild Pepper", with thousands of years of planting history of Dahongpao Wild Pepper. "Dahongpao Wild Pepper of Hancheng" is famous at home and abroad for its large grain, thick skin, fresh color and strong flavor, and it is the only "Famous Trademark of China" recognized by the former State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

Each place has its streams in from all over the country, the topography and landforms of Hancheng are complex and diverse. The unique geographical and climatic conditions of "Seven Mountains, One Water and Two Fields" have created the very unique Dahongpao wild pepper, which has become a well-paid occupation for the local people to live on.

On the day of the interview, the reporter came to a 10,000 mu of High-efficiency Wild Pepper Demonstration Base at Zhaofeng Village, Zhiyang Town. As soon as the reporter got off the car, he came across the fragrance of wild pepper. The ripe fruits of wild pepper were hanging heavily on the branches, indicating another bumper harvest this year.

This is the good fortune of Hancheng, also the Hancheng people. Ning Jinsheng, 67, is one of the beneficiaries of wild pepper, and his family has made a good living by growing wild pepper.

Ning Jinsheng is a villager in Zhaofeng Village. He has planted pepper for most of his life. He broke his fingers and made an account for the reporter: "My family planted 10 mu of pepper trees, we can harvest about 2,700 jin of dried pepper each year, if the price of 1 jin of dried pepper is about 50 yuan, the gross income will be about 120,000-130,000 yuan, if deducting labor, fertilizers and other necessary costs, our annual net income can reach 70,000 to 80,000 yuan".

Nowadays in Hancheng, the wild pepper growers like Ning Jinsheng are everywhere. The reporter learned that the city has formed a complete industrial chain of wild pepper production, processing and marketing. There are more than 300 professional wild pepper purchase and marketing cooperatives, more than 30 wild pepper processing enterprises, and more than 2,000 pepper professional sales teams. Wild pepper allows the people of Hancheng live a happy life.

Wild pepper can make a living

From August 9 to 11, during the 4th China · Hancheng Wild Pepper Grand Meeting in 2019, in addition to the grand opening and closing ceremonies, a series of activities were held, including demonstration and tour exhibition of agricultural machinery for wild pepper production, on-the-spot observation, wild pepper competition, promotion of poverty alleviation products and signing contracts for consumption poverty alleviation, and display of characteristic products.

Huang Qiongzhu, the general manager of an agricultural development enterprise from Guizhou, told the reporter at the meeting that "the harvest is great and the trip is worthwhile." "I came to learn, the planting and processing industry of wild pepper at our company has just started, there are so much we need to learn. By participating in the Hancheng Wild Pepper Grand Meeting, I have confidence in our future development of wild pepper industry.

The reporter noticed that the local pepper farmer Wei Binjia in Hancheng explained and promoted his prickly wild pepper seedlings to the visitors at the exhibition site, attracting many onlookers. Wei Binjia said: "By holding the Wild Pepper Grand Meeting, we can attract people from outside to visit, inspect and purchase, and only in this way, Hancheng wild pepper can spread all over the world, and the wild pepper industry will develop better and better." Only by thinking and working hard together can the industry of Hancheng wild pepper be propelled forward.

As one of the three major production bases of wild peer in China, Hancheng has built up a production base of 40 million plants of Dahongpao wild pepper with a planting area of 550,000 mu and an output of 27,000,000 kg in 2018. This year, the production of wild pepper is expected to reach 26 million kilograms, and the production of wild pepper sprouts is expected to reach 2 million kilograms. Hancheng has become a veritable "Capital of Chinese Wild Pepper."

On one hand, Hancheng plants wild pepper, on the other hand, it makes wild pepper into a large industry. For the general public, wild pepper is just a seasoning, but for the people of Hancheng, it can make a living. The reporter learned from the Hancheng Administration of Agriculture and Rural Affairs that the per capita net income of pepper farmers had exceeded 10,000 yuan last year, while the income of employees in the upstream and downstream industrial chains was even more considerable.

The ten billion industries are taking shape

Hancheng, which has successfully held four successive wild pepper grand meetings, is forming a national wild pepper industrial center, and attracting wild pepper enterprises from the whole province, the Golden Triangle region of the Yellow River and the main production areas of wild pepper, to set up, process and trade here, which is also one of the specific measures for Hancheng to implement its brand strategy.

In 2015, in order to further expand and strengthen the wild pepper industry, Hancheng invested 5 billion yuan and planned and constructed the National Hancheng Wild Pepper Industrial Park with high standards. Covering an area of 1,222 mu, the park has gradually built up a "Seven Functional Areas" including a comprehensive trading area, a science and technology business exhibition area, a comprehensive service area, a living supporting area, a wild pepper deep processing area, a grain reserve area and an agricultural product processing area, covering the "Six Centers" of standardized testing, wholesale trading, price formation, information dissemination, scientific and technological research and development and commercial exhibitions of Chinese wild pepper.

Wang Wenjun, the vice mayor of Hancheng City, said in an interview that Hancheng has actively built up a "10-billion-yuan Wild Pepper Industry Group", formulated a five-year development plan and annual work measures, covering park construction, base construction, investment attraction, scientific and technological research and development, leading enterprises, and brand strategy and multi-faceted work, and is making all-out efforts to promote them.

The reporter learned that in recent years, Hancheng has continuously extended the industrial chain of "Wild Pepper", successively developed more than 20 derivatives such as wild pepper essential oil, wild pepper yoghurt, wild pepper soap, wild pepper hot sauce and so on, which greatly increased the added value of wild pepper.

Based on the goal of "10 Billion Industries", the Hancheng Municipal Party Committee and the Hancheng Municipal Government have increased their policy support to promote the construction of large-scale, standardized, intensive, industrialized and branded pepper industry. It is gratifying that the output of wild pepper in Hancheng continues to increase in recent years, and the sales price continues to rise, in 2018, the price of wild pepper exceeded 120 yuan per kilogram, the output value of the first production exceeded 2.7 billion yuan, the total output value of the third production reached 3.5 billion yuan, and the brand value of Dahongpao wild pepper reached 21.3 billion yuan. The ten billion industry has a very promising future. (Gao Gang)