July and August as peak season for the base’s chrysanthemum harvesting (Photo by Xue Caosheng and Chen Siyan (Intern))
In Chenhuang Village, Yunlong Town, Yinzhou District of Ningbo, a 200-mu (ca. 13.3 hectares) flower cultivation base just finished its busiest season of annual harvest for the year of 2022. At the peak of this season, over a hundred farmers worked there every day, and the daily volume of fresh-cut flowers exported to Japan could amount to a truck of containers. These flowers reach the Japanese market within only 7 days. In a one-month period, the Yinzhou base exported 1.7 million chrysanthemums, with sales of 2.5 million yuan.
Chenhuang Village with ca. 2,500 mu (166.7 hectares) of growing fields had previously specialized in rice cultivation. “We have been considering how to increase villagers’ income by fully utilizing rural land resources and increasing the average output value per mu after the centralized transfer of rural land-use rights,” revealed Liang Guocheng, director of the village’s agribusiness. Against changing markets, the fresh-cut flower industry presents an exciting prospect. In October 2019, Fang Hua Fresh-Cut Flower Cultivation Base (henceforth Fang Hua) settled in Chenhuang Village; it was the first chrysanthemum project introduced into Yinzhou District and the first ever fresh-cut flower base in Ningbo.
Large-scale flower planting is known to require constant temperature and humidity which the growing fields of Chenhuang Village lack. To solve the problem, the village actively collaborated with related enterprises to set up greenhouses and excellent floriculturists from Yunnan Province were also invited to offer training sessions for the local villagers. Given that years of rice planting had led to a decline in fertility, planting density and the concentration of organic fertilizers have been scientifically maintained in recent years to steadily promote the quality of fresh-cut flowers.
Every regulation step is crucial: cottage seedling, deep plowing, top removal, bud trimming, and daily care. A couple of years before, 10 million yuan had been invested to upgrade the village greenhouses. The greenhouse temperature generally needs to be maintained above 3℃, or the chrysanthemums will freeze and die. Once the temperature exceeds 30℃, the spray cooling system starts up. With regard to other environmental conditions, plants (and the planted flowers here) in general need over 8 hours of sunlight per day. “For these delicate flowers, shadowing must be supplied if the sunlight is too strong; extra sunlight must however be provided if it is insufficient,” added Jin Wenliang, a special expert appointed to supervise locals in planting and harvesting.
“It turns to be horrifically hot this summer. So, these days we’ve been getting up as early as around 4 a.m. and working until 9 to 10 p.m., with a lunch break in between,” introduced Yang Zhiyan, a 40-year-old female working at the base for three years. Although the work is hard, the couple are now pleased that their income has increased significantly in the past few years. “We're really content with our annual income. You see, now we can earn 120,000 to 150,000 yuan per year.”
“Our fresh-cut chrysanthemums will first be stored in the cold storage and then packed into bundles before their whole logistics distribution via cold-chains. The flowers are still very fresh when entering the Japanese market after seven days of transportation,” said Mao Jielie (manager of Ningbo Fanghua Agricultural Science Technology Development Co., Ltd.) proudly.
During the interview, Mao revealed to the journalists of Ningbo Evening News that in the earlier days, the base used to export roughly 60 percent of its chrysanthemums to Japan. Thanks to the subsequent soil improvement and technological advancement, the proportion can now reach 75 to 80 percent. Throughout a year, around 6 million chrysanthemums could be exported to Japan, totaling a sales volume of 9 million yuan.
After two phases of construction, the flower base now covers an area of 2,000m2 and continues to expand its planting size. Impressively, this base has become a leading exporter of fresh-cut chrysanthemums in Zhejiang Province, creating job opportunities for more than 70 local farmers. “During the peak seasons for harvesting, there is often a lack of labor force and local villagers will come to assist. They can earn several hundred yuan per day,” added Ye Jianfei, Party secretary of Chenhuang Village.