Kiwi fruit stories between Old Zheng and Deng people
After crossing the Demla Pass located 4,900 meters above sea level, we meander all the way until we reach Xiachayu Town, which stands at an elevation of 1,600 meters.
At the kiwi fruit planting base in Xiani Village, Xiachayu Town, workers are selecting and packaging the newly picked kiwi fruit. Not far away in the planting base, huge kiwi fruits hang among the green leaves of the vines. At this moment, the phone of Xiong Weilong, a villager in Xiani Village, keeps ringing. The autumn equinox has passed, and a large number of kiwis are on the market. He has received many calls about ordering kiwis.
Eight years ago, kiwi fruit was still a new thing to the Deng people of Xiani Village. Under the leadership of Zheng Tiancheng, the general manager of Xingnong Kiwi Fruit Co., Ltd. in Chayu County, Nyingchi City, villagers planted kiwi fruit on the original cornfield. Thus they began the partnership with Zheng Tiancheng and increased their income.
In 2001, Zheng Tiancheng came to the Tibet Autonomous Region to look for business opportunities. “I found that Chayu’s climate, soil, and other conditions were suitable to growing kiwis, so I decided to stay and work here. I quickly succeeded then failed over and over.”
“I tossed about for nearly 10 years, doing nothing else, staying in the field all day.” In 2012, Zheng Tiancheng summed up his experience and started anew. He contracted nearly 4 acres of land for a kiwifruit base in Xiani Village to begin kiwi industry operations. Because the kiwi is well-known near and far, everyone calls Zheng Tiancheng “Old Zheng”.
Back then, the people of Xiani Village, who were accustomed to growing rice, corn, and other crops, were not optimistic about growing kiwi fruit, but villager Xiong Weilong was. “Old Zheng said that planting kiwis would definitely exceed the income of growing corn. I just wanted to take a gamble, so I planted them with him.”
Just after the Spring Festival in 2012, some kiwi trees were planted on Xiong Weilong’s land. “The seedlings were provided by Old Zheng, and he also instructed me in how to manage them,” Xiong Weilong remembers clearly. In the third year, the kiwi trees began to bear fruit. “One half-kilo sells for thirty or forty yuan, and they sell out in less than a week.”
The villagers saw that Xiong Weilong’s kiwifruit sold well, and they began to grow their own one after another. They also received support from Old Zheng. Xiong Weilong also increased his own kiwifruit cultivation. There are more and more people growing kiwifruit in Xiani Village, and Old Zheng also spread his planting base to other villages like Jingdog Village and Songgu Village.
The land is transferred from the villagers, and while the rent is collected, the villagers also increase their incomes through employment and dividends. Old Zheng said that the kiwi fruit planting base provides tens of thousands of jobs for villagers every year. Their wages vary according to the different types of work, such as weeding, pruning, fruit picking, and packaging. The lowest wage is 160 yuan per person per day, and the highest is 200 yuan per person per day. “Every year local people can increase their income by more than 3 million yuan.”
In 2018, “Chayu Kiwifruit” became protected by the National Agricultural Geographical Indication Registration, and the kiwis grown by Old Zheng and his workers went further. Six villages in Chayu County have developed their own kiwi fruit industries covering nearly 400 acres of land, in which the Deng people planed over230 acres of kiwifruits, which has created jobs for 1,456 people in 281 households in six villages.