Known as China's "vegetable capital," Shouguang, a county-level city administered by Weifang in east China's Shandong Province, ships more than 17,000 kilograms of vegetables to markets every minute on average. This agricultural powerhouse has built a complete vegetable industrial chain and is now undergoing a smart transformation of its greenhouse farming.
Zheng Jingqu, a second-generation farmer born in the late 1980s, sells vegetables to overseas markets from Shouguang. He steps into one of his greenhouses, where a smart monitoring screen now hangs on the wall, displaying real-time data. Outside, a logistics warehouse bustles with activity. His white-haired father, Zheng Yuxing, stands on his tiptoes to check the shipping list.
The father-and-son duo reflects the ongoing transformation of Shouguang's vegetable industry. In 1990, Zheng Yuxing built an old-fashioned greenhouse 8 meters wide and 2.2 meters high. In 2017, when Zheng Jingqu returned from working elsewhere to start his own venture and proposed building 12 high-standard greenhouses, his father expressed concerns.
"With such a huge investment, when will we break even? Do we have enough workers?" his father asked. Undeterred, Zheng Jingqu established Ruijing Family Farm, installing rows of smart equipment that transformed traditional farming methods. What truly changed his father's attitude was the tangible returns: previously, 1 mu (about 0.07 hectares) of land generated an annual output of around 10,000 yuan (about $1,450); now, each mu produces 80,000 yuan in annual value.
Read more at People's Daily Online
