BEIJING: Despite the frigid-20 C winter temperatures, more than 30 varieties of fruit and vegetables are growing at the agriculture expo park in Altay, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Such cultivation is made possible through the use of large-scale heated greenhouses, allowing for the growing of fruit and vegetables that originate from much warmer climes. There are even pomelos ripening on the trees.
Yang Xiaojie, a cultivation technician at the park, worked for decades as a farmer in Jilin province in Northeast China. Four years ago, she moved to the Lasite township in Altay to be part of an agricultural aid project for Xinjiang.
In 2019, 19 paired provinces and cities invested more than 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) and implemented nearly 2,000 projects, supporting various initiatives in Xinjiang, including poverty alleviation, improvement of people’s livelihoods and economic development, according to the central government.
Yang has taught the local herdsmen how to cultivate vegetables, and her apprentices of various ethnic groups take care of 35 greenhouses.
“In the past, during winter, there was no place in this area where vegetables could be grown. People mainly relied on other regions for their vegetable supply,” Yang said.
“Now, not only can everyone eat fresh vegetables grown here, we often have students around Xinjiang coming to the greenhouses for educational activities, where they get to see plants and fruits from the southern regions in person, like waxberry trees and loquat trees,” she said.
In Yang’s view, Altay’s farming conditions, including the soil and the temperature, are not too different from Jilin’s. However, the sunlight hours here are especially long, so the vegetables and fruit grown here taste better than those in the northeast, she said. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
