Seventy-three-year-old farmer Zhou Jingzhen thought he knew all
he needed to know about growing dates -- but now he is learning all
over again.
Rather than simply just watering his palms, he is now also
digging radial ditches channel organic fertilizer to the roots and
spraying pesticide mixed according to expert instruction.
"Only in this way, can we ensure the dates sold overseas are the
quality expected by foreigners," says Zhou, of Shandong Province 's Zhanhua county, which is famous
for its dates.
China's agricultural products have often failed to meet
different import standards abroad, so the government is inspiring
farmers to earn more by improving the quality of produce in the
latest five-year guidelines starting this year.
East China's Shandong Province spearheaded the quality drive by
launching a pilot project two years ago.
The Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) project aims to trace plant
growth through seed stock, fertilizer, planting and packaging in a
bid to ensure products pass export tests.
With the successful operation in Shandong, China's food safety
watchdog, the State Food and Drug Administration, is promoting the
practice of GAP to 14 provinces and municipalities this year.
Shandong has applied GAP to 12 key agricultural export products,
including dates, ginger and garlic.
Zhanhua County, for example, is unsuitable for high-yield crops
due to its saline-alkali soil, but is a desirable place for date
palms, which provide employment for approximately 60 percent of the
locals.
Before GAP was implemented, the dates could only be sold on the
domestic market and failed foreign export tests because of low
quality and pesticide residue, according to a local government
official.
"At that time, farmers wanted to boost production and resorted
to using too much pesticide and fertilizer. This made our dates
unsuitable for export and our incomes suffered," says Zhou, whose
family cultivates about 1,000 palms.
"In the past two years, we have been taught the proper use of
fertilizers and pesticides. With the new methods, quality has risen
and some are exported."
GAP is expected to help China overcome difficulties in produce
exports, says Yang Luyong, deputy director of overseas cooperation
in the Shandong Provincial Agricultural Department.
About 90 percent of the agricultural industry was affected by
foreign trade barriers with the main problem being pesticide
residue, causing about US$9 billion in losses to China's foreign
trade enterprises every year, according to information from the
Ministry of Commerce.
(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2006)