Zhang Guang, a tea horticulturist in Songyang, Zhejiang Province, led the transformation of tea farmers to the road to prosperity.

A farmer born and raised in the countryside, he turned his mu of farmland into a tea garden with a long fragrance, pushing tea to the road of large-scale, ecological, mechanized and professional planting. at the same time, he led the villagers to the road of getting rich with "tea". He is Zhang Guang, president of Mingchun Tea Agricultural Mechanization Cooperative in Songyang County.

 back in 1993, when farmers were still growing the traditional two-crop rice a year, Zhang Guang cut Fuyun 3 tea in his own field in Shang'an Village, Xinxing Town, and reaped several times more benefits than growing grain in the skeptical eyes of everyone. "one year of tea has the benefit of ten years of grain." This made Zhang Guang, who tasted sweetness, had a great interest in "making tea." he led more than 300 mu of barren mountains in the village to plant high-quality, high-yield, famous and quality teas such as Anji White Tea, Zhongcha 108, Longjing 43 and Wuniuzao, and to transform and eliminate 236 mu of the original low-yield old tea garden.

Being outstanding is not spring, Zhang Guang decided to lead the villagers to plant tea instead. But growing tea in the field, many conservative villagers have worries of one kind or another. Zhang Guang patted his chest and said, "if you can't sell the tea, you can send it to my house. I'll buy it all for you. It won't let you lose." . Under his persuasion, the villagers planted tea one after another. Today, the tea garden in the village covers an area of nearly 3000 mu, and Shangan Village has also become a famous tea-producing village.

At the same time, Zhang Guang pays great attention to the quality and safety of tea. He actively carried out research, demonstration and promotion of new technologies for the prevention and control of diseases and insect pests in tea gardens, such as light trapping and color trapping, and conducted hundreds of experiments on the "yellow board" alone. In 2015, the green prevention and control technology of tea in Songyang County was successfully selected as the national model of green prevention and control of crop diseases and insect pests and became a national model. This year, with the help of the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, he also carried out research and promotion of non-chemical pesticide control techniques for tea diseases and insect pests, thoroughly solving the problem of tea pesticide residues and enabling tea gardens to truly realize ecological and pollution-free planting.

In the process of tea production, Zhang Guang found that pure manual picking and production of tea can no longer adapt to modern agricultural cultivation. On the basis of the construction of a demonstration base, he introduced and popularized new equipment for tea production and processing, so as to realize the mechanization of tea production. At present, the village has a tea processing site covering an area of 150 million square meters, a factory building of 14100 square meters, and complete equipment for all kinds of tea processing machinery. it has realized the whole mechanization of tea production and processing of tea mechanical pruning, mechanical picking, mechanical insect prevention, mechanical plant protection and mechanical processing. To a great extent, it improves the tea production capacity and labor production efficiency, reduces the production cost and labor intensity, enhances the product market competitiveness and the social and economic benefits of the tea industry.

In order to lead more tea farmers to transform. In February 2015, the Mingchun Tea Agricultural Mechanization Professional Cooperative established the province's first tea farmers' field school, with Zhang Guang as principal. This is a peasant school with "tea farmers" as the center, "field" as the classroom, "tea planting practice" as the teaching means, and "improving ability" as the ultimate goal. Zhang Guang taught the tea farmers everywhere the experience he had accumulated in growing tea over the years in the form of field classes, so that tea farmers could understand and master new varieties and technologies of tea; at the same time, they also passed on the concepts of green, safety, and pollution-free to every tea farmer who came to learn. Finally, these traditional farmers will be transformed into a new type of modern farmers who are educated, skilled and able to manage.