Field investigation of Potato planting in Tongwei County, Gansu Province

There are strange peaks on the mountain, locked in the smoke.

Usually invisible, occasionally towering.

The morning scene of my hometown can be described by Li Yunhe's five words. If you go to the hillside, or set foot on the winding village road, the locust flowers are in full bloom, a piece of pink and white. The wheat in the field is jointing and filling, the corn is about half a foot tall, and the alfalfa is swaying in the wind. I took these at a glance, and found one and a half acres of scattered potatoes from Lin Lang's crops.

My hometown is a small society under the jurisdiction of Pinghe Village, Lidian Township, Tongwei County, which is called "Yueshan bifurcation". It is located under the Taibai Temple, a famous temple in Tongwei, surrounded by four mountains, shaded by trees, and an asphalt road around the village. There are more than 40 families in the village, of which 36 insist on farming.

According to President Zhang Ping, the village has more than 800 mu of arable land. Corn is the main cash crop, and it is also the largest food crop in the village, followed by wheat, flax, and then potato. Each household planted about 1.2 mu of potato, and the whole village planted about 40 mu, accounting for 5% of the total planting area. In the favorable weather, the yield per mu can reach 1600 jin, and the total output of potato in the village is more than 64000 jin.

Except for a small part of Yueshan forked potato entering the market, it is basically used for self-feeding and livestock feeding. Zhang Ping said: yams in Yueshan fork Society and even in Lidian Township have not become an economic industry for farmers to get rich. First, sales are not smooth, and farmers need to send them to the town market, which is time-consuming and labor-consuming, and the transportation cost is relatively high; second, the local planting is extensive, the output is not high, and the economic benefit is not obvious; third, the enthusiasm of farmers to grow potato is not high because of the lack of leading enterprises in the field of processing and sales.

Recently, several Rain Water dyed the mountains green, but also let the potato protruding out of the land, dark green leaves sparse Lang Lang, really good-looking!

/ Zhang Yu / tr. by Phil Newell)

Supplementary note: this is an "old news" written when I returned to my hometown in spring. At that time, the weather was favorable, and all kinds of crops such as potatoes were thriving.

The season of crops is a time when people ask and think about life. Although for a few months, the crops in my hometown have experienced spring rain and hot summer, and potatoes have been devastated. Mother said that if there is basically no harvest this year, the seeds can be recovered.

Farmers, bitter, sad!

Author: Zhang Yu, who has been working in the media for more than 10 years, has been concerned about the potato industry for many years. He is now the executive editor of the potato industry edition of China Food News.