Power service boosts tastier produce in Jiangsu

In Sihong county, under the prefecture-level city of Suqian in Jiangsu province, County Magistrate Geng Xiaoyun is ambitiously bolstering its agricultural sector, including the likes of raising hogs, cultivating aquaculture, as well as growing rice, fruits and vegetables.

"We are sticking to a goal that 'all agricultural products from Sihong must be gems'," said Geng.

"We want to develop agriculture with a concept of industrialization, and boost it through industrial operations," she said.

Sihong, with over 1.1 million residents, was among the country's first batch of innovation bases to implement the idea that "green mountains and clear water are equal to mountains of gold and silver".

Currently, Sihong is known as the Chinese hometown of bigenguo, or pecans — a woody plant native to North America introduced to China in the 19th century and now growing across many regions of the country.

With improvements in income in recent years, people have begun to enjoy tastier produce, including bigenguo, which many say is both highly nutritious and delicious, with over 300 varieties.

Sihong began to cultivate the tree nuts in 2008, and now with a planting area of some 6,933 hectares, it offers around 12.5 percent of the total output of pecans in China.

Its successful cultivation, which helped to enrich local growers, drew investors from outside of the region.

In 2017, Jiangsu Chengye Agricultural Technology Co Ltd invested 600 million yuan ($84.5 million) in the county's Shuanggou township, setting up an innovation and incubation base that integrates tree planting, high-end edible oils and health product processing, as well as tourism and leisure.

With its rapid business expansion, in November 2023, the company bought a fully electrified production line used for drying, sorting, shelling and edible oil refining for bigenguo.

But its fast industrialization also required professional and personalized power services, said Li Yunjian, its deputy general manager.

To meet electricity demand for its all-electric deep processing plant, the company applied to the local power supplier to build a 10 kilovolt power line 1 kilometer long, which was successfully set up.

Zhou Biao, a project manager from the Shuanggou subranch of State Grid Suqian Power Supply Co, said his unit also helped install a 1,500 kilowatt specialized power transformer for Chengye to meet its growing production and everyday needs.

Li said: "With sufficient power support, we are fully confident in expanding our bigenguo business, increasing our profits, as well incomes of our employees who mostly live nearby."

To help boost growth of the bigenguo industry, State Grid Suqian Power Supply Co has improved its power grid construction, power supply services, as well as energy substitution technologies to support local growers in recent years, said Guo Panpan from the Suqian power supply company.

It has installed high-voltage 10kV power lines extending for 5.5 km, low-voltage 400 V lines extending for 5.1 km, in addition to adding seven power transformers, and conducting over 40 on-site electricity inspections, she said.

Guo noted that pecan trees can be used for both fruit and wood.

"It is suitable for landscaping as shade trees or roadside trees, or even as a scenic forest," she added, stressing that the plant is a globally recognized long-term economic forest and tree fruit species.

At present, the county supplies 3 million high-quality tree seedlings per year to other areas, Guo said.

In October, Sihong issued a plan to expand construction of a green and high-quality agricultural products (bigenguo) base in Yaogou township.

Currently, the township's green and high-quality agricultural product base is a cluster of bigenguo, rice, aquatic product breeding and processing enterprises.

With a total cultivation area of over 460 hectares for such products, the township's annual output surpasses 300 metric tons, Guo said.

zhuangqiange@chinadaily.com.cn