Rich pickings for raspberry farm

The sitting room of Martin and his wife's cottage features an iron fireplace. [Photos By Chen Liang/China Daily]

Growing pains

As raspberries are a fragile fruit, harvests must be handled with extreme care, and Dabilly says he generally hires 70 extra workers from nearby villages to handpick and pack the produce.

"Most are women, as the village men have mostly migrated to large cities for work," he says. "The women are more careful with the berries anyway."

After being packed, the fruit is immediately placed in cold storage and kept at a temperature of 2 C until it is transported in a refrigerated truck to customers in Kunming, or to the city's airport, which is only an hour's drive from the farm, "so customers in other cities can have the freshest raspberries", the farmer says.

He says raspberries stay fresh for only three to four days, which makes it difficult to export them unless they are frozen.

Thomas Dabilly, the farmer's older brother, says Meiming's fruit can be eaten without being washed first, as it is grown to European standards using pesticides mostly used on organic farms in France.

Based in France, he is in charge of the farm's finances and visits regularly. Martin Dabilly is responsible for growing and marketing the produce.

The brothers' father also helps out six months of the year. He uses the surplus raspberries to make liquor using a traditional French process. The beverage is named after the brothers' great-grandfather, Marc.

The profits from the farm have been reinvested to allow for expansion, which has included leasing more land and building a research laboratory.

In one corner, Martin Dabilly has also built a cottage and a fenced garden, which he and his wife, Claire, share with their pet dog two or three days a week. The rest of the time they live in Kunming, where Claire is studying Chinese traditional medicine.

"I have lived in China for 10 years. I love China," the French farmer says. "I have good relationship with the local government, but I don't go looking for the government's help. The French government has not done anything for us. This is a Chinese company."