Economic transformation bears fruit in Guizhou 贵州经济改革结硕果.pdfVIP

Economic transformation bears fruit in Guizhou Updated: 2013-05-21 07:50 By Yang Wanli and Yang Jun ( China Daily) Province makes full use of natural resources, and maintains ecosystem, as Yang Wanli and Yang Jun report in Guiyang. Italy is famous for many things - pasta, fine wines, stylish clothing, stunning architecture and stylish clothing being just a few. However, many people are unaware that the country is also the worlds largest producer of kiwi fruit, surpassing even New Zealand, the country that the fruit is most often associated with. The small town of Campoverde produces more than 400,000 metric tons of kiwis annually, earning millions of dollars for local farmers. Hot pepper is one of the key agriculture products in Xiuwen county, Guizhou province. Yang Ying / Xinhua Thousands of kilometers from Campoverde, in Pingtan, a village in Guizhou province, Shi Kaiyan is busy taking care of her kiwis. Like many farmers in the area around Xiuwen county, the 38-year-old is hoping to emulate the success of her Italian counterparts and improve living standards in this rural community. To that end, an official from the countys agriculture department said there will be 14,000 hectares of kiwi orchards by 2017, producing 400,000 tons of the fruit every year. Given those figures, output in this little-known backwater will equal that of Campoverde in four years. Shi, elected village secretary because of her business experience, decided to close her snack bar in 2008 and become the first local resident to try her hand at growing kiwis. Its an attractive business, much better than growing rice and vegetables, she said. However, farming is a challenging occupation in Guizhou, where more than 90 percent of cultivatable land is situated in highly mountainous areas. Having taken the step of inviting experts to test the local soil and identify the most suitable crops for the area, she opted for kiwis. Its now the seaso