STORY: Revitalizing ancient villages: How Baiqiao thrives with lychee industry
SHOOTING DATE: Earlier footage
DATELINE: Jan. 23, 2024
LENGTH: 00:05:41
LOCATION: GUANGZHOU, China
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of lychees
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
3. SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
4. SOUNDBITE 3 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
5. SOUNDBITE 4 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
6. SOUNDBITE 5 (Chinese): HE JIANHE, Villager, Baiqiao Village
7. SOUNDBITE 6 (Chinese): HE DAWEI, Director of Baiqiao longan and lychee cooperative
8. SOUNDBITE 7 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
9. SOUNDBITE 8 (Chinese): ZHAO MIN, Executive deputy general manager, Guangzhou Wanglaoji Health Industry Co., Ltd.
10. SOUNDBITE 9 (Chinese): TANG BAISHENG, Chief of inspection section, Maoming Customs
11. SOUNDBITE 10 (Chinese): HE QING, Party official, Baiqiao Village

STORYLINE:

Developing industries has been a fundamental driving force in China's fight against poverty, and nowadays, continues to empower its rural revitalization.

In China's vast countryside, industries are often associated with what locals can grow out of their land.

In Baiqiao Village in Guangdong Province, the lychee fruit is fueling an expanding industry. 

Revitalizing ancient villages: How Baiqiao thrives with lychee industry

Baiqiao Village
Maoming City
Guangdong, China

SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
"Our dried lychees are made from fresh lychees harvested in Gaozhou (in Maoming). Take a look at the lychee jerky inside the shell. It's soft and tender. You can smell the fragrant lychee aroma when you peel the shell."

Lychee, a tropical fruit native to China, is now out of season. 

But Lin Changzhen in Baiqiao Village of Maoming is still busying livestreaming, to sell the dried fruits.

SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
"The lychee harvest season only lasts two months. So we wanted to extend the lychee industrial chain. Now we have products like dried lychees and lychee enzyme beverages. Villagers can make a living from it all year round."

Maoming is China's largest lychee production base, and Baiqiao is one of the villages specializing in lychee cultivation in Maoming.

Baiqiao boasts one of China's most ancient lychee plantations, with some of the trees over 1,000 years old.

In 2022, the per capita income for the village was around 51,000 yuan (about 6,980 USD), one of the highest in Guangdong.

However, the lychee industry hadn't always been thriving. 

The industry gradually took shape in Baiqiao in the 1990s. But the prosperous times didn't last long. 

SOUNDBITE 3 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
"In 1998 when our business started, we indeed made a decent amount of money, as the lychees were quite expensive. However, by the year 2000, a great number of people had been engaged in large-scale cultivation, but the sales channels failed to expand accordingly. There was an oversupply of lychees. It was truly heartbreaking, and we felt that there was no hope left for lychee farming."

Fresh lychees have a very short shelf life. They can only last two to three days at room temperature. 
And heightened competition among farmers only exacerbated price reductions. 

As a result, though production levels rose, there was only very limited increase in income.

Over the years, Baiqiao has been exploring solutions to break the bottlenecks for development.

And farmers' cooperatives have emerged to be an effective measure, especially amid the government's rural revitalization drive. 

SOUNDBITE 4 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
"Our cooperative was established in 2019. In that year alone, the sales of lychees reached more than 9 million yuan (about 1.3 million U.S. dollars). Farmers were very happy. In the past, an annual income of 10,000 yuan for each family would make farmers very excited. Now the annual per capita income has reached 50,000 yuan (6,860 USD). It's an impressive leap."

SOUNDBITE 5 (Chinese): HE JIANHE, Villager, Baiqiao Village
"We have contracted around 200 mu (13 hectares) of land for growing lychees and can earn up to 500,000 yuan (about 68,500 USD) in net profit every year. Now, we have built three houses and bought three cars."

As new fresh-preservation technologies emerged, lychees can now be sold to faraway cities and reach consumers' tables much faster than before.

SOUNDBITE 6 (Chinese): HE DAWEI, Director of Baiqiao longan and lychee cooperative
"On-site logistics stations are being used. They consist of mobile cold chain trucks and on-site cold storage warehouses. The trucks transport lychees from the orchards. When they arrive at the warehouses, after initial sorting, the lychees can be pruned and packed, significantly enhancing efficiency. For first-tier cities (like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen), lychees typically reach consumers within 24 hours, thanks to air transportation methods."

The sales channels have been further broadened, thanks to the booming e-commerce industry.

SOUNDBITE 7 (Chinese): LIN CHANGZHEN, Director of the agricultural innovation park in Baiqiao Village
"This is the dried longan fruit prepared by members of our cooperative. This is our local honey."

A deep-processing industrial chain also took shape, which further increased the fruit's added value.

SOUNDBITE 8 (Chinese): ZHAO MIN, Executive deputy general manager, Guangzhou Wanglaoji Health Industry Co., Ltd.
"Here, fresh fruit is transformed into a processed product. This year (in 2023), we purchased a total of 2.8 million kg of fresh lychees, and now they have been squeezed into lychee juice and stored in our cold storage warehouses. Our plant has created more than 100 local jobs. The annual output value exceeds 300 million yuan (41.8 million USD)."

Now, lychee products from Baiqiao have not only been sold across China, but also exported to many other countries.

SOUNDBITE 9 (Chinese): TANG BAISHENG, Chief of inspection section, Maoming Customs
"This year, we have received a particularly high number of export orders for lychees, and we have been actively fulfilling them without any delay, ensuring that the lychees are exported at the peak of freshness."

The booming lychee industry is injecting new hope, and confidence into the local community. 

SOUNDBITE 10 (Chinese): HE QING, Party official, Baiqiao Village
"This region is well-known for lychees, and has a history and culture of lychee planting. A rare fruit that was hard to come by more than 1,000 years ago, is now available for all Chinese people to enjoy. The lychee industry still has huge potential with regard to technologies and market. The prospect is very bright."

Now, Baiqiao Village has a lychee
cultivation area of 6,800 mu (about 450 hectares),
with an annual production of about 4,300 tons.

In 2022, the sales value of fresh lychees
in Baiqiao Village reached 140 million yuan (about 19.5 million USD).

The total value of the lychee-related
industrial chain exceeded 10 bln yuan (about 1.3 bln USD).

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Guangzhou, China.
(XHTV)