Rural vitalization helps residents live better

After years of cultivation, farmers in Buzheng Village, Zhanjiang city, finally found a new development pattern to boost the local agriculture by planting pitaya, or dragon fruit.

Local pitaya farmer Li Jianqing owns nearly 20 hectares of planting sheds. After doing business elsewhere for more than 20 years, he returned to the village in 2020 and invested 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) in his pitaya-planting project.

By the end of 2022, the yield of the base is expected to reach 22.5 metric tons per hectare.

The planting base not only generated a significant fortune for the villagers, but became a place for sightseeing and training.

It has attracted a number of villagers and brought them long-term employment. They learn skills at the planting base and earn monthly salaries.

The farmers in the village are now growing more than 266.7 hectares of pitaya fruit in total, with an annual output value of more than 80 million yuan.

Walking around the village, people see cars driving on clean and tidy roads, and trees and flowers planted in the surroundings of farmyards. Besides pitaya, villagers also plant agricultural products such as sugarcane and bananas.