Land once deserted brings prosperity with golden passion fruit

Huang Qifang picks golden passion fruit from a tree in Maodao village, Wuzhishan city in South China's Hainan province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Huang Qifang, from a low-income family in Maodao village, Wuzhishan city in Hainan province, picked up a basket full of golden passion fruit in just half an hour.

With the help of an automatic sorting machine, he quickly packed the products into boxes and got them ready to be transported. These delicious passion fruit in the deep mountains would then be sold to Beijing, Shanghai and other first-tier cities by vans and via e-commerce platforms.

A view of the demonstration base of golden passion fruit in Maodao village, Wuzhishan city in South China's Hainan province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

But it's hard to imagine that not long ago, this passion fruit field was nearly a desert, as water was scarce, and crops were hard to be harvested.

"We could hardly grow anything here because of the conditions," said Huang. "But now, with the help of the government, the once deserted land has become quite fertile," he said with a big smile.

In 2018, through land transfers, the demonstration base of passion fruit rented these farmlands in Maodao village for renovation. Besides the annual rent of 1,000 yuan ($142.32) per mu (≈667 sq m), the villagers will also receive 800 yuan in dividends.

Thanks to Maodao village's favorable climate and abundant sunlight, the passion fruit grown here is gratifying. "The nutritive value of one golden passion fruit is equivalent to seven apples," said Huang Yejun, an official in charge.

Up to now, the passion fruit planting area has covered more than 120 mu (80,000 sq m) in Maodao village, benefiting 280 households, in which 118 are poverty-stricken.

In addition to receiving fixed dividends, villagers can also go to the base to learn skills and earn wages. Now the base hires the local villagers to work there with a fixed daily wage of 120 yuan.

"If these people work as migrants in cities, they usually earn about 1,000 yuan per month since most of them are under-educated, but if they work here, their salary will be over 4,000 yuan on average, and they can learn skills such as applying fertilizer, fruit picking and packaging, which are useful for them," said HuangYejun.

What were once deserted fields are now full of delicious and nutritious passion fruit, and the farmers are beginning to thrive as they leave poverty behind.