Hubei vegetables make their way to Guangdong

Eight trucks carrying more than 200 metric tons of fresh fruits and vegetables from hard-hit Hubei province arrived at the reopened Jiangnan Fruit and Vegetable Wholesale Market in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Wednesday morning.

The produce, from Hubei's major cities - Suizhou, Jingzhou, Xiaogan, Xianning and Yichang - will soon be carried into households by individual distributors who have developed their own sales channels, according to Yangcheng Evening News.

Neighborhood committees and related small companies are actively selling the produce via online platforms, the newspaper said - mainly lotus roots, lettuce, cabbage, mushrooms and other things that grow in the central Chinese province.

Fan Hongbo, a vegetable wholesaler at the market, one of the largest in the city, said the reopening will greatly help Hubei farmers and traders sell more vegetables and fruits in the vast southern Chinese markets.

Fan, who hails from Xiaogan, Hubei, has been selling vegetables, mainly lotus roots, at the Jiangnan market for more than two decades.

"When cities were locked down because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, many vegetables rotted in the fields," he was quoted as saying.

"The resumption of the Guangzhou market will certainly help the growers and planters."

He added: "High-quality fruits and vegetables from Hubei, particularly lotus roots, are needed by many Cantonese people. Hubei's lotus roots have a good taste."

The vegetables that were hauled to Guangzhou on Wednesday include between 70 and 80 metric tons of lotus roots, he said.

Neighborhood committees said more produce from Hubei will arrive in Guangzhou in the coming weeks.