On the morning of April 9th, a special lecture on promoting the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries of citrus was delivered by Deng Xiuxin (Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, leading scientist of the Chinese Agricultural Research System for Citrus and Professor at the College of Horticulture & Forestry Sciences of HZAU). Over 160 students attended the lecture and had discussions with Professor Deng. Attendees included the “Leading Goose” in rural industry vitalization, students from the advanced seminars on innovation and entrepreneurship for young alumni as well as grassroots agricultural technicians from Baoding in Northern China.
“Our understanding of the tertiary industries should not be limited to agricultural sightseeing and tourism. It also includes transportation, sales, e-commerce, brand building and other services,” Deng started with the specific sector division in fruit industry. He underlined that the integration of the three sectors could be seen as an extension of the industrial chain making the most of the fruit value. Professor Deng illustrated the importance of integrating the three sectors with the examples of the value-added process of American fresh navel orange and Gannan navel orange. By introducing the changes from taking advantage of resources, technology, capital to culture, he called for accurate understanding of the integration among the participants.
Deng then shared the experience and lessons from five cases related to citrus industry and presented ten new technologies that have driven the development of China’s fruit industry. Meanwhile, he proposed three principles of agricultural development. First, it is essential to find one resource factor that is too unique to be imitated. Second, it is critical to avoid oversupply and take differentiated measures in accordance with local conditions. And third, it is important to ensure feasibility in three aspects: technology, economy and environmental protection. In developing agricultural industry, we must achieve three transformations of advantages: from nature to product, technology to competitiveness, and culture to brand. Meanwhile, government officials, entrepreneurs, and scientists must work closely to make the industry stronger, better and more profitable.
Deng Xiuxin highlighted some problems and misconceptions in China’s fruit industry including inaccurate positioning, weak post-production, and deep processing irrespective of fruit properties. In some cases, the by-product processing hinders the improvement of quality while some may only focus on the technology feasibility but ignore whether its financially viable. Others are so reliant on the varieties that they neglect planting techniques. To address these problems, Professor Deng offered four suggestions for the integration of the three sectors in fruit industry: first, formulate a strategic development plan; second, attach importance to post-production, sales, and brand building; third, give greater support to variety research and development; fourth, strengthen training of professionals and increase investment in science and technology research.
During the Q&A session, attendees actively participated in the discussion. Deng answered their questions in terms of brand building and promotion, actual value of digital empowerment and relevant policies in orchard industry and others. Feng Yan, a “Leading Goose” from Guangxi province, a major producer of citrus in China, said that “This lecture is of both theoretical and practical value, from which I’ve gained a lot of new insights into the citrus industry. I will bring them back to Guangxi.”
Source：http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2023/0410/66125.shtml
Translated by: Yu Xianqin
Supervised by: Xie Lujie
