During the frost-drop season, vegetables in Hunan are entering a crucial growth period as the weather turns cooler. A visit to the special vegetable industry base, Shangshuyuan, located in Sanxing Village of Shigu District, Hengyang City, reveals bustling greenhouses brimming with a variety of thriving vegetables. Workers are busy harvesting, transplanting, pruning, and fertilizing, creating a vibrant scene of agricultural activity.

“I’ve been working here for two years, and it allows me to take care of my family while earning a decent income. Plus, I’ve learned quite a bit about vegetable cultivation!” local villager He Xiaohua shares as she prunes chili plants.

Shangshuyuan serves as a national demonstration base for the technology system of major vegetable industries and an experimental base for new technologies and products in vegetable farming in Hengyang. It spans a planting area of 318 acres and produces over 300 tons of vegetables annually. “This winter, we’re growing more than ten types of vegetables, including chili peppers, tomatoes, leeks, cauliflower, and cabbage. Most of our produce will be sold to markets in the Greater Bay Area and locally, with a large batch expected to ripen by mid-November,” explains Xin Dami, the head of Shangshuyuan Agricultural Development Co., Ltd.

“Thanks to facility agriculture, we’ve seen an increase in vegetable yields and improved profitability for the business,” Xin adds. He emphasizes that the quality of vegetables remains their core competitive edge. To cultivate pure, pollution-free vegetables with great taste, the base employs agricultural experts as technical consultants year-round. Shangshuyuan adheres to standardized, safe production practices, utilizing organic and microbial fertilizers, ensuring a 100% pass rate for quality inspections annually, thus earning consumer acclaim.

Entering the production base of Hengyang Pengsheng Modern Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., we find a modern complex of 125,000 square meters of standardized connected greenhouses neatly arranged. “With the help of smart greenhouses, vegetable planting has become more convenient and precise. We’re able to rotate crops seamlessly from the traditional two harvests a year to three or even four, ensuring year-round vegetable availability,” explains Liu Xinjun, the company’s technical manager.

Moreover, Pengsheng Agriculture has invested in a 400-square-meter seedling nursery, incorporating a fully automated high-speed rice seedling production line. From March to July, the facility focuses on rice seedling cultivation, while from August to the following March, it provides seedlings for various vegetables and fruits, maximizing efficiency and generating additional income, all while ensuring the community’s food security.

In recent years, Hengyang has committed to a path of agricultural development characterized by facilities, precision, intensification, and scale. It has fostered the “Xiangjiang Source” public brand for facility vegetables, which are now being exported to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, significantly enhancing crop yields and profitability. In 2023, Shigu District successfully hosted the Hunan Province Conference on High-Quality Development of Modern Facility Agriculture and High-Standard Farmland Construction, earning recognition as one of the first national innovative demonstration zones for modern facility agriculture.