Lychee farming in Guangxi makes villagers' lives prosperous

Rong Xingjun, a lychee farmer in his late 40s from Pubei County of Qinzhou City, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, snatched a little leisure time from his busy farmwork and took a break under the shade of a gigantic 400-year-old lychee tree.

Not far away, his fellow villagers, all wearing sun-protective clothing, picked the low-hanging fruit with its pink-red, rough-textured soft shell.

"Our lychees are in high demand. Buyers from across the country are flocking in and placing orders," said Rong, who started lychee farming over 20 years ago and has succeeded in running his business.

Rong's thriving business also offers a glimpse into the prosperous lychee industry in Qinzhou, one of the major lychee-producing areas in China.

Boasting a long history of growing lychees, the city has over 1.05 million mu (about 70,000 hectares) of this fruit. This year is a bumper year for Qinzhou lychees as the production is expected to reach over 500,000 tonnes, according to statistics from the local government.

"The traffic around lychee farms is particularly hectic during the harvest season as cold chain trucks run day and night," said Weng Shoubin, a local lychee farmer from Pubei's Beitong Township.

In the past, to ensure the taste of lychee's perishable flesh to be at its best, couriers on horseback would scramble in seamless succession to deliver freshly picked lychees to the royal palace.

Thanks to the rapid development of cold chain logistics, local fresh lychees can reach big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai within 24 hours, said Gu Baohua, Party Chief of Pubei County, adding that many farmers have opened online stores and engaged in livestream sales.

In recent years, Qinzhou has also promoted new lychee varieties and done experiments to diversify them. Through grafting and other techniques, more high-yield and high-quality varieties, such as Feizixiao, are grown across the city.

"The lychees from Qinzhou have won a reputation across the country, and we don't worry about sales channels," said Rong, adding that his annual income has increased to about 200,000 yuan (about 28,000 U.S. dollars) over the years.