A group of Chinese technicians can be seen working hard among the watermelon patches in the blinding sunlight of Laos every January. Two months later, these watermelons will be sent to Xi'an, the starting point of the Silk Road.
Every autumn, these so-called "migratory birds" - technicians from Kouzhai village in southwestern China's Guizhou province - fly to Laos to plant watermelons and return to China the next spring to start their own farm work.
Yang Canxi, former Kouzhai village Party chief who is also an agricultural technician, said the village was lifted out of poverty through its strength in agricultural technology.
He said Kouzhai village was the first to promote small-sized watermelons in the county, and it introduced a new technology to grow watermelons from the newly generated vines after reaping the old ones, thus doubling the sale to 15,000 yuan ($2,190) per unit area.
In 1997, an official from Laos came to Yang for agricultural training. Twenty professionals were sent to provide watermelon planting skills services there, he said.
"At that time, much of the land in Laos was barren except for that used to grow rice. The locals saw technicians plant watermelon and even gave them the nickname of Chinese watermelon princes," he said.
Each technician earned roughly 10,000 yuan in the first year, which was increased to 40,000 yuan a year later.
"Villagers flew into my office, asking to go abroad too," he said.
The business was soon expanded to Laos where Yang Guangyue, 50, and some friends decided to begin their own business in 2013.
The local credit cooperative lent them 800,000 yuan to establish a 13-hectare watermelon base in Laos, which was expected to reap roughly 2 million yuan a year.
"Laotians were also hired to work in the watermelon patches and they learned planting skills from us," he said.
Yang Canxi said now half of the income of Kouzhai village comes from this way of working.
chenmeiling@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 01/26/2017 page18)
