Dongying Special: Agricultural ecology is the future in Dongying
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The city of Dongying, in the Yellow River Delta, in Shandong province, is showing its ability to develop eco-agricultural industries.
"Agriculture in Dongying needs to adhere to a highly efficient, ecologically sound development model. And it wants to build a State-level demonstration area before 2020," said Zhang Jianhua, Dongying's mayor.
To reach this goal, it is working in six agricultural areas: ecologically sound fisheries, animal husbandry, forestation, vegetables, fresh flowers, and leisure and sightseeing tours of farming sites.
The city currently has 113,333 hectares in aquiculture, 36,666 hectares in high-quality vegetables, 120,000 hectares in cotton, 35,333 hectares in wheat and 16,000 hectares of jujubes.
In addition, it has established 1,100 animal husbandry zones and three fresh flower bases. This year, it built 100 animal husbandry, 10 green vegetable demonstration areas, and 15 parks to provide leisure and sightseeing tours of farming sites.
Natural resources are the city's main advantages when it comes to eco-agriculture. These include 300,000 hectares of unused land, 133,333 hectares of alkali-rich land, 40,000 hectares of pasture and 120,000 hectares of mudflats, suitable for aquiculture, according to Li Shiyong, head of the municipal agriculture bureau.
The city is also encouraging large enterprises to form an industrial chain, to get products to the market.
It now has 489 enterprises engaged in agriculture, with 50 of them expected to have sales of more than 100 million yuan this year.
It has also acquired 13 State- and province-level trademarks.
