Yiyuan apple yields higher profits despite drop in output

Hit by a late spring freeze last year, most of the apple production areas in China faced a fall in output. To boost the harvest, farmers in some places kept the small fruit sets that are usually removed when thinning their orchards. However, villagers in Yiyuan took a different approach. To achieve better fruit quality, the residents of this mountainous agricultural county in east China’s Shandong Province, continued to reduce per acre yields. Yet the production of quality apples is helping the county gradually shake off poverty.

The apple harvest in 2018 in Yiyuan was 630,000 tons, a 30 percent drop compared with the previous year.

Based in Jiaojiashangzhuang village of Yiyuan, Shengyuan Fruit Cooperative owns more than 130 acres of apple orchard, had a total harvest of 2,400 tons in 2018, compared with 2,800 tons last year. However, the price of Hongjiangjun, one of the cooperative’s apple varieties, increased from 5 yuan (US$0.7) per kilogram in 2017 to 6 yuan (US$0.9) in 2018, and the price of high-quality production even sold at 8 yuan (US$1.2) per kilogram. 

The same is true when it comes to other varieties in nearby villages. Jiao Fangchun, head of the Yiyuan Fangchun Fruit Cooperative, said that a drop in output does not mean decreased income. He attributed it to higher proportion of high-quality production, higher price expectation and successful brand building.

According to Jiao, with proper thinning, the ratio of best-quality products in his cooperative reached almost 90 percent last year, and much of them were sold through reservations and online sales.

Zhongzhuang Township, which has jurisdiction over Jiaojiashangzhuang, Luzhuang and other villages, launched a trial project allowing customers to reserve one or several apple trees which will be taken care of by local farmers and have the fruits mailed to them after getting ripe. This allows consumers to enjoy their customized apples, said Ren Changxuan, director of the town’s e-commerce service center. According to him, more than 3,000 apple trees have been reserved under the scheme, and the figure was further increased to100,000 trees in 2018 after the township entered a contract with an online store.

Yiyuan apple also entered the Russian market for the first time in 2018 when more than 8,000 kilograms of them being transported to China’s neighbor via the China-Europe railway express service. As the bigger Belt and Road cooperation rolls out, Yiyuan people have the confidence to find more markets for their apples.