Dianbai District of Maoming City, Guangdong Province, has established "micro-factories" in various villages, continuously unleashing the driving force of local advantageous resources for high-quality development. At present, there are about 1,300 rural "micro-factories" in Dianbai District, with an annual output value of more than 3 billion yuan. Rural "micro-factories" have become a big stage for local farmers to get rich and increase their incomes.

Wu Guanghui, secretary of the Party branch stationed in Tanru Village by the Shalang Town Government of Dianbai District, told reporters on the 7th that in recent years, Tanru Village has formed a rural revitalization "micro-factory" that increases income and brings prosperity through building, extending, supplementing and strengthening the industrial chain. The micro-factory is mainly engaged in the planting and processing of local specialty agricultural products such as radishes, rice and peanuts, and has a pickled radish processing center, a rice drying center and a traditional-method peanut oil processing center.

August 7, Dianbai, Maoming, Guangdong. A dazzling array of Tanru local specialties in the exhibition hall of the Tanru micro-factory. Photo by Zhang Liangguang

Wu Guanghui introduced that the Tanru micro-factory, through cooperation with universities such as South China Agricultural University, has carried out a "rural revitalization workstation" for invigorating agriculture through science and technology, and has formulated the "Standardized Radish Planting Regulations." At present, Tanru Village has a radish planting demonstration base of more than 1,100 mu, driving nearly 2,000 farming households in surrounding villages to plant more than 3,800 mu of radishes, and the annual output value of the radish industry chain has reached more than 42 million yuan. Tanru Village has not only become a well-known "radish" prosperous village, but has also been rated as one of the first batch of typical demonstration villages of Guangdong Province's "High-Quality Development Project for Hundreds of Counties, Thousands of Towns and Ten Thousands of Villages" and a demonstration village for rural revitalization in Guangdong Province.

The reporter saw in Tanru Village that the village has vast fertile fields, most of which are half-mud, half-sand soil that is breathable and water-retentive. Villager Uncle Zhang said that Tanru Village has always had a tradition of planting radishes, and the fresh radishes produced are sweet, crisp and juicy, melting in the mouth, and are well known far and wide. However, because in the past it had always been a small-farmer farming model, large-scale development could not be formed, the village economy lagged behind, and there were many poor households.

The Tanru micro-factory is adjacent to the Tanru Village Committee. The agricultural products exhibition hall is full of a dazzling array of products, including various processed radish products, rice and peanut oil. A villager surnamed Qiu working at the rice drying center said that it is currently the rice harvest season, and the dryers are running day and night, with a daily drying capacity of nearly 100 tons. Last year's rice harvest season coincided with flooding, and the dryers played a particularly important role in preventing farmers' grain from being lost.

Radishes from Tanru Village, Shalang Town, Dianbai District, are well known far and wide. The picture shows freshly harvested radishes. (Photo courtesy of the Tanru Village Committee)

According to Zhu Xiongwei, the operations manager of the Tanru micro-factory, the predecessor of the Tanru micro-factory was the Tanru Planting and Breeding Professional Cooperative. Starting in 2019, the micro-factory began cooperating with the well-known food processing enterprise "Maodegong" Group, supplying it with dried radish, radish sprouts and other products. At present, the micro-factory has registered the "Tanru" trademark, and its products include more than 30 processed products such as colorful pepper dried radish, camellia seed oil, rice, peanut oil, shredded papaya and spicy grandmother's vegetables, which are sold throughout the country. To boost sales, the micro-factory established an internet e-commerce marketing center in 2022, conducting livestream sales on platforms such as Douyin, the Tanru Smart Planting and Breeding Cloud Store and Weidian. Last year, the annual sales of micro-factory products reached more than 11 million yuan, of which e-commerce sales exceeded 3.6 million yuan. This year, total sales are expected to exceed 17 million yuan.

Zhu Xiongwei said that the Tanru micro-factory has many jobs, and the monthly income of working villagers ranges from 3,500 yuan to 8,000 yuan. The micro-factory not only enables villagers to solve the three major problems of earning money, farming and caring for their families at their doorstep, but also regularly holds rural entrepreneurship training classes, rural e-commerce training classes and rural handicraft training classes to encourage villagers to learn skills and keep pace with the times. In addition, villagers also receive land rent and dividend payments, and their lives are thriving.