On September 23, the autumn equinox, the 2026 Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival Beijing main venue event opened at the Blue Tune Manor in Chaoyang District, Beijing, with specialty agricultural products from various districts around the capital showcased in a concentrated display. Unlike previous years when fresh fruit took center stage, a range of deeply processed products such as peeled chestnut kernels, raspberry vinegar, watermelon beer, and Chinese toon paste occupied prominent positions.
Reporters observed at the scene that seasonal fresh fruits picked from the fields, after processing and transformation, are breaking through shelf-life and seasonal limitations to achieve a "second growth." The image shows the scene at the 2026 Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival Beijing main venue event.
Huairou chestnuts are a traditional geographical indication agricultural product of Beijing, harvested intensively from early September to mid-October each year. Affected by unusually high rainfall this year, production declined compared to previous years, but this did not stop the pace of deep processing.
"In the past, the vast majority of chestnuts were shipped out by the ton as raw materials, supplied to roasting factories or used as fillings for mooncake and zongzi companies. Raw materials accounted for the bulk of sales," introduced Mr. Tian, a staff member of Beijing Laolishu Juyuande Agricultural Technology Development Co., Ltd. Fresh chestnuts are delicate; if they cannot be sold within one to two weeks after harvest, they are highly prone to drying out and spoiling. However, after high-temperature sterilization, ready-to-eat chestnut kernels have their shelf life extended to one year. Today, quick-frozen chestnut kernels, room-temperature ready-to-eat chestnuts, ice chestnuts, chestnut pastries, and even chestnut-scented aromatherapy products are gradually appearing on the market. A single chestnut is being "squeezed dry" of all its value.
During the conversation, a consumer bought two boxes of ready-to-eat chestnut kernels priced at 36 yuan. "Many consumers recognize the Huairou chestnut origin label, valuing its distinctive oily texture," said Mr. Tian.
Innovative products became a major highlight of this year's Harvest Festival. Watermelon beer from an enterprise under the Panggezhuang Township in Daxing attracted many consumers to stop and browse, priced at 13 yuan per bottle. Leveraging the opportunity of the watermelon festival, this was the first time the locality pushed watermelon into the deep processing track. "Trial production started in May this year as a small-batch test. The first batch of 3,000 cases is now basically sold out," introduced a booth staff member. The watermelon beer uses local Panggezhuang watermelons as raw material, and next year there are plans to collaborate with local Beijing factories to further expand production scale.
Changes in the consumer market are also reshaping the agricultural product processing track in reverse. Reporters found during visits that "clean ingredients, fewer additives or even zero preservatives" has become an important factor for urban consumers when choosing deeply processed agricultural products. "People nowadays value health the most, and we have made adjustments accordingly. Our Chinese toon paste and chestnut kernels all use high-temperature sterilization technology with no added preservatives," said Yang Xin, First Secretary of Shatanggu Village, Dazhuangke Township, Yanqing District. The image shows resident First Secretaries at the Mentougou District booth introducing agricultural products to consumers.
Opportunities lie ahead, but the advancement of deep processing of agricultural products in Beijing's suburban areas has also encountered real thresholds. Yanqing Daokede Farm specializes in organic raspberry cultivation, having introduced Dutch raspberry varieties in 2021. Under open-field cultivation, the fresh raspberry season lasts only from early August to mid-October, about two months. Without added preservatives, fresh berries have a shelf life of only 3 to 5 days. Previously, frozen berries of ordinary appearance could only be sold to buyers at low prices, with most flowing to overseas markets.
"We hope to keep local berries for deep processing," Ms. Lin, the booth manager, told reporters. The farm has already developed products such as raspberry vinegar and raspberry jam, which are quite popular with consumers. However, the rapid spoilage of fresh fruit and insufficient local processing capacity remain real constraints.
"We launched raspberry-apple juice last year, but due to policy impacts, the factory relocated entirely to Shandong, so this year we cannot continue producing this raspberry-apple juice," Ms. Lin revealed. The next step is to develop raspberry fruit wine and NFC raspberry beverages, but under the OEM model, production capacity and processes are constrained by external conditions.
Such development difficulties of being constrained by external contract manufacturers are not isolated cases. Many village collectives in Beijing's suburbs also face similar challenges when developing deep processing of agricultural products.
As a resident First Secretary, Yang Xin brought the village's Chinese toon paste and additive-free chestnut kernels. Yang Xin stated that this year the total annual production of local Chinese toon is about 20,000 jin. Part is sold directly as fresh Chinese toon, and the other part is collected and commissioned to external factories for processing into Chinese toon paste, achieving product value-added. He told reporters that fresh Chinese toon sells for 20 to 30 yuan per jin in the market, while processed Chinese toon paste sells for 15 yuan per 150-gram jar. Reporters roughly calculated that the fresh Chinese toon raw material used, if sold directly, would bring farmers only about 2 yuan in income, representing nearly 8 times value-added through processing.
But problems also arise. "For small-batch commissioned processing, the processing fees tend to be higher. Factories have established production processes, and if you want to adjust crispness or improve flavor, modifying the original procedures is very difficult," Yang Xin admitted. Village collectives and growers generally lack the conditions to build their own processing plants, mostly adopting the commissioned OEM model. With small production scale, it is difficult to obtain better processing conditions.
A single chestnut goes from a raw material shipped out by the ton to a 36-yuan box of ready-to-eat chestnut kernels; a jar of Chinese toon paste increases the value of about 2 yuan of fresh toon raw material to 15 yuan 鈥?these changes happening at the booths are microcosmic footnotes of "agriculture at the head, industry at the tail." The image shows Mr. Tian offering consumers a taste of ready-to-eat chestnut kernels.
As stated in a People's Daily article titled "From 'Head' to 'Tail,' All Are Pathways to Prosperity," to build agriculture into a modernized large-scale industry, it is essential to fully and dynamically develop the articles on "grain at the head, food at the tail," "livestock at the head, meat at the tail," and "agriculture at the head, industry at the tail." According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in the first half of this year, the value-added of national large-scale agricultural and sideline food processing industries increased by 4.8% year-on-year, and this track is heating up.
However, for Beijing's suburbs, this article has its particular way of being written. Under the constraint of a farmland protection space of no less than 1.66 million mu in a mega-city, Beijing's agricultural way out lies not in expanding scale but in enhancing value 鈥?developing deep processing of specialty agricultural products can both mitigate the risk of production and sales fluctuations from concentrated fresh fruit market launches and retain more industrial value-added benefits in rural areas. But the OEM difficulties behind the booths also remind us: to truly do a good job of "agriculture at the head, industry at the tail," relying solely on business entities fighting alone is far from enough. How to layout local processing capacity, how small farmers can connect with contract manufacturers, and how specialty processes can be preserved and upgraded all require "tailoring measures to local conditions and precise policy implementation" to provide answers.
A chestnut, a raspberry, a handful of Chinese toon鈥?from fresh fruit on the branch to processed consumer goods on the shelf, this chain is being continuously explored and gradually improved across the suburban lands of Beijing. The connotation of harvest has long extended beyond reaping fruits in the fields; it lies more in extending the industrial chain and allowing the value of cultivation to be more fully released.
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