A small passion fruit has become a "golden fruit" for prosperity. In Wuping County, Longyan City, in western Fujian, these golden passion fruits are becoming a remarkable link connecting land and dreams, tradition and modernity.
On the morning of January 9th, the opening ceremony of the Fujian (Wuping) Passion Fruit Culture Museum and the establishment ceremony of the Fujian Passion Fruit Industry Research Institute were held in Wuping County, marking a crucial step for the passion fruit industry in Wuping and across Fujian in terms of technological empowerment and the integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries.
Stepping into this 1,500-square-meter exhibition hall, a giant golden passion fruit model hangs at the center, silently narrating the stories of hard work and harvest from this land. This space is not just for showcasing the fruit; it is a vivid footnote to an industrial legend, witnessing how this mountainous county cultivated a small fruit into a major industry with an output value exceeding 1.5 billion yuan.
The connection between Wuping and the passion fruit is a long-brewed, mutual pursuit. The uniquely favorable climate and ecology have nurtured golden passion fruits that are plump, intensely aromatic, and uniquely flavored. What truly makes this "golden fruit" shine, however, is the innovative practice of Wuping's people in combining traditional agriculture with modern industrial concepts.
Today, the county's passion fruit cultivation area has reached over 50,000 mu. At the sorting center in the Wuping High-tech Zone, intelligent equipment can process 50,000 jin of fresh fruit daily. Not far from the Passion Fruit Culture Museum, researchers at the Fujian Passion Fruit Industry Research Institute are dedicated to developing new varieties and green cultivation techniques, injecting scientific momentum into the industry's development.
In this industrial transformation, Wang Xiuzhen, known as the "Passion Fruit Queen," must be mentioned. This daughter of Wuping, who resigned from a major Beijing internet company to return home and start a business, founded Youda Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. in 2018, building the passion fruit's entire industrial chain from scratch. Today, her company is a provincial-level key leading enterprise, having established Wuping's first standardized passion fruit seedling base, along with demonstration planting bases and an export base. It also co-established the Fujian Passion Fruit Industry Research Institute with the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Wang Xiuzhen's entrepreneurial journey reflects the upgrade path of Wuping's passion fruit industry. Recognizing that simply selling fresh fruit offered limited added value, she led her team to invest 37 million yuan in building intelligent production lines to develop deep-processed products like jam and preserved fruit. Deep processing not only extends the product's shelf life but also allows the final selling price to reach eight times that of fresh fruit, maximizing the value of the passion fruit.
"In the future, Wuping will use the culture museum as a display window and the research institute as an innovation engine to continuously deepen the integrated development model of 'technology + culture + industry,' striving to build 'Wuping Passion Fruit' into a nationally renowned agricultural brand," said Lan Kaijin, Party Group Secretary and Director of the Wuping County Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau.
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