The agricultural development report card for Ning County during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period reveals impressive and inspiring achievements. Behind the numbers lies the county's remarkable transformation of its agricultural industry, evolving from traditional farming to integrated whole-chain development, and shifting focus from merely growing well to selling far and wide.
Five years of diligent cultivation have yielded abundant fruits, paving the way for a new journey of determined progress. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Ning County anchored its development strategy on an "agriculture-first" orientation, closely aligned with the rural revitalization strategy. By steadfastly ensuring food security and deeply cultivating the integrated development of "six major industries," the county has blazed a trail of high-quality modern agricultural development characterized by beautiful villages, prosperous residents, and thriving industries, thereby solidifying the industrial foundation for comprehensive rural revitalization.
Winter is a critical period for pest and disease control in grain crops such as wheat and rapeseed. After the onset of winter, Ning County dispatched multiple professional technical teams to key townships including Taichang, Xinzhuang, Zaosheng, and Zhongcun. They provided "face-to-face" and "hand-in-hand" field technical guidance to ensure the safe and successful overwintering of crops.
Food security is a crucial foundation for national security. To this end, Ning County resolutely shouldered the political responsibility for food security, implementing "five integrations": integration of planting and grain, grain and feed, grain and grass, enterprises-cooperatives-farmers, and planting-storage-processing-sales. The county maintained a close watch to ensure that cultivated land area, grain planting area, and grain output did not decrease, stabilizing staple grains and corn while expanding soybeans and oil crops. It continuously strengthened the integration of improved seeds, techniques, methods, machinery, and systems ("five excellences") alongside disaster prevention and reduction. Grain production demonstrated stable growth, with the sown area reaching 770,000 mu and total output achieving 252,000 tons.
Ning County also focused on creating a high-efficiency grain production demonstration zone in its southern district, encompassing 200,000 mu for wheat seed grain and corn grain-forage integration. This was complemented by the application of advanced methods and machinery such as full-film double-furrow sowing, soybean-corn strip intercropping, and Beidou unmanned agricultural machinery, steadily enhancing comprehensive grain production capacity.
The county deeply implemented the strategy of "storing grain in the land and storing grain in technology," large-scale advancing the construction of high-standard farmland. Through comprehensive, contiguous improvements addressing fields, soil, water, roads, forests, and electricity, it effectively enhanced agricultural production infrastructure and continuously improved the efficiency of land and water resource utilization.
Furthermore, Ning County successfully attracted and cultivated 12 enterprises focused on linking grain production to food processing, such as Miqiao Weiming, Xiangdangxiang, and Pingzi Weichuang. This has established a complete closed loop from planting and storage to processing and sales, with an annual output value exceeding 1 billion yuan, making the "Longdong Granary" more stable and robust.
Over the past five years, Ning County has worked to fully construct a 12-billion-yuan "six major industries" chain. It continuously advanced an industrial development mechanism featuring "five sets" per industry: a dedicated leading team, implementation plan, support policies, technical team, and assessment system. Adhering to a regional layout of "three plateaus, three river valleys, and three zones," the county promoted scaled, mechanized, and intensive operations, along with the integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. This drove the characteristic industries to transition from scale expansion to quality and efficiency improvement.
The apple industry is a pillar industry for enriching the people in Ning County. The county promoted the "Ning County Model" characterized by "three highs" – high positioning, high technology, high效益 – and "five transformations" – improved seedling varieties, dwarfing and dense cultivation, mechanized production, integrated water and fertilizer management, and product standardization. It established the nation's largest dwarfing rootstock apple base and an orchard big data center, creating a National Modern Agricultural Industrial Park. Concurrently, through anti-frost blooming period resistance experiments and apple "futures + price insurance," the county's orchard area stabilized at 250,000 mu (including 110,000 mu of dwarf dense planting), with output reaching 560,000 tons and产值 exceeding 4 billion yuan. It constructed 47 fruit cold storage, controlled atmosphere storage, and fruit/vegetable preservation facilities, 3 high-standard sorting and commercial processing lines, and attracted/cultivated 16 processing enterprises.
Walking along the flat rural roads, the Beichuan ten-thousand-mu green melon and vegetable production demonstration zone reveals row upon row of greenhouses. Ning County invested a total of 14.8046 million yuan in fiscal funds to implement 10 melon and vegetable industry projects. Simultaneously, it actively developed contract farming, built cold chain facilities for melons and vegetables, established one vegetable processing and packaging factory, two chili sauce factories, and four保鲜库. It nurtured 13 demonstration cooperatives and family farms, driving over 2,000 farming households to increase income through contract planting.
Entering the standardized edible mushroom production and processing base of Gannong Moli Company in Jiaocun Town, workers are busy picking, sorting, and packaging, presenting a bustling scene. To date, Ning County has built 7 edible mushroom base projects, cultivating varieties such as nameko, black fungus, lion's mane mushroom, antler reishi, cauliflower mushroom, morel, and oyster mushroom. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, a total of 293 edible mushroom greenhouses were built, developing 597 edible mushroom farming households, with an output of 28,300 tons and产值 of 242 million yuan.
In the Chinese medicinal herbs sector, focusing primarily on honeysuckle cultivation in the eastern district, Ning County vigorously promoted a development model of "enterprise leadership + farmer participation + contract repurchase." It organized farmers to plant honeysuckle around their homes, achieving a medicinal herb area of 90,200 mu. Production lines for chlorogenic acid extraction, honeysuckle tea, etc., were established, developing 12 high value-added products. The annual planting area for burdock seed exceeded 30,000 mu, and the market share of advantageous products like Chinese thorowax root and burdock seed continued to increase.
In the grass and livestock industry, Ning County optimized regional layout, developed standardized scale breeding, and focused on promoting the high-quality, whole-chain development of the beef cattle and pig industries. By the end of 2024, the county's inventory of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry reached 144,500 head, 349,500 head, 372,700 head, and 1.2664 million head, respectively. Three regional manure treatment centers were built, with the resource utilization rate of livestock and poultry manure reaching 91.6%. The county achieved an animal husbandry output value of 1.0611 billion yuan, effectively promoting farmers' income growth.
During the cold winter, traveling along the rural roads of Ning County, the previously haphazardly stacked firewood and dilapidated earthen walls are nowhere to be seen. Instead, the eye is met with tidy village roads,精致的 courtyards, and prominent safety signs, presenting a new picture of the countryside that is clean, orderly, and vibrant.
In the整治行动中, Ning County adhered to the principles of adapting to local conditions and implementing targeted measures. The entire county worked in unison, with party members and cadres taking the lead, public welfare post personnel acting proactively, and the masses transforming from "bystanders" into "participants" and "supervisors," forming a favorable situation of concerted efforts between cadres and the masses.
To avoid the整治行动 being a "short-lived gust," Ning County坚持 combining "immediate correction" with "long-term establishment," improving long-term management and maintenance mechanisms. Through establishing a closed-loop management system of "daily inspections + random checks" and implementing household responsibility systems like "three responsibilities at the door" and specific local regulations, it ensured problems are identified and rectified promptly. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the county累计 addressed over 160,000 instances of unauthorized construction and disorderly堆放, and built 39,836 high-quality household toilets.
The county continuously enhanced the treatment of non-point source agricultural pollution, deeply advancing the construction of the agricultural green development pioneer area. The resource utilization rate of livestock and poultry manure, the recycling rate of waste agricultural film, the comprehensive utilization rate of straw, and the treatment rate of vegetable residues steadily increased from 82.3%, 81.5%, 85%, and 45% in 2021 to 92.05%, 87.13%, 90%, and 59.39% in 2024, respectively.
Ning County also implemented measures such as transportation subsidies for migrant workers, stabilizing employment, providing industrial awards and subsidies, issuing small-amount credit loans, distributing benefit funds for farmers, and profit-sharing payments, continuously increasing the per capita disposable income of rural residents.
The county actively implemented the strategy of "strengthening the county through science and technology," demonstrating and promoting 32 new varieties and 14 new technologies. It collected 86 copies of crop germplasm resources, protected and purified 4 local varieties including the Ning County winter jujube, achieving a 100% coverage rate of improved seeds for major crops. Over 50 various agricultural technology demonstration sites were established. The level of agricultural mechanization significantly improved, with the county possessing 77,400 units of various agricultural machinery and a total machinery power of 343,800 kilowatts. By the end of 2024, the comprehensive mechanization rate for major crops reached 88.25%, an increase of 8.99 percentage points from the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan" period. It cumulatively trained over 8,000 high-quality farmers and more than 60,000 rural practical talents, and recognized professional titles for 281 rural practical talents.
In terms of digital agriculture development, an apple big data integration innovation demonstration project was launched in 2025. The "Ning County Human's Fourth Apple Smart Orchard Digital Service Platform" was promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Information Center as an outstanding case of national smart agriculture construction.
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