As summer approaches, the gullies of the Loess Plateau are swept by southern winds across its terraced fields, where vast orchards of apple trees present a deep, lush green.
The branches, laden with fruit, brim with the grand and fervent hopes of the local farming families.
The transformation of a single Jingning apple mirrors the story of industrial resurgence on the Loess Plateau.
Located at the golden latitude of 35 degrees north, with an ideal altitude of 1,700 meters, abundant sunlight, significant diurnal temperature variation, and deep, loose soil, Gansu's Jingning county has been designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs as a national optimal growth area and core advantageous production zone for apples.
After over four decades of dedicated development, the county's orchard area has stabilized at over one million mu, making it the country's top county for apple cultivation by scale.
The apple industry stands as the primary pillar for local prosperity, with its brand value exceeding 18.1 billion yuan and consistently ranking among the top ten regional brand values nationwide for years.
The apple industry has fundamentally reshaped Jingning's once arid and impoverished industrial landscape, solidly becoming the "ballast stone" for stabilizing incomes, preventing a return to poverty, and revitalizing the countryside.
However, upon closer inspection, the large scale and superior quality have not fully translated into market stability and tangible profits.
For many years, while Jingning's premium apples have enjoyed a strong reputation, they have struggled to escape the industry-wide dilemma of "high quality not commanding high prices, and high yields not guaranteeing stable income."
To address this, the local government has adopted an approach of "using external resources to navigate broader markets," attempting to introduce numerous external enterprises through support mechanisms to revitalize the industrial challenges of this major agricultural county.
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (SHSE: 601318) was among the companies introduced to support Jingning county during the poverty alleviation efforts.
Recently, a reporter visited the Jingning Gerui Apple Professional Cooperative to explore how Ping An is using market-oriented assistance as the brush and long-term trust as the ink to address the market shortcomings of this premium production area, writing a new chapter of industrial revitalization, farmer prosperity, and rural prosperity on the Loess Plateau.
The Market Dilemma of a Gold Medal Apple
"We can grow apples to a nationally top-tier standard, but it's very difficult to stabilize their prices at a reasonable level," said Jing Yongxue, founder of the Jingning Gerui Apple Professional Cooperative, standing before the cooperative's apple storage and sorting facility, articulating the deep-seated pain point of Jingning's premium fruit industry.
As the county's apple industry scaled up, a large number of farmers entered the cultivation arena, leading to rising annual yields.
However, the relatively lagging construction of the market circulation system became the biggest bottleneck for high-quality industrial development.
In 2007, witnessing the plight of his hometown's vast high-quality apple orchards—"hidden away, subject to market price fluctuations, and facing sales stagnation despite good harvests"—with premium fruit passively devalued due to limited sales channels and countless farmers facing unstable returns despite year-round toil, Jing Yongxue, deeply rooted in his homeland, resolutely led the establishment of the Jingning Gerui Apple Professional Cooperative.
He vowed to "grow good apples and sell them well," dedicating efforts to building a local premium fruit brand—Huluhe Apples.
After over a decade of weathering hardships and meticulous cultivation, the cooperative has kept pace with the county's push for apple quality improvement and upgrading.
Adhering to standardized planting, meticulous management, and quality-based sorting, it has forged a development path of building a brand on quality.
Today, the Gerui Cooperative has become a National Model Farmer Cooperative.
The Huluhe Apples it has diligently cultivated, leveraging Jingning's unique natural endowments and stringent quality control standards, have won the China High-Quality Apple Gold Award and secured the triple authoritative certifications of National Geographical Indication, Organic Product, and Green Food.
With bright color, crispy and tender flesh, and rich aroma, they are truly "plateau delicacies," representing the pinnacle of Jingning apple quality.
Quality reached its peak, but the market encountered obstacles.
The reporter's investigation found that against the backdrop of the overall scaling and quality upgrading of Jingning's apple industry, front-end cultivation has become increasingly standardized and professional, while back-end sales have long lagged behind.
Local premium operators represented by the Gerui Cooperative have long relied heavily on offline itinerant merchants and traditional wholesale markets, lacking autonomous, controllable, and long-term stable sales channels.
Purchase prices are entirely subject to market fluctuations, with significant annual volatility and unpredictable rises and falls.
This directly leads to the cooperative's annual output value fluctuating wildly between 45 million and 96 million yuan.
The stability of the cooperative's role in connecting and leading farmers is severely insufficient, causing the household incomes of the 800 cooperative farming households it supports, including 371 households lifted out of poverty, to fluctuate constantly with market tides, greatly diminishing the stability of industrial prosperity for the people.
"Growing apples depends on nature for quality, selling them depends on gambling on market trends," lamented veteran fruit grower Qi Xiaoning, who has long cultivated Huluhe Apples.
Although the industry scale is growing and the fruit quality is improving, the confidence of fruit farmers has remained shaky.
Every autumn and winter harvest season, every household watches anxiously; a good harvest doesn't guarantee good income, and high quality doesn't guarantee high prices.
The year's hard work is often diluted by market volatility.
This predicament has become a key bottleneck for Jingning's apple industry to transition from "expanding scale" to "strengthening the brand and stabilizing income": the production area has the foundation, cultivation has the technique, and the fruit has the quality, but the market side lacks certainty and the channel side lacks stability.
This prevents a good industry from forming good benefits and prevents good resources from sustainably driving good income growth, constraining the high-quality transformation and upgrading of the county's specialty fruit industry.
The Stabilizing Hand: Using Orders to Anchor the Industry
As early as 2019, during the critical period of poverty alleviation, Ping An Group conducted an in-depth special research trip for poverty alleviation in Gansu.
Recommended by the local government, the team visited the Jingning Gerui Apple Professional Cooperative.
The research team witnessed firsthand the top-tier fruit nurtured by millions of mu of plateau terraces and gained a clear understanding of the structural contradiction in Jingning's apple industry: "excellent quality, weak market."
They heard the simple aspirations of the vast number of fruit farmers for stability, long-term prospects, and steady income.
Rural revitalization is based on industry; industrial revitalization depends on the market.
Ping An Group's head of rural revitalization work stated in an interview that the cultivation advantages, quality advantages, and industrial advantages accumulated by Jingning apples over forty-plus years are undeniable.
However, high-quality agricultural products across the country commonly face the challenge of "controllable production end, uncontrollable market end."
The core of assistance is not simple capital infusion or short-term promotions, but using market mechanisms to address industrial shortcomings, using long-term certainty to hedge against market uncertainty, and solidifying the development foundation for mature, high-quality local industries.
Based on precise analysis of the industry's pain points, Ping An moved beyond traditional aid thinking, establishing a support path of "first opening sales channels, then solidifying the foundation, providing long-term empowerment, and co-developing the brand."
It offered the most pragmatic and long-lasting solution: a long-term, stable, and predictable fixed procurement commitment.
Since then, Ping An Group has forged an unbreakable six-year bond with the Gerui Cooperative and Huluhe Apples, becoming a key turning point for Jingning's premium fruit industry to break through market difficulties and steadily transform and upgrade.
In 2020, the first year of assistance directly tackled the most urgent problem.
The annual concentrated apple procurement period is the most critical and high-risk point for the cooperative, involving immense capital pressure: the cooperative needs to raise large sums of cash to promptly pay thousands of fruit farmers for their harvest.
However, the traditional wholesale model has long payment cycles and uncertain payment amounts, easily trapping them in a vicious cycle of "lack of funds for procurement—lowering prices to buy fruit—compromising on quality—inventory backlog and unsold stock," ultimately harming farmers' interests and destabilizing the industry's foundation.
At this critical juncture, Ping An provided precise relief, offering timely help.
Through the group's trade union welfare procurement system, it signed a special procurement contract worth 3 million yuan with the Gerui Cooperative, with actual annual procurement nearing 4 million yuan.
"This stable order saved that year's procurement situation and stabilized the confidence of the entire industrial chain," Jing Yongxue admitted frankly.
Relying on this timely, sufficient, and stable cash flow, the cooperative could avoid price suppression, payment delays, and fully pay farmers on time, upholding the principle of premium prices for premium fruit.
This completely broke the longstanding operational vicious cycle and allowed farmers to genuinely feel for the first time that diligently growing good Huluhe Apples leads to stable income and tangible returns.
Short-term relief addressed the immediate need; long-term capacity-building solidified the foundation.
Starting in 2021, Ping An continued to deepen and systematically upgrade its support model, moving from "phased procurement relief" to "systematic channel empowerment."
Ping An formally incorporated Huluhe Apples into its One Wallet consumer assistance platform and the regular employee welfare procurement catalog, establishing a dedicated, stable sales channel for the cooperative that directly reaches Ping An's hundreds of thousands of employees and massive end customers.
This shift fundamentally rewrote the cooperative's sales landscape: from passively waiting for merchant purchases and passively following market fluctuations to having an autonomous, controllable, year-round, and continuously stable proprietary channel.
Even in years when the pandemic disrupted offline logistics and the national fruit market experienced volatility, Ping An's exclusive channel maintained steady growth, with single-channel sales exceeding 6.5 million yuan in 2022, becoming the most solid market ballast for the Huluhe Apple industry's development.
Going beyond just selling, Ping An also helps sell well and reach far.
Ping An is not just a channel partner but also a market connector, industrial enabler, and brand booster.
Leveraging the platform's vast consumer data, user reviews, and market preferences, it continuously provides the cooperative with precise market feedback, guiding Huluhe Apples to optimize product specifications, upgrade gift packaging, refine grading standards, and iterate quality control systems.
This makes the plateau's premium fruit more suitable for diverse urban consumption, gift-giving, and household consumption scenarios, continuously enhancing product premium and market reputation.
Simultaneously, utilizing its own full-media communication resources, Ping An systematically shares the story of Jingning's forty-year apple industry cultivation, the struggle on the Loess Plateau terraces, and the Gerui Cooperative's commitment to quality.
It amplifies the core advantages of Huluhe Apples—triple certification, gold medal quality, and plateau ecological cultivation—helping the brand transition from a "local Jingning good fruit" to a "nationally renowned premium product."
Addressing the cooperative's initial pain points of insufficient online platform operation experience, unfamiliar processes, and high costs when connecting to online platforms, Ping An proactively optimized settlement processes, simplified对接环节, and covered platform operation costs.
With a partnership-style approach and attentive service, it reduced burdens for the local operator, allowing the cooperative to focus on cultivation and maintaining high quality.
The Transformation: From "Hard-to-Sell Fruit" to "Prosperous Households"
Six years of persistent effort and precise empowerment through Ping An's market-oriented, long-term, and systematic assistance have deeply activated the industrial value of Huluhe Apples.
This has not only propelled the Gerui Cooperative towards leapfrog and steady development but also allowed thousands of fruit farming households to share in the industry's dividends.
Across Jingning's million-mu apple terraces, it has painted a vivid picture of revitalization with stable industry, prosperous people, and thriving villages.
From the enterprise development perspective, Ping An's exclusive channel has cumulatively generated over 29 million yuan in sales for Huluhe Apples, becoming the most stable, reliable, and core income cornerstone for the cooperative over the past six years.
Relying on this market stability, the cooperative has completely escaped the predicament of wild fluctuations in output value, steadily climbing from low-level徘徊 to a normalized, stable range of 80-90 million yuan annually.
The industry's ability to resist risks and market volatility has achieved a qualitative leap.
Stable income has further solidified the enterprise's endogenous development动力.
Over six years, the cooperative has achieved an average annual stable income increase of approximately 350,000 yuan through the Ping An channel, with a cumulative increase exceeding 2.1 million yuan.
Stable profit accumulation has provided continuous funding for Huluhe Apples' technological iteration, equipment upgrades, product category expansion, and quality refinement.
The cooperative has顺势 extended the industrial chain, enriched its specialty fruit matrix, introduced advantageous varieties like脆玉香梨, and achieved diversified operations.
More importantly, the positive reputation from Ping An's long-term assistance, state-owned enterprise backing, and stable cooperation has significantly enhanced the market credibility and brand reputation of the Gerui Cooperative and Huluhe Apples.
This has attracted主动对接 and合作洽谈 from several domestic优质大型企业 like腾讯 and Sichuan Airlines.
A virtuous development pattern of brand breakout, market expansion, and channel diversification has fully formed.
A stable industry ensures farmers' security; a thriving industry brings百姓富.
Relying on Huluhe Apples' stable sales channels, fair purchase prices, and long-term cooperation mechanisms, the cooperative has continuously solidified its long-term绑定合作关系 with 800 farming households, precisely covering 371 households lifted out of poverty.
It firmly safeguards the achievements of poverty alleviation, allowing the红利 of industrial prosperity to be precisely滴灌 and continuously释放.
During the six-year cooperation period, it has driven an average annual income increase of 2,300 yuan per cooperative farming household, cumulatively increasing farmers' income by over 10 million yuan.
Average annual household income for farmers has steadily risen from less than 4,000 yuan in the early days to an average of 71,500 yuan annually.
Households dedicated to quality cultivation and hard work can achieve annual incomes of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan.
Mountain households who once relied on the weather and faced飘摇 income have completely告别拮据窘迫.
Rebuilding new homes, purchasing vehicles, investing in education, and improving living standards have become the rural norm.
The value of prosperity accumulated over forty years by the Jingning apple industry has been fully释放 under Ping An's long-term empowerment.
Qi Xiaoning, a veteran fruit farmer who最早 followed the cooperative in cultivating Huluhe Apples, is a firsthand witness to the industry's transformation and the improvement in people's livelihoods.
Years ago, a few mu of apple orchard was the family's entire livelihood.
Constrained by market instability and uncertain sales channels, even with meticulous cultivation every year, annual income was only tens of thousands of yuan, with old debts hard to clear, old houses hard to repair, and life hard to improve.
But as the cooperative deepened its cooperation with Ping An, Huluhe Apples completely告别滞销折价困境, with stable prices, stable sales channels, and stable收益.
After six years of accumulation, he not only paid off years of old debts but also invested nearly one million yuan to build a精致宽敞的二层新居, becoming the village's名副其实的 "apple别墅."
"Before, when growing apples, my heart was always慌, afraid of price drops, afraid they wouldn't sell, afraid the year's work was for nothing. Now it's different. Good apples definitely fetch a good price. Huluhe Apples have reputation, sales channels, and security. We who work the land finally dare to envision a good life and strive for a good life," Qi Xiaoning's朴实的话语道出了 the most genuine踏实与希望 of thousands of fruit farmers.
Cooperative member Chang Xiaoling's family of six was once a typical local household陷入困境 due to education expenses.
With two children studying, expenses were huge.
In the early years, Huluhe Apple income was起伏不定 and generally meager, with household annual income长期徘徊 around 30,000 yuan, leading to a perpetually tight life.
But after rooting herself in the cooperative's standardized cultivation system and relying on the safety net of Ping An's stable orders, Chang Xiaoling安心深耕 the orchard, strictly adhering to standards for management and quality improvement.
The优质 Huluhe Apples she produced were all purchased at premium prices and fully变现.
Now, household annual income exceeds 190,000 yuan, completely摆脱拮据困境.
They have even purchased a学区房 in Jingning county town, allowing their children to enjoy优质教育, achieving the人生跨越 of "growing fruit to enrich the family, studying to振兴 the family."
"Before, life wore people down. Now, life has direction. The children study in the city, we grow good apples at home, with stable income every year and new changes every year. This is the best life," says Chang Xiaoling now, her eyes full of brightness and hope.
In member Xie Lijuan's household, this stability and warmth from the Huluhe Apple industry have supported a风雨飘摇的家庭.
Her husband lost most of his ability to work due to a traffic accident, with two children in school.
The household lacked labor, had high expenses, and low income, once陷入绝境.
The few mu of apple orchard was the family's only livelihood, but early零散售卖 and market fluctuations led to极不稳定 income,难以支撑家庭重担.
After joining the Gerui Cooperative and connecting to Ping An's stable supply chain, her family's Huluhe Apples gained固定销路 and保底收益, with annual stable income increase近20,000 yuan.
This稳稳撑起 medical expenses, tuition fees, and daily household开支, providing a safety net for the困境家庭 and guarding the children's求学之路 and the family's重生希望.
"This stability is the icing on the cake for普通农户, but for困难家庭 like ours, it's雪中送炭," Xie Lijuan's真挚感慨 is the most温暖 and动人的民生答卷 of Ping An's industrial assistance.
Key Takeaways: Building a Bridge of Trust for Revitalization
From over forty years of industrial积淀 and a million-mu scale base, to once陷入 "strong quality, weak market"瓶颈困境, to now稳健突围,持续增收, and品牌跃升, the transformation path of Huluhe Apples is a vivid落地 on the rural landscape of Ping An Group's理念 of "finance for good, industrial empowerment, and long-term revitalization."
It is also a典型样本 of how premium specialty agriculture in northern China can use market-oriented破局, long-term capacity-building造血, and brand upgrading品牌化 to advance.
Over six years of深耕, Ping An has探索出 a systematic assistance path of订单稳心,渠道造血,品牌赋能, and信任致远.
It has精准破解 the common challenges of premium agricultural product production areas, providing可复制,可借鉴, and可推广 practical experience for the transformation and upgrading of county-level specialty agriculture.
Using orders to破局 solidifies the industrial ballast stone.
Building on Jingning apples' forty-year premium cultivation积淀 and直面 the core痛点 of "high quality难优价, increased yield难稳收," Ping An leveraged its集团内部庞大消费市场 to provide long-term fixed procurement orders.
It used market certainty to hedge production volatility,疏通 the most critical sales堵点 in the industrial cycle, allowing the land's耕耘, farmers'付出, and the production area's优势 to obtain stable, fair, and可持续的价值兑现.
Channel深耕 activates the industry's造血源.
Abandoning one-time donations and seasonal promotions短效帮扶, Ping An built a常态化,体系化, and自主化专属销售平台 for Huluhe Apples,推动帮扶 from "external输血"转向 "industrial造血."
Stable market expectations allow the cooperative to dare to plan long-term, dare to invest continuously, and dare to深耕品牌, completely摆脱 passive following of trends and随市摇摆的弱势地位, achieving a strategic转型 from "passive经营" to "active发展."
Brand助攻 lifts industrial附加值.
Aligning with the大势 of Jingning apple industry transformation and upgrading, Ping An助力 Huluhe Apples进阶 from "selling products" to "building a brand,提升价值, and expanding口碑."
Through market data反哺 production, consumer demand倒逼升级, and传播资源放大优势, it推动全方位提升 in product quality, packaging image, market reputation, and brand value.
It enriches the Jingning apple regional public brand matrix,助力 the county's specialty industry to transform scale advantages into brand advantages and效益优势.
Trust相伴凝聚振兴向心力.
Six years of携手同行 have超越 simple commercial transactions,构建起 a三方共赢的信任共同体 among the enterprise, cooperative, and farmers.
Ping An, as a long-term伙伴,全程陪伴 the growth of the乡土产业,细化服务,减负让利, and共抗市场风险.
With真诚,持久, and务实的陪伴, it has沉淀出 the most珍贵的信任资产 for rural revitalization,保障帮扶成效持续深化 and久久为功.
Forty years of深耕不辍 on the Loess Plateau have孕育出 a百亿果业 and万亩芳华.
Six years of同心相伴 have seen finance for good护航乡土振兴 and万家安稳.
From零星试种 in the 1980s to million-mu terraces飘香, from农户自发探索 to全域产业富民, Jingning apples have走过 a波澜壮阔的四十年发展之路, becoming a标杆产业 for脱贫致富 and转型升级 on the Loess Plateau.
The six-year携手 between Ping An Group, the Gerui Cooperative, and Huluhe Apples恰好精准补齐了 industrial短板,夯实了 industrial底盘, and升华了 industrial价值.
It has allowed over forty years of耕耘积淀 on this land to truly落地,增收, and振兴 steadily.
Practice充分证明 that what rural specialty industry revitalization lacks most is not quality or scale, but stable markets and优质的长效机制.
When the契约初心 of finance meets the质朴耕耘 of the countryside, when large-scale market resources对接 county-level优质产业, and when long-term trust replaces short-term博弈, it can抚平市场风浪,稳固产业根基, and托举万家幸福.
Today, the million-mu Jingning apple orchards are郁郁葱葱.
The fragrance of Jingning fruit, led by the cooperative,跨越山海 and奔赴万家.
Standing at the新起点 of deepening rural revitalization and high-quality development of specialty industries, Ping An Group can continue to坚守初心 and久久为功.
It can use orders to stabilize industry, channels to invigorate the countryside, and trust to commit to the long term,持续陪伴 the growth of乡土优质产业.
It can ensure every高原好果 fully manifests its value and every辛勤耕耘的农户收获安稳与希望,持续书写 a new振兴新答卷 of industrial兴旺,民生幸福, and乡村美好 on the陇原大地.
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