Xinyang News, March 16 (Xin Li Pan Xinhai, Huang Xiaowan) With the spring breeze of March, the tea tree quietly stretched out its young leaves. In recent days, the tens of thousands of acres of tea gardens in Xinyangshan County, Henan Province have also ushered in the picking season. The tea pickers slanted the bamboo pockets and traversed the tea forest. Like the clever notes in the staff, they composed a tea picking “spring song”.
Tea pickers shuttle spring tea among tea forests Photo by Sheng Peng
Guangshan County is one of the main producing areas of Maojian, Xinyang. It has more than 240,000 acres of tea gardens and 100,000 acres of cloned tea gardens. With an annual output of more than 10,000 tons of dry tea, the output value reaches 1.2 billion yuan.
In the past few days, the temperature has risen, and the picking of spring tea is urgent. Under the premise of prevention and control of the epidemic situation, Guangshan County actively organized spring tea picking and accelerated the restoration of tea production. The county organized technical teams to go deep into tea companies and tea clubs to solve the problems in tea farmers' production; provided prenatal technical training to large tea companies, tea professional cooperatives, and major tea producers, and comprehensively investigated tea-making equipment. At present, several tea companies above the county level have been approved by the county's forest tea department, and they are the first to organize tea pickers to walk into the tea garden.
Tea pickers shuttle spring tea among tea forests Photo by Sheng Peng
On the 16th, tea pickers were busy in the tea plantation in the tea production area of Baiqueyuan Town. In less than half a day, each person can pick about 1-2 kg of Maojian tea.
"It's boring for more than a month at home! It just happened that new tea was mined, and picking up some tea leaves also made a small expense, and it feels really good!" Early in the morning of the spring tea mining, Fu Chuanfeng, a villager in the town, rushed to the tea factory and used only half a day to pick up more than a catty of spring tea, accounting for more than 60 yuan.
Tea pickers shuttle spring tea among tea forests Photo by Sheng Peng
Guangshan County is a large county for labor export. Due to the impact of the epidemic, many laborers are still at home. The mining of spring tea just solved the problem of some villagers' labor.
The reporter learned during the visit that part-time tea pickers such as Fu Chuanfeng are located in many tea-producing areas such as Liangting and Baique Garden in Guangshan County. Hu Huawen, the person in charge of Dajianshan Tea Factory, said that every spring tea mining season, nearby villagers will come to the tea field to pick tea, especially some poor households have become regular tea pickers in the tea field.
The tea picker sends the picked tea to the acquisition point for weighing. Photo by Sheng Peng
"After the spring tea entered the picking period, because the epidemic prevention and control of tea pickers was not good, I was very anxious, and with a mentality of trying, I posted recruitment information in the circle of friends and Douyin platform." Hu Huawen told reporters excitedly, Thinking of the day when spring tea was officially mined, more than 500 people came, all nearby villagers, to solve his urgent needs.
According to reports, the Dajianshan Ecological Tea Base in Baiqueyuan Town of the county owns 600 acres of tea gardens with an annual total output value of 5 million yuan, driving more than 150 local farmers to find employment nearby. This alone increased the average income of these farmers by 7,000 yuan.
It is understood that there are 150,000 employees in the tea industry in Guangshan County, and the per capita tea income of farmers in the tea area is more than 5,000 yuan. The tea industry has become a new path for the county's people to get rid of poverty and become a characteristic pillar industry. (Finish)