NW China's village official brings local garlic to global markets

A village official in northwest China's Qinghai province not only became one of the first people to introduce a new variety of garlic in his own village in the 1980s, but is now also helping fellow villagers who also grow this kind of plant to open up global markets.

Photo shows Wang Guofeng processing orders on a computer.

Wang Guofeng, a resident of Shen'gou village of Yurun town, Ledu district, Haidong city, Qinghai province, worked as a construction worker, porter and waste collector after failing his university entrance exam when he was only 17.

Six years later, Wang returned to his hometown, and became engaged in agriculture in a piece of family land 5 mu (about 0.33 hectares) in size. When he learnt of a new variety of garlic that first became known in his village, he decided to try planting it.

In a bid to introduce the new breed, Wang spent five days travelling to northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and spent all his savings on purchasing the seeds. In the first year of his field cultivation experiment, Wang lost money. However, in the following year, local farmers, amazed by the high yield of 2,000 kilograms per mu in Wang's field, scrambled to purchase his new species of garlic.

In 2004, Wang was appointed as the Party branch secretary of Shen'gou village. Since then, he decided he would help more villagers exploit new markets for garlic.

Thanks to Wang's redoubled efforts, local farmers have managed to secure long-term sales contracts with small retailers in northwest China's Gansu province, and also set up a local garlic cooperative in 2018 with the participation of 70 households.

Now that the domestic sales market has been stabilized, Wang has become more ambitious: "I want to sell the garlic from our small village abroad."

By relying on his domestic partners, Wang has succeeded in selling their high-quality garlic to Thailand, Japan, South Korea and other overseas markets in recent years.