At the break of dawn, amid a bone-chilling temperature in Donggang in northeast China's Liaoning Province, workers were busy picking red and ripe strawberries hidden under the leaves in the greenhouse.
The fresh-picked strawberries were then gently weighed, neatly placed on foam trays, and packed in cardboard boxes in the strawberry packing factory of the Donggang Nongdao Agriculture And Forestry Technology Co., Ltd., waiting to be shipped overseas via vehicles and planes.
"Over 300 boxes of strawberries were sent overseas today. On the next day, they would be placed on the shelves of supermarkets in Singapore, Thailand, and other countries," said Ma Tingdong, head of the company. "This winter, overseas orders for fresh strawberries surged."
At the 20th China International Agricultural Trade Fair held in November 2023, the company reached cooperative intentions with many foreign clients from Singapore, Indonesia, and other countries. The company's fresh strawberry exports reached 2 million yuan (about 281,000 U.S. dollars) in December 2023, while the value is expected to exceed 3 million yuan in January, according to Ma.
Starting to cultivate strawberries a century ago, the icy northeast city of Donggang is now China's largest strawberry production and export base. According to the Donggang Agricultural and Rural Bureau, the strawberry production area in Donggang has reached 200,000 mu (about 13,333 hectares), with an annual production of 300,000 tonnes. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the sales of fresh strawberries in Donggang reached more than 2 billion yuan.
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