CCTV News: my country is the world’s largest producer and consumer of chili peppers. Now is the maturity period of peppers, and 180,000 acres of pigmented peppers in Heshuo County, Xinjiang, located in the Yanqi Basin, are about to be harvested. The freshly harvested bright red peppers are immediately transported to the open Gobi Desert to be spread in the sun. Let us follow the reporter's lens and experience the "hot" harvest together.
The reporter came to a chili drying field in Heshuo County, Xinjiang, and the whole air was filled with the smell of chili. Through the aerial photography, we can see that this is an open Gobi Desert. The red peppers stretch out on the Gobi Desert, forming a continuous "red carpet" and forming a unique harvest scene in the Gobi Desert.
Pigmented peppers usher in a bumper harvest and the vast Gobi desert becomes a natural "baking" ground
The varieties of peppers dried here are called pigmented peppers. They are not only edible, but their main feature is that they can extract pigments and be used to make lipsticks, lipsticks and other cosmetic products. It is also used in the food and pharmaceutical industries and has a wide range of uses.
Heshuo County has ample sunlight, a large temperature difference between day and night, and the sandy ground of the Gobi Desert is dry and ventilated, making it a natural place for drying peppers. Every year during the pepper harvest season, local farmers transport the peppers to the Gobi Desert for drying. At the scene, you can see the workers dividing the work and cooperating, carrying out the work of spreading, turning and screening the peppers in an orderly manner, taking advantage of the fine weather to advance the progress of pepper drying. By drying, on the one hand, it is beneficial to the storage and transportation of peppers, and on the other hand, it also facilitates the subsequent processing of peppers.
Drying for 7 to 10 days will give you the best results.
To what extent can peppers be packaged and sold? These peppers have already been dried. Select a pepper at random and break it gently with your hands. The pepper can be broken apart. This level indicates that the peppers are almost dried. Generally speaking, freshly harvested peppers need to be dried for about 7-10 days.
Mechanized harvesting of 60 acres a day improves efficiency
Another important task before drying peppers is mechanized harvesting. Now is the season for intensive harvesting of local peppers. In the pepper planting base, several large pepper harvesting machines are shuttling back and forth in the fields. The machines are rumbling. Wherever they pass, strings of mature peppers will be rolled into the equipment. The harvested peppers will fall directly into the accompanying transport carriages. The entire operation process is efficient and smooth. A chili harvesting machine can harvest 60 acres of land in one day, and one person can harvest up to one acre of chili peppers in one day. The efficiency of mechanized harvesting is far higher than that of traditional manual harvesting.
Chili pepper industry continues to grow, driving employment and income increase for farmers
In recent years, Heshuo County has continued to develop and expand the pepper industry relying on local resources, and the entire industrial chain from large-scale planting, standardized drying to processing has continued to improve. Chili peppers can be processed locally in Heshuo County. Through the development of the local chili processing industry, local farmers can find employment at their doorsteps, increasing their income and taking care of their families. Several products were placed in front of the reporter, which are processed and transformed from chili peppers. There are chili oil, chili powder, crushed chili peppers and chili seeds. After being packaged, these products are sold to many markets at home and abroad.
The reporter also learned that the output value of peppers per acre can now reach 1,000 yuan, and the economic benefits are very considerable. This year, the area planted with pigmented peppers in Heshuo County is 180,000 acres, and the total output is expected to exceed 100,000 tons. Pepper planting has become a pillar industry that increases the income of local villagers and empowers rural revitalization.
How a small town’s chili market became “hot and popular”
The Gobi Desert is busy drying food, and the chili market is also busy with business. As the largest chili distribution center in the country, the China Chili City in Xiazi Town, Zunyi, Guizhou, ushered in a peak trading period during the National Day. How did this small southwest town become the "top player" in the country's chili pepper trade? What new “out-of-the-circle” products are there on the market? Follow the reporter to see it.
At four o'clock in the morning, the China Chili Pepper City in Xiazi Town, Zunyi, is already filled with traffic. More than 200 varieties of peppers from home and abroad are gathered here. Bags of red dried chili peppers are stacked neatly, many of them stacked more than three meters high. As this year's newly harvested peppers are put on the market, pepper farmers rush to the market before dawn, looking forward to a "good start."
It is now the peak trading period, and the daily trading volume of chili peppers is about 180 tons. Not only are the gypsophila and bright peppers used in the processing of hot pot bases and other products hot-selling, but there are also two more "new faces" of peppers on the market this year, and they were ordered by merchants as soon as they came on the market.
As one of the regions with the largest pepper planting area in my country, Zunyi pepper planting area is stable at more than 2 million acres all year round, and there are more than 120 pepper processing companies gathered. The booming supply and demand have made the market in this town become a "top-tier" transaction. However, there were almost no businessmen from other provinces on the scene. A local chili pepper broker told reporters that many merchants from other provinces entrust them with purchasing.
In order to win the trust of customers across the country, the market is also silently cultivating "internal strength". The 300,000 cubic meter cold chain warehouse solves the storage problem of peppers being put on the market in a centralized manner. The convenient transportation channel close to the highway exit allows peppers to be quickly shipped across the country. The online digital platform allows merchants across the country to check the pepper price index in real time and complete transactions with one click.
Up to now, the annual trading volume of China Pepper City has reached hundreds of thousands of tons, and the trading network covers more than 80 countries and regions around the world.
Science and technology courtyard is busy with breeding, capsanthin is widely used
Today, chili peppers have become an important part of Chinese food culture. This spiciness sweeping across the country is inseparable from the breeding of new varieties. So, how are the new pepper varieties that are constantly being introduced on the market selected and bred? Come and see the reporter’s visit.
When the reporter came to the Pepper Science and Technology Institute in Jize County, Hebei, scientific researchers were screening pepper seeds and cultivating new varieties based on excellent traits such as disease resistance, high spiciness, and thick flesh. As one of the vegetables with the largest planting area in my country, peppers are very popular in many places across the country. Millet is spicy and strong, peppercorns are slender and fragrant... The spiciness of different pepper varieties varies greatly.
The "power" of chili goes far beyond the dining table. Through modern biological extraction technology, capsanthin isolated from peppers is a natural red pigment. It can not only be used for food coloring, but also widely used in cosmetics, lipsticks and other products.
The vitamin C content of fresh peppers has been further increased, and the capsanthin content of special varieties for processing is higher... In addition to these customized "skill points", scientific researchers are also cultivating new varieties of peppers with high disease resistance and stress resistance, and promoting them through cooperatives to drive more farmers to increase their income.
