Cctv news I don’t like potatoes.
As soon as I ate it, I felt hungry when I was a child, accompanied by a sour stomach, which made me feel uncomfortable.
But I like potatoes very much.
The two are not contradictory.
You call it potato, experts say it is potato, and we locals prefer to call it potato, so there is a popular local proverb that Dingxi has three treasures: potato, potato and potato.
I have dealt with it for decades, and I will continue to do so in the future. Many changes in my life are related to potatoes. I witnessed the "metamorphosis" of Dingxi potatoes, and potatoes also witnessed the great changes in our family’s life.
[1] Life-saving potato
Zhang Shou and his father Zhang Fuqing and nephew Zhang Wenbin.
My name is Zhang Shou and I was born in 1967. As long as I can remember, every afternoon, grandma always cooks a big pot of potatoes, which are eaten by big people, small pigs and seven or eight people in the whole family. The breakfast and lunch the next day are all potatoes.
Every day at school, the dry food in my bag is two boiled potatoes.
Although eating will be uncomfortable, but not eating, hunger is even more unbearable.
Looking back now, when I was a child, there were probably two things about food: eating a lot of potatoes and not having enough to eat.
There is a saying circulating in Dingxi, my hometown: "The mountain is a monk’s head, there is no water flowing in the ditch, and nine years out of ten people are worried", which sings the harsh ecological environment in my hometown.
We are in an arid area here, with little rain and water shortage in spring and summer. At that time, we had to plant nearly 40 mu of fields at home, such as wheat, millet, buckwheat, peas, lentils, beets and potatoes, all of which were dry land. It was not good to eat by the weather, but the yield of potatoes with long growth cycle was ok.
Therefore, when planning to plant every year, my father Zhang Fuqing will say that potatoes must be planted.
Potatoes are really life-saving food at home. Cooking, frying and frying are the most memorable ways to eat on holidays: cooking potatoes, peeling them and mashing them, then frying them, crushing them and stirring them together, making them red and white, which is called a fragrance.
Few people eat like this now. Although I don’t like potatoes, I still miss this way of eating.
In 1988, my second brother and I moved to Gaotai County, Zhangye City, Gansu Province (Editor’s Note: in the 1980s, the state launched the "Three Wests" [Dingxi, Hexi and Xihaigu in Gansu Province and Ningxia] to help the poor). Compared with my hometown, the terrain here is open and there is water, and I can gradually eat my stomach.
[2] Sweet potato with enough food and clothing
In Zhang Shou’s memory, when he was a child, he depended on the weather to eat, and the crops in the field were all average. Only potatoes could make the family feel the joy of harvest.
After getting married in 1992, my wife and I helped in my father-in-law’s restaurant, and later opened our own restaurant. We lived a busy life and could eat enough, but we didn’t make much money.
During this period, Dingxi potatoes became famous, and the planting scale expanded year by year (editor’s note: Dingxi implemented the "potato project" in the 1990s, aiming at solving the problem of food and clothing). Every autumn, foreign merchants gathered, and the streets were full of potato vendors, which was very lively.
My wife and I opened a restaurant on the roadside of the ancient town of Chankou, anding district, Dingxi City. The tourists are mainly van drivers. I chatted with these drivers who sell and transport potatoes and found that potatoes can really make money.
In 2003, I sold my house in Gaotai, closed my restaurant, and returned to Shijiacha Village, my hometown in Dingxi, where I planted nearly 20 acres of potatoes. This year, I earned more than 6,000 yuan just by potatoes.
In the next few years, although the income was guaranteed, farming was too hard and the potato market was good and bad. I think it needs to be changed.
[3] Rich potato
Nowadays, planting potatoes has long been mechanized.
In 2008, I rented a warehouse, planted potatoes, and started a potato agency business, bought potatoes and sold them to vendors.
I also met many people in the upper reaches of the potato industry. Starch can only be regarded as primary processing, and potato chips and chips are more profitable. Only then do we know that relying on small-scale planting alone will lead to insufficient labor force on the one hand, and great market fluctuation on the other, making it difficult to grow up. We should either give up planting and sell potatoes exclusively, or expand the planting scale.
My father has a deep affection for the land, and he always sighs every time he sees the land abandoned. For this reason, in 2013, I found four childhood partners, registered a cooperative, and expanded the planting scale.
I’m a bit short-tempered, and I’m always in a hurry. People around me call me "Zhang Sanfeng", so I simply named the cooperative "Sanfeng".
This year, I borrowed more than one million yuan to build 16 warehouses, which was really the most difficult year. More than 1,400 tons of potatoes were purchased, only more than 200 tons were sent out, and the remaining 1,200 tons were all in the warehouse, and the funds suddenly became particularly tight.
After entering the twelfth lunar month, the contractor led the workers to find my unpaid wages every day. But the payment is not in place, and I am also in a hurry.
I couldn’t sleep all night, and that winter was particularly difficult. Fortunately, on the thirteenth day of the first month, part of the payment was in place.
In 2014, I transferred 450 mu of cultivated land to grow potatoes. Since this year, cooperatives have gradually stepped onto the right track.
Since 2015, considering that the price of commercial potato fluctuates greatly, I began to mainly plant the original seed and the original seed (Editor’s note: the original seed is the seed potato originally produced by transplanting or cuttage with virus-free test-tube seedlings, which produces the original seed after planting, the first-class seed after planting, and the commercial potato after planting the first-class seed is potatoes). Good varieties of potatoes cultivated from various laboratories in Dingxi are sent to Inner Mongolia, Chongqing, Guizhou and other places.
[4] Xiaokang potato
On the yellow land, potato is a green plant with small white flowers, which Zhang Shou thinks symbolizes hope.
Since 2015, the country has started the potato staple food strategy, and I think this is an opportunity.
In 2016, I transferred another 200 mu of land, and at the same time, I was equipped with relevant machinery and equipment. The cooperative planting basically relied on mechanization.
This year, my nephew Zhang Wenbin joined in.
Although Dingxi potato industry is very popular, there are very few young people in the planting process. Most of the members of the cooperative are close to my age, and most of the farmers in rural areas are elderly people over 60 years old.
In 2016, my nephew Zhang Wenbin took the initiative to find me, which surprised me. Born in 1990, he had been living in Zhangye before, and he was not particularly attached to potatoes. After graduating from technical secondary school in 2008, he worked in a factory, worked as a welder and drove a van. Unexpectedly, he suddenly found me one day and said that he would cooperate with me.
Of course I’m happy, but many young people are not interested in farming.
He wholesaled 80 tons of commercial potatoes from me and sold them in Dingxi potato trading market every day. He sold them out in less than two months, and he also made a lot of money with regular customers, so I was relieved.
I don’t know much about industrial upgrading, but it is inevitable that Dingxi potato will be transformed and upgraded. In recent years, the potato market has become more and more competitive, and green organic food is more popular.
In 2017, the pilot arable land in anding district was fallow. I contracted 1,700 mu of arable land in Bailu Township, anding district. In the first three years, I mainly planted arrowtongue peas, buttercups and so on. My nephew Zhang Wenbin and my son Zhang Wenwei basically worried about these things. After three years of planting, we plan to plant organic potatoes, without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and use special farmyard manure.
In the past two years, I have gradually put sales and other work in their charge. Young people are more active than me and are willing to contact new things.
Do you know why Dingxi potatoes are popular? Because it has a long growth cycle and grows step by step, I hope my nephew and son can do things in a down-to-earth manner, step by step, whether they will continue to deal with potatoes in the future or not.
Standing in front of the old house, my father was very happy to see that there was still a lot of cultivated land on the roadside. His affection for the land far exceeded ours.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen potato blossom, large and large. I think it’s really beautiful. Sometimes I’m very happy to see a large piece of land with a whole potato blossom. (Zhang Shou dictated CCTV reporter Wang Xiaoying finishing)
