During the autumn harvest season, at the small sweet potato planting base in Sanchuan Village, Fangyan Town, village officials and residents worked together to seize the farming window and harvest the small sweet potatoes, with the fields bustling with activity.
It is understood that this sweet potato variety was a new one introduced and trial-planted by the village in May this year. Affected by the climate, the harvest time was slightly delayed, but the appearance and taste quality of the fruit were not affected at all. Currently, the village is first conducting trial digging in batches to measure yield, laying the groundwork for subsequent digging experiences and market promotion.
"The new small sweet potato variety can yield about 2,000 kilograms per mu," introduced Hu Hongjiang, a village official of Sanchuan Village, Fangyan Town. The village plans to build a diversified business model of "picking experiences + fresh fruit direct sales + deep processing." It will not only open field digging to tourists, allowing citizens to immersively experience the fun of farming, but also rely on the village's Sanchuan Common Prosperity Workshop to deeply process large sweet potatoes, while medium and small ones are sold directly, achieving increased income from all sizes of potatoes.
Sanchuan Village was once a typical old revolutionary base mountain village, with a large number of abandoned mining pits and long-idle wasteland. To revitalize inefficient land resources and strengthen the village collective economy, the village renovated and transformed the idle barren hills, creating terraced farmland and building the Sanchuan Village Common Prosperity Workshop small sweet potato planting base, turning idle land into "income-generating fertile fields."
The development of the small sweet potato industry in Sanchuan Village did not start from scratch; it is supported by a mature joint-village platform. As early as 2023, Sanchuan Village joined forces with Shangliye Village and Changkeng Village to develop together, establishing Yongkang Heling Rural Collective Economic Development Co., Ltd., and creating the town-level common prosperity brand "Fangyan Agricultural Selection." Over the past two years, the company has leased land outside to grow sweet potatoes, developing a mature set of standardized planting and brand operation experience, which now directly empowers Sanchuan Village's newly launched small sweet potato planting project this year.
Behind the growth of the "Fangyan Agricultural Selection" brand is the continuous extension of the industrial chain. Cheng Lili, head of Yongkang Heling Rural Collective Economic Development Co., Ltd., introduced that in the early stage of industrial development, the team focused on direct sales of fresh potatoes. Because the market period overlapped with concentrated sales by smallholders, market competition was fierce and sales pressure was high. After two to three years of iterative upgrading, the enterprise broke out of the "seasonal fresh fruit sales" limitation, deeply cultivated agricultural product deep processing, and successfully developed 9 specialty products including sweet potato chips, dried sweet potatoes, and sweet potato vermicelli, achieving year-round regular sales of sweet potato products and completely breaking the seasonal production and sales barrier.
Relying on brand advantages, the company also continues to integrate specialty agricultural and sideline products from other surrounding villages, using unified brand operation and shared channel sales to help village products collectively enter the market. Last year, the "Fangyan Agricultural Selection" brand achieved sales of over 600,000 yuan, truly realizing joint village development and collective income growth.
"Everything we do must have a brand. With a brand, recognition is higher," Cheng Lili said. She will continue to strengthen the "Fangyan Agricultural Selection" regional common prosperity brand, integrate and gather high-quality local agricultural product resources from Fangyan, continuously improve product recognition and market competitiveness, and help town and village specialty agricultural products go beyond the countryside and broaden the market.