Across China: Battle to save navel oranges in east China

As China embraces a festive spirit ahead of the Lunar New Year, Chen Hong is in no mood to celebrate.

Six years ago, he began growing navel oranges in Nanqiao Township of Ganzhou City, east China's Jiangxi Province, planting 1,000 orange trees during peak seasons. But a disease outbreak four years ago, destroyed most of his crops.

"I expected to decorate my house with the fortunes made from the oranges," the 59-year-old said, resignation thick in his voice. "I invested most of my money and now I don't know how to get my money back."

The navel orange industry in Ganzhou is experiencing a severe winter after the citrus greening disease broke out in swathes of the city in 2012, downing trees and causing economic losses.

The disease is transmissible among citrus trees. Affected trees produce small, irregularly-shaped fruit with a thick, pale peel that remains green at the bottom. The fruits taste very bitter.

Last year, only around 1.48 million mu (98,667 hectares) of navel oranges were grown in Ganzhou, down from 1.68 million in 2014, according to a government report this week. Before the outbreak, the planting area stood at 1.74 million mu.

Ganzhou has the biggest planting area of navel oranges in China and ranks the third globally in terms of annual orange production. With favorable geological conditions and state encouragement, the industry boom has helped more than 300,000 local farmers get out of poverty.

But it also led to "a huge number" of farmers jumping on the orange bandwagon, according to Mei Dingrong, deputy township head of Nanqiao. The industry currently employs about 1 million farmers.

"One mu of rice can guarantee 1,000 yuan (152 U.S. dollars) at most, while 60 orange trees in the same area can produce more than 8,000 yuan of fruit, and that's why local farmers in the poverty-stricken Ganzhou have been on a planting spree," Mei said.

Farmers like Chen Hong grow orange trees on mountains, in the fields, and even in isolated belts between fruit gardens, which allowed the disease to spread easily. In 2012, the greening disease began to infect trees on a large scale.

According to the latest government statistics, more than one third of orange trees in the counties of Xunwu, Anyuan and Xinfeng, the three biggest orange production bases in Ganzhou, have been cut down in the past three years due to infection, dealing a big blow to local farmers. Each year, about 1 billion yuan is lost in China's orange industry due to the disease, according to the China Economic Net.

With the industry sick from blind development, officials are rushing to the rescue.

Mei Dingrong is among a group of officials assigned by the Ganzhou government to treat and prevent the spread of the greening disease. He is now on a daily mission to persuade local villagers to cut the affected trees. But it has proved to be no easy task. Many local residents are reluctant to cut down their trees they had invested much money in.

"I am a farmer, so I feel their pain, I know how difficult to give up the trees that you have grown for several years," Mei said. "But if you don't cut the sick trees, more will be affected and there will be more losses."

Meanwhile, Mei frequently hosts meetings, imparting techniques about orange planting to the farmers. "It will take some time to contain the disease spread," Mei said.

The ill orange industry in Ganzhou shows the urgent need to modernize agriculture, said Lu Zhanjun, deputy director of National Navel Orange Engineering Research Center. "The way farmers grow trees is too primitive and has outgrown the capacity of the mountains and fields."

He urged local farmers not to pursue pure quantity. He said that some other plants should be grown in orange gardens and isolation belts to prevent soil and water losses, and to stop disease transmission.

"They should learn to respect the ecological systems if they want to reap more profit."

The Ganzhou government is taking action to help farmers out of their quandary. It has offered virus-free seedlings to farmers free of charge, while also giving out subsidies to those who have cut their sick trees. Governments at the local level are providing agricultural technicians to various localities and guide farmers with planting the orange trees.

"Only when people respect the law of nature can they truly make profits in the industry," Lu Zhanjun said. Endi